Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

A Look article raised the question, “Can we still be shocked?” The author, William K. Zinsser, pointed out that gusts of outrage swept this country when the movie Gone with the Wind came out in 1939 and Clark Gable spoke his final line: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” To use such language in a movie in those days was considered m...

The excuses that people give for not attending church are abundant. They are also pretty shallow when carefully examined. I am sure you would agree that the same excuses people use for not attending church would be absurd if the preacher tried to use them as reasons for not attending a sports event.  Consider these common excuses for not attending church as reas...

A young fellow applied for a job furnishing references from his minister and Sunday school teacher. “These are good,” said the interviewer, “but we’d like a letter from someone who knows you on weekdays too!” What the world wants to know about our Christianity is whether it works on weekdays as well as weekends. Does it affect the way we...

Dale Carnegie once said, “We have only four contacts with the world, you and I. We are evaluated and classified by four things: 1) by what we do; 2) by how we look; 3) by what we say; and 4) by how we say it.” If that be true, and I think it is, then we must all give careful attention to these areas of our life, for through them we either become stepping...

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...

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? ...

We must learn to respect those whose views differ with ours and those who want to openly demonstrate against what they feel is evil and injustice. Such dissent has great value in democracy and we need understanding of the other man’s view. Our greatest danger is extremes in either direction. Our problem is illustrated in the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhau...

One of the most pressing issues of our day is that of moral standards. What absolutes impose the limits of freedom? What givens determine what is right and what is wrong? There are some people who say that there are no absolutes in life. They reject all moral standards completely. They claim freedom on all matters of morals and live only for pleasure. Their motto see...

Anthropologist Margaret Mead once said, “We are living in the period of greatest change ever known in the history of the world.” Amid all the changes and decay of life, it is encouraging to know that God is unchanging (Malachi 3:6). How so? First, God is unchanging in his demand for meaningful worship. Cheap sacrifices and empty formalism never have and...