Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

I have been reading a book entitled Marketing the Church. The author of that book asks a question that I think is worth asking to every one of us. He said, “How many of you have ever met an unsaved person who is craving for a sermon? Or how many of you have ever met an unsaved person who has sought diligently a place where they can sing ‘The Old Rugged Cro...

I read with great interest some time ago an article in Texas Monthly about Georgi Vins, that Russian Baptist pastor who spent eight years in a Siberian prison camp because according to the Russians, he had injured the health of Russian people by preaching religious doctrine. His book, Testament from Prison, is characterized by simple joy. There is no word of complaint...

Great men are born out of hardship. If you read enough biographies you will get to thinking that there can’t be a great man except he who suffers. God knows that you can’t develop strong men in easy places. The man who has never had his faith tested doesn’t know whether he has faith. God wants to make you and me into men like Christ and he allows us...

When trouble of any sort comes to us, our first response is to ask, “Why?” Death, disease, deformity, and accidents perplex all of us. There is no one easy answer as to why people suffer, but several possible explanations are given in the Bible. 1. Judgment for sin. Some suffering comes as punishment for sin. This is the oldest and most common explanatio...

Once we buried a young lady who was only 21 years old. She was killed in a head-on collision while on her way to church. The night before the funeral, my daughter asked why God allows things like this to happen. I wish I knew. Things like this have puzzled saints, wise men, and philosophers since the world began. There is simply no one easy answer as to why tra...

Pascal said that it is the pathetic fate of God to be everlastingly misunderstood. There is no area where this is more apparent than disaster and disease. Oftentimes the most horrible disasters are called “acts of God” and the most dreaded diseases are referred to as “God’s will.” Such talk should be forever banished from our lips! Calami...

The most important thing about suffering is not why it happens, but how we respond to it. Attitudes, not answers, are the keys to triumphant living. To know why suffering comes does not ease the pain or heal the hurt. But if we respond to it correctly, it can make us better regardless of its cause. How we respond to suffering is entirely up to us. We do not get to ch...

Why do people suffer, especially good people? Why do evil people prosper? These questions are as old as humankind but as current as today. Is there any answer to them? The explanation of the prosperity of the wicked is easy. It is due to the indiscriminate love of God. He loves all people, even those who hate him and he bestows his blessings on all people alike. (Mat...

Since World War II, the number of American psychiatrists has multiplied astronomically, so as to indicate the disorder of many American lives today. Multiplying the number of psychiatrists is not the answer to our problems. Dr. J. A. Hadfield, one of England’s foremost psychiatrists, once said: “Speaking as a student of psychotherapy who, as such...