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Articles Archives 
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Men of the Old Testament: Isaiah – Isaiah 6 In 490 B.C. the Greek and Persian armies met to do battle. As the story goes after the Greeks routed the Persians and sent them back into their ships a runner named Pheidippides was sent from the field of battle back to the city of Athens to announce "Nenikēkamen!" (which means “we were victorious”). The distance from the city near the battle, Marathon, to Athens was 25-26 mile. Most historians believe that Pheidippides run, unlike the battle of Marathon, was probably more fiction than fact, but the story has persisted and gave birth to the modern race of the marathon. Read More |
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Men of the Old Testament: Elisha – 1 Kings 6:18-23 The history of the United States military is full of intelligence successes and more than a few failures. Those in the intelligence community contend that it is difficult for those who are not in the know to properly judge because they never know of many of the intelligence community’s successes. Still, there is much to be learned for the failures. Read More |
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Men of the Old Testament: Elijah If we are not careful our perception of Biblical characters can become oversized. Men and women who were fallible champions of the faith, can become almost perfect heroes who wore red capes, sang hymns, and quoted proverbs in their sleep. These misperceptions of the people that grace the Bible’s pages can lead us to neglect to learn the lessons we should from them. Read More |
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Men of the Old Testament: Solomon – I Kings 3 & I Kings 11 The Cambridge Five were some of the most infamous double agents in history. These give men, all alumni of Cambridge University became spies for Soviet Russia while working as British espionage agents on various operations during World War II. The most well-known of the Cambridge Five, was Kim Philby. Philby began to spy for the British while employed as a foreign correspondent for the London Times. It was some time later, while working for the British spy agency MI6 that he became a double agent for the Russians. Amazingly when he was recruited by the Russians Philby was in charge of the Soviet desk for the British; the man overseeing all spying on Russia was a Russian spy himself. Eventually Philby’s treachery was found out, but by that time he had defected to Russia and been responsible for untold losses by Britain and her allies. Read More |
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Men of the Old Testament: David – 2 Samuel 11 During the run-up to NATO's engagement in Kosovo in 1998, General Wesley Clark proposed a relatively painless way to break the will of Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic: threaten him with the use of force, Clark suggested, tell him that NATO will bomb him if he refuses to cooperate, and he will come to the negotiating table and agree to peace in Kosovo…"I knew Milosevic," Clark later remarked. "I'm the only commander in the twentieth century, I think, that really knew his adversary." Read More |
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Men of the Old Testament: Jonathan – 1 Samuel 14 Late one night in 1917 a soldier sat in his tent scanning the pages of a book by candlelight. The man, Major Vivian Gilbert of the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force, was up late in his desert tent looking for the name Michmash in his Bible. Gilbert’s brigade had just received orders to take a village controlled by the Ottoman Empire. The village was located on a rocky hill on the side of a valley opposite Gilbert’s brigade. The village was named Michmash, and Major Gilbert was sure that that name was familiar to him from the Biblical text. Read More |
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Men of the Old Testament: Saul – 1 Samuel 13 On October 31, 1938, panic set in across the United States. The reason for the panic had nothing to do with Adolph Hitler’s Nazi regime and the storm clouds gathering over Europe. It was also in no way related to the Great Depression, then a decade old. Later newspapers would report that that the panic involved people fleeing the area, and others thinking they could smell poison gas or could see flashes of lightning in the distance. So what caused this tremendous panic, nothing less than the radio adaptation of H.G. Wells War of the Worlds. Read More |
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Men of the Old Testament: Samuel – 1 Samuel 8 Poor fathering hangs over the Old Testament like a funnel cloud in the area of West Texas known as tornado alley. Many if not most of the fathers of the Old Testament have an incredibly difficult time discipling and passing on a legacy to their sons in particular. There were exceptions to be sure but more often than not fathers in the Old Testament seem to fail much more than they succeeded. The amazing thing about so many of their failures is that they seem to pass along the same sins and weaknesses that they saw God judge in previous generations. Rather than resolving to at least make sure that they do not make the same mistakes they just seem to repeat them almost exactly. Read More |
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Men of the Old Testament: Samson – Judges 16 In the marshmallow test young children are invited to sit in a small room containing a desk and a chair. The child is asked to sit down in the chair. On the table is a plate with a single marshmallow on it. A researcher then makes the child an offer. He or she can either eat the one marshmallow right now, or if the child is willing to wait while the researcher steps out for a few minutes, that child could have two marshmallows when the researcher returns. The researcher then leaves the room for an undefined period of time, and the child begins an agonizing wait. Read More |
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Men of the Old Testament: Gideon – Judges 7 1969 the New York Jets and the Baltimore Colts met to play in Super Bowl III. The Colts entered the game having been proclaimed by media of the time as the “Greatest team in pro football history.” They had lost only one game that season and were considered such a lock to win the game that they were favored by a massive 19 points. Read More |
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Men of the Old Testament: Joshua – Joshua 1 Being Vice President of the United States has not always been viewed favorably. Recently, many Vice Presidents have used the position as a stepping stone to the presidency, but for most of American history this was not the case. Often the second most powerful man in the country was really in a dead-end job. More than a few men did little to disguise their disgust with the job. Read More |
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Men of the Old Testament: Moses – Numbers 20 The whole point of being an ambassador is to represent your country and your country’s ruler to a foreign nation. Generally the ambassador is the highest ranking government representative stationed in a foreign nation’s capital. Usually, the host country will allow the ambassador to control an embassy, whose territory and staff are typically given diplomatic immunity in that country. Ambassadors can be recalled to their native country due to diplomatic impasses, wars, political statements, or even due to their actions embarrassing their native country. Read More |
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Men of the Old Testament: Joseph – Genesis 45 During the 1920s Irving Fisher was a well-known economist and professor of economics at Yale. When Fisher spoke about money people listened, and even today, sixty years after his death, his work on debt deflation and the quantity theory of money are still used and debated. In late October, 1929, with a booming and robust economy Irving Fisher proudly proclaimed, “Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” The brilliant economist placed much of his personal wealth and all of his reputation on his belief that the stock market would never retreat from its lofty position in late October of 1929. Read More |
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Men of the Old Testament: Jacob – Genesis 27 In March of 2010 the Security and Exchanges Commission moved to freeze the assets and trading accounts of a Russian accused of hacking into personal online portfolios and manipulating the price of dozens of stocks listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market and New York Stock Exchange. They froze the assets of Broco Investments, a stock trading operation based in St. Petersburg, Russia. According to the SEC Broco Investments illegally capitalized on the stock market by moving prices of some 38 thinly securities – enabling the investment firm to profit from up and down price swings. According to the SEC Broco purchased stocks in its own portfolio and placed unauthorized buy orders at inflated prices of the same securities. Read More |
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Men of the Old Testament: Isaac – Genesis 26 Only two pairs of fathers and sons have both received the United States military’s Medal of Honor. One set is Arthur and Douglas MacArthur, the other set is Theodore Roosevelt and his son, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Theodore Sr. received his medal of honor for his actions in 1898 leading an incredibly brave charge up San Juan Hill in Cuba. According to his citation he, “led a desperate and gallant charge up San Juan Hill, encouraging his troops to continue the assault through withering enemy fire over open countryside. Facing the enemy's heavy fire, he displayed extraordinary bravery throughout the charge, and was the first to reach the enemy trenches, where he quickly killed one of the enemy with his pistol, allowing his men to continue the assault. His leadership and valor turned the tide in the Battle for San Juan Hill.” Read More |
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Men of the Old Testament: Abraham – Genesis 22 Men of the Old Testament: Abraham – Genesis 22 In Winston Churchill’s book, My Early Life, he tells an interesting story about his relationship with his father, himself a British statesman during Churchill’s childhood. “One day Winston Churchill's father paid a ‘formal visit’ to inspect his son's collection of toy soldiers: ‘All the troops were arranged in the correct formation of attack,’ Churchill recalled. ‘He spent twenty minutes studying the scene - which was really impressive - with a keen eye and captivating smile. At the end he asked me if I would like to go into the Army, so I said 'yes' at once: and immediately I was taken at my word. For years I thought my father with his experience and flair had discerned in me the qualities of military genius. But I was told later that he had only come to the conclusion that I was not clever enough to go to the Bar.’” Read More |
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Men of the Old Testament: Noah – Genesis 6 For thousands of years, pretty much since God said, “Let there be light,” seeing clearly was something that was done only during the day. After all, even with a torch, there was only so much that a person could see. Eventually, with the advent of electricity and light bulbs daytime could be anytime 24 hours a day. Only recently since World War Two, however, with the innovation of night vision technology has one been able to see at night without the aid of light-generating device. Read More |
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A Guy’s Guide to Hebrews: A Dangerous Journey (13:1-25) The Pilgrim’s journey from England to America was a dangerous and frightful one. Even when they had the new world in their sights, they were unable to simply dock the boat and begin building a colony. The Pilgrims had a patent from the London Virginia Company to settle at the mouth of the Hudson River, but with winter fast approaching and their food supplies shrinking rapidly they were forced to consider the Cape Cod Bay area instead. Read More |
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A Guy’s Guide to Hebrews: Divine Discipline (12:1-29) Nineteenth-century American statesman Daniel Webster often told the story of the day that he averted discipline in grammar school. As the story goes one day the young Mr. Webster was involved with some typical mischief that children of that age often discover. The teacher, a stern man, demanded that Webster come to the front of the class to have his right palm caned. Obviously classroom discipline was a little different when he was a child in the late 1700s. Read More |
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A Guy’s Guide to Hebrews: Spiritual Night Vision (11:1-40) For thousands of years, pretty much since God said, “Let there be light,” seeing clearly was something that was done only during the day. After all, even with a torch, there was only so much that a person could see. Eventually, with the advent of electricity and light bulbs daytime could be anytime 24 hours a day. Only recently since World War Two, however, with the innovation of night vision technology has one been able to see at night without the aid of light-generating device. Read More |
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A Guy’s Guide to Hebrews: Once and For All (10:1-39) The problem with technology is that in this day and age it is outdated so quickly. Every year new editions of Microsoft Windows, of Apple’s Iphones, and of Adobe’s Photoshop come out with new and better bells and whistles. The best you can hope for is to be one top of the game for a few months. The fact that this post was typed on a dinosaur computer that is nearly 3 years old is nearly a miracle in the technological community. Read More |
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A Guy’s Guide to Hebrews: A Rare Heir (9:1-28) Recently, Conchita, a pet Chihuahua, and two other dogs, formerly owned by the late Gail Posner came into some cash. Ms. Posner was a rather wealthy woman, and so she left her canine companions more than a bit of her inheritance. Conchita is now the proud owner of a $3 million trust fund as well as a Miami Beach mansion worth a few more millions. Despite Conchita’s obvious limitations on spending the money, or opening the door to her new mansion, she is quite well of because she has received an inheritance. In the case of Conchita and her canine friends, they actually received quite a bit more than Ms. Posner’s son who only received $1 million. Read More |
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A Guy’s Guide to Hebrews: Newer, Bigger, Better (8:1-13) Major League Baseball’s St. Louis Cardinals play their home games at Busch Stadium. The ironic thing about their home field is that Cardinals teams have played in Busch Stadium since 1953, but the park has only been open since 2006. This Busch stadium you see, is actually the third Busch Stadium in St. Louis. The original which was initially named Sportsman’s Park before being renamed Busch, closed in 1966. The second Busch, name Busch Memorial Stadium, closed in 2005. Despite the many fond memories that Cardinals’ fans had of the old Busch Memorial Stadium, pretty much everyone is agreed that the new park is better in almost every aspect. Read More |
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A Guy’s Guide to Hebrews: 100% Guaranteed (7:1-28) Before he passed away last year my grandfather was fond of telling me that people just don’t make things the way that they used to. And for the most part he was right about that. Our culture is largely disposable. Many times today it is cheaper and easier just to replace something than to repair it. There was, however, one exception to my grandfather’s “good old days” syndrome – Craftsman tools. Read More |
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A Guy’s Guide to Hebrews: Falling Away (6:1-20) One of the most amazing and controversial aspects of the Japanese surprise attack on American forces at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was that the United States was completely and totally unprepared. There were many warning signs that the Japanese were preparing to attack, but for a variety of reasons the warning signs that would become so obvious in retrospect were either not taken seriously, or were outright ignored. This failure to recognize and respond to these warning signs costs over two thousand Americans their lives. Read More |
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A Guy’s Guide to Hebrews: So who is this Melchizedek Guy Anyway? Against the backdrop of biblical literature there are many varied and colorful characters. For many of these characters we have a plethora of information while information on others remains clouded and even mysterious. Among the pages of Hebrews emerges one of the most enigmatic of these figures, the priest-king Melchizedek. Read More |
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A Guy’s Guide to Hebrews: It is time to Grow Up (5:1-14) Time Magazine’s list of the 50 worst inventions ever is a collection of colossal failures, missed opportunities, and failed potential. Some of the items on their list are debatable such as crocs, plastic grocery bags, and the Segway. Other inventions on the list have little in the way of anything remotely resembling success. Inventions such as New Coke, subprime mortgages, hair in a can, and the Ford Pinto not only failed to make the world a better place, some cost their inventors their jobs, and others even did damage to their entire industry. Read More |
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A Guy’s Guide to Hebrews: A Perfect Record (4:1-16) Recently pitcher Dallas Braden of the Oakland Athletics baseball team entered the history books. Despite entering the 2010 season with a career record of 14 wins and 21 losses Braden managed to accomplish a feat that only 18 other pitches have accomplished in the last 130 years. On May 9th, in a game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Braden pitched a perfect game. He allowed no hits, walked no batters, and hit no batters. Braden faced 27 batters, and 27 batters never reached base. Read More |
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A Guys Guide to Hebrews: Even the Legendary Can’t Compare (3:1-18) Every now and then someone so rarely and uniquely talented in their field comes along that even after they are dead and gone their presence always seems to be present. In American architecture the name Frank Lloyd Wright was such a person. Read More |
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A Guys Guide to Hebrews: Don’t Drift Away (2:1-18) It might surprise you to hear about the longest winning streak in the history of sports. It does not belong to the University of California Los Angeles men’s basketball teams under John Wooden. It does not belong to the New York Yankees, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Boston Celtics, the Dallas Cowboys. It was not accomplished by the University of Notre Dame, the University of Texas, or any other major university. Read More |
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A Guys Guide to Hebrews: Don’t Miss the Signs (1:5-14) Recently the National Football League completed its 75th draft. For the football fan the draft is one of the most exciting moments of the year. It is the moment when your team selects college players that you hope can add something special to your team and make them better. Of course it may also be the time when your team spends millions of dollars on someone who may never be any good. Read More |
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A Guys Guide to Hebrews: The Comparison Begins (1:1-4) We guys love to debate the greatest. For example the next time you are with a bunch of your buddies just bring up one of these topics. Read More |
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Naval Battle Life Lessons from Mighty Men – Benaiah Part 2 John Paul Jones, known as the father of the American navy, is mostly famous for one simple phrase uttered as the ship under his command was being shredded by the canons of a vastly superior British Navy. Read More |
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Life Lessons from Mighty Men – Benaiah Part 1 When we are introduced to Benaiah the subtext to his life seems to be, “When things go from bad to worse.” Few if any of us have ever had to kill a predatory animal with our hands, or at best with a sword. Benaiah fought an animal, a lion no less, but that is merely where the story begins. Read More |
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The Reinvention Principle When Michael Jordan retired from basketball (the first time) in 1993 he was arguably one of the greatest players of all time. He was known for being an incredible scorer, an amazing dunker, an intense defender, and a three-time NBA champion. A season and a half later, after trying his hand at minor league baseball, Jordan returned to professional basketball and would lead his team to a championship in each of his last three seasons with the Chicago Bulls. Read More |
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Life Lessons from Mighty Men - Shammah Military strategy has always held that one of the keys to conducting a successful campaign is too choose the spot of the battle wisely. Much like building a business the three rules of battle could be said to be location, location, location. Throughout history many an army with superior numbers of men, artillery, and supplies suffered defeat because they failed to understand the lay of the land. Shammah, another of King David’s famed mighty men, however, understood the concept perfectly. Read More |
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Life Lessons from Mighty Men - Eleazar son of Dodo The second one of David’s mighty men to be listed in 2 Samuel 23 is interesting, and not just because his dad was named Dodo (being the son of Owen is downright exciting by comparison). Like the commander of the thirty, Josheb-Basshebeth, only one of the exploits of Eleazar is related, but the second in command’s adventure is told in far more detail. Read More |
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Life Lessons from Mighty Men - Josheb-Basshebeth The Mighty Men who served Israel’s King David were an amazing group of warriors. They fought, bled, and conquered seemingly everything in their path under the leadership of Israel’s greatest king. Many of them came from humble beginnings, but their loyalty to David, and their ferocity in the heat of battle are the reason that the tales of their powerful deeds are still told thousands of years later. They were the ancient world’s Secret Service, Navy Seals, and CIA all rolled into one small group. Read More |
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The Husband’s Toughest Verse - Part 2 There is a reason that rifle scopes must be adjust two different directions. Every scope comes with two knobs; one for adjusting the scope vertically, and one for adjusting the scope horizontally. Read More |
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The Husband’s Toughest Verse - Part 1 Every husband has at various times throughout his married become convinced that his lovely bride is insane. That is ok because at some point every wife has looked at herself in the mirror and asked herself, “Is that man crazy?” Read More |
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High and Fast or Low and Slow? Recently I have gotten into watching the new series on TLC, BBQ Pitmasters. The series is interesting and it brings to light a world I never really knew existed, the world of the competitive griller. Now I always knew that there were grilling and barbecue competitions, but I never knew there were this many, that the prizes were so valuable, and that some people were so cocky about their grilling. Read More |
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A Spiritual Sugar Loaf Hill Recently I have had the privilege to get to know a veteran of the legendary Battle of Okinawa. He fought and lived through one of the bloodiest battles in American military history. The battle that this man fought raged for 82 days and has since become known as the “Typhoon of Steel.” Read More |
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What do You Revere? Over the Christmas holiday this past year my dad and I sat down to watch a football game on ESPN Classic. The game, which has come to be symbolized by one famous play known only as The Catch, is familiar to just about every football fan particularly those of the Dallas Cowboys and the San Francisco 49ers. Read More |
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Making Memories Since 1871 Over 17,000 players have had an at bat in major league baseball. Bill Bucker’s 2,715 hits are more than all but 55 of them. Some of the greatest players in baseball history aren’t even close to a career that prodigious. Yet Buckner is not remembers for a career that spanned two decades and included so many successful at bats. Read More |
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Sticks and Stones History is full of the stories of great swordsman: Inigo Montoya, Zorro, that elf from the Lord of the Rings movies; all were excellent with a sword. Read More |
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Faulty Logic I have decided that I no longer believe that my wife exists. First, she did not buy me a new Maserati for Christmas, which is what I really wanted. Second, the other day she had the audacity to ask me to clean up the big mess I made in the living room. Finally, there was a time a few weeks ago when I wanted to have sex but she did not want to because she was tired. Read More |
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Is it 50/50 or Half and Half? A few years ago my parents and I shared a meal with my paternal grandparents. Any meal at “Nanny and Papaw’s” was an adventure, but this time was especially entertaining. At the time, my grandfather and my father shared a hunting lease, and over lunch the subject of making deer sausage came up. My Papaw boldly proclaimed that when grinding meat, the proportion of deer meat to sausage meat was fifty-fifty. This was all well and good until my grandmother politely corrected him, telling all of us that he was mistaken and the correct proportion was actually half and half. Read More |
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How Much Are You Leaning? This week marks eight years since a group of Italian architects, engineers, and construction teams finished a massive renovation project. Their job was to repair all manner of damage to a building that was over seven centuries old. Local officials appointed a group of 14 archeologists, architects and soil experts to plan and carry out the repairs. After 11 years the diverse team finally finished with its daunting project. Over 27 million dollars were spent on the project -- protecting the lean of the leaning tower of Pisa. Read More |
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Ronnie Brown and Expectations “Lord, is this the time when you are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” Acts 1:6 This week I was reminded of one of life’s cold hard truths, often what we expect to happen never comes to fruition. For me this reminder came in the form of Miami Dolphins running back Ronnie Brown’s trip to the injured reserve. Read More |
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God and Electricity I am a lot of things, but an electrician is not one of them. Until recently the most notable thing I had ever done with electricity was trying to unplug a stereo with a screwdriver as a child. All I got out of that exchange was a little jolt and a screwdriver that was welded to the plug. My dad had a lot of fun trying to undo that one. That incident has been filed in my brain under the heading, DON’T DO THIS. Consequently I have steered clear of pretty much everything related to electricity for about twenty-five years now. Read More |
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A Tribute to Papa Sharp On November 23rd my paternal grandfather went home to be with the Lord. Over the next few weeks many of my reflections will probably end up on this website, but for today I wanted to post something that I wrote about his passing. Read More |
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| Staff Writer: Aaron Sharp | |||
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