Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

Jeff Ray, former professor at Southwestern Seminary, used to say to his students, “Be kind to everyone because everyone is having a hard time.” He was right. Some burdens are seen. But some of the deepest and most powerful ones aren’t. If we but knew the battles people were fighting, we would be more understanding of them. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow...

Sometime ago a survey was conducted asking people which was the greatest problem—ignorance or apathy? Sixty-five percent of the people said, “I don’t know and I don’t care.” Apathy means “no feeling.” It is the opposite of sympathy, which means to “feel with.” One of the greatest problems we have in our world toda...

We Christians have special responsibilities to one another. The apostle Peter sets out three of these for us in 1 Peter 4:8-11.       1. We are to love one another. Love is the distinguishing mark of a Christian. So we are told to have a fervent or an intense love for one another. This kind of love “covers a multitude of sins.” It causes us...

One of the most disturbing things in our day is the apparent breakdown of law and authority. There is an awful lot of foolish talk by otherwise intelligent people who condone it. Some of them try to condone it under the guise of American tradition by saying, “Our nation was born out of violence and will progress by violence.” How foolish can you get? ...

How do we serve God? Once when Jesus was talking about feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, visiting the sick, and helping those in trouble he said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40). We serve God by helping other people. Feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, and visiting th...

32 And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do; the heads of them were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their commandment. Introduction       You and I happen to share this planet and have been called on to minister for Christ in the most explosive time in the history...

The biggest personal problem of our day is loneliness. Paul Tournier, a Swiss psychiatrist, called it the most devastating malady of our age. It is, according to some experts, reaching epidemic proportions. Loneliness and aloneness are not the same. Loneliness is not the absence of people. It is the absence of deep and meaningful relationships. It is the feeling of b...

“The American nation will soon be in a state of nervous collapse..." So said the 1969 British writer Tom Stacey in the London Daily Telegraph. If we are on the verge of a nervous collapse, it is because we have added to our lives a multiplicity of activities without keeping pace morally and spiritually. We cannot be ever achieving new powers, enlargin...

There is one thing that you can rely on—rumors aren’t reliable. People mix stories, tell half-truths, and misunderstand what they hear. The results? A story distorted beyond recognition. Let me illustrate. A number of people in our church once attended a state softball tournament in Wichita Falls. One morning two tables of sponsors were having breakfast i...