The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

  1. CHOICES “We [generally] have 100% control of our choices; we have no control of the consequences of our choices.” –Nick Sabin
  2. HUMAN ANIMALS? “The Bible insists that human beings are unique, since they are made in the image of God. To use biblical terminology, God is spirit (John 4:24); human beings are part spirit and part flesh; animals are flesh.

Princeton bio-ethicist Peter Singer vehemently disagrees, and he traces many of our contemporary problems in practical ethics to the biblical view that human beings are a special creation. Singer writes:

“Whatever the future holds, it is likely to prove impossible to restore in full the sanctity-of-life view. The philosophical foundations of this view have been knocked asunder. We can no longer base our ethics on the idea that human beings are a special form of creation made in the image of God, singled out from all other animals, and alone possessing an immortal soul. Our better understanding of our own nature has bridged the gulf that was once thought to lie between ourselves and other species, so why should we believe that the mere fact that a being is a member of the species Homo Sapiens endows its life with some unique, almost infinite value?

There is no reason to think that a fish suffers less when dying in a net than a foetus suffers during an abortion, hence the argument for not eating fish is much stronger than the argument against abortion. (1995, page 209.) The life of a newborn baby is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog or a chimpanzee. (1979, pages 112–13.)”

On closer inspection Singer’s view rests on a profound misunderstanding of biblical teaching. He imagines that God made humans to be arbiters of everything so that they can do what they like, including the exploitation of animals. However, this is not the biblical view. Human beings, made in the image of God, are answerable to God as stewards – even for their attitude to animals and their use of the earth.”

Excerpt From: John C. Lennox. “Against the Flow.”

  1. MASKS “Jesus never spoke to anyone else with such intensity. But when he saw the religious hypocrite, he flipped on the spotlight and exposed every self-righteous mole and pimple. “They love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men” (Matt. 6:5).

This is the working definition of hypocrisy: “to be seen by men.” The Greek word for hypocrite, hupokrites, originally meant “actor.” First-century actors wore masks. A hypocrite, then, is one who puts on a mask, a false face.

Jesus did not say, “Do not do good works.” Nor did he instruct, “Do not let your works be seen.” We must do good works, and some works, such as benevolence or teaching, must be seen in order to have an impact. So let’s be clear. To do a good thing is a good thing. To do good to be seen is not. In fact, to do good to be seen is a serious offense. Here’s why.

Hypocrisy turns people away from God.”

Excerpt From: Lucado, Max. “Outlive Your Life.”

  1. KIDS’ FEELINGS “Many parents have come to value their children’s feelings over their behavior.

How the child feels should be important to the child, to the parents, and to a handful of others. But to the rest of the world’s more than five billion people, the only thing that matters is how the child acts.

To be a good person, self-control is infinitely more important than self-esteem. The child-rearing expert John Rosemond has coined the term “Vitamin N” to describe parents saying no at appropriate times. Our children’s characters need Vitamin N as much as their bodies need Vitamin C, and as much as their psyches need self-esteem.

Many parents are more interested in being loved than in being responsible parents. But just as it is impossible to be an effective leader if you are afraid of being disliked, you cannot be an effective parent if you need never to be disliked.”

Excerpt From: Prager, Dennis. “Think a Second Time.”

  1. LEARNING “I never let my schooling interfere with my education.” –Mark Twain 1920. MERCY “It is a greater mercy to descend from praying parents than from the loins of nobles.” –John Flavel 1921. EAR VS. EYE “The Hebrew Bible was profoundly aware of the eye’s superficiality. “Do not go astray following your heart and your eyes,” it warned, because they “cause you to prostitute yourselves.” This is why graven images were forbidden in the Ten Commandments. The Bible trusts only the ear: “Hear, oh Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone”—hear, not see.

That is why radio is far more capable of supporting sustained thought. The ear can be satisfied by thought, but the eye cannot be. Thoughts do not intrigue the eye.”

Excerpt From: Prager, Dennis. “Think a Second Time.”

  1. COMFORT “A hospital administrator was startled to see a patient fleeing down the hall out of the operating room, his loose hospital gown flapping in the breeze behind him. He stopped the patient and said, “Do you mind telling me why you ran away from the operating room?” The patient looked at him with startled eyes and said, “It was because of what the nurse said.” The administrator said, “Oh, what did she say?” “She said, ‘Be brave! An appendectomy is quite simple.’” The administrator said, “Well, so what? It is quite simple. I would think that would comfort you.” The patient said, “The nurse wasn’t talking to me; she was talking to the doctor.” Excerpt From: Hodgin, Michael. “1001 Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking”
  2. PUNISHMENT “Augustine: ‘If no sin were punished here, no Providence would be believed; and if every sin should be punished here, no judgment would be expected.”

Excerpt From: Flavel, John. “The Mystery of Providence.”

  1. TEN COMMANDMENTS “If we get the first commandment right, all the others have a way of falling into place. This is true for the first four, those that define our relationship with God, that is, the vertical ones. Getting the first commandment right also helps our relationships with others, which are addressed in the horizontal commandments, or the last six. When we give the Lord priority in our lives, we will not have difficulty with stealing or lying or adultery or any of the others.”

Excerpt From: O. S. Hawkins. “The Joshua Code.”

  1. TECHNO-WORLDVIEW “Being connected meets a core spiritual need to connect with a force greater than themselves and they believe the Internet is the fount of all truth. Searching the Internet for personal answers, direction, and worth has increasingly supplanted seeking God’s input through prayer. The high priests are the technology, which facilitates transactions with a power greater than themselves. They don’t get ideas from acknowledged leaders or chief proponents who represented those ideas, as people would have done in Bible times or many of us did in our youth. Rather, they’re being led by and taught by their technology to believe that a way to transcend the everyday machinations of life is to simply login.”

Excerpt From: Koch, Kathy. “Screens and Teens.”

  1. PUTTING “Professional golfers are so concerned with a loss that they are more aggressive in avoiding a bogey than they are in scoring a birdie. Dangle the “bonus” of a birdie—the gain of a stroke—and it’s all well and good. Says Pope, “It’s as if they say, Let’s get this close to the hole and see what happens.” But threatened with the “deduction” of a bogey—the loss of a stroke—they summon their best effort. “They’re telling themselves,” says Pope, “This one I gotta make.”

When professional golfers missed their putts for a birdie, they tended to leave the ball disproportionately short rather than long. This was evidence of their conservative approach. They were content to set up an easy par by leaving it short and not risk overshooting, which might leave a more difficult putt for par. When the same putts for par were missed, it wasn’t because they fell short.”

Excerpt From: Tobias Moskowitz & L. Jon Wertheim. “Scorecasting.”

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

  1. WHO GOD CALLS “God doesn’t call the qualified. He qualifies the called.

Don’t let Satan convince you otherwise. He will try. He will tell you that God has an IQ requirement or an entry fee. That he employs only specialists and experts, governments and high-powered personalities. When Satan whispers such lies, dismiss him with this truth: God stampeded the first-century society with swaybacks, not thoroughbreds. Before Jesus came along, the disciples were loading trucks, coaching soccer, and selling Slurpee drinks at the convenience store. Their collars were blue, and their hands were calloused, and there is no evidence that Jesus chose them because they were smarter or nicer than the guy next door. The one thing they had going for them was a willingness to take a step when Jesus said, “Follow me.”

Excerpt From: Lucado, Max. “Outlive Your Life.”

  1. ACTIONS VS. MOTIVES “The solution to much of humanity’s problems, is this: We should judge actions—our own and those of others—not motives.

On the global level, assessing motives rather than actions has led to serious moral distortions. Take, for example, the differing assessments of capitalism and Communism.

Communism resulted in the loss of freedom by more nations, and the deaths of more individuals, than any other doctrine in history’. Yet because it was perceived by many people as emanating from good motives—abolishing poverty, achieving greater equality, etc.—many people refused to accord it the revulsion that its deeds deserved.

On the other hand, capitalism has enabled more people to experience freedom and prosperity than any other economic doctrine. It should therefore be widely admired. Yet it is often vilified. The reason? It is based on selfish motives—profit.

Defenses of Communism and opposition to capitalism have emanated from the same flawed logic—judging motives, not deeds.”

Excerpt From: Prager, Dennis. “Think a Second Time.”

  1. HAPPINESS “if you give to charity, research suggests that you’re more likely to report a higher level of happiness then less generous types; and people who spend money on experiences—vacations, scuba lessons, concerts—report higher levels of happiness than people who just buy things.”

Excerpt From: Belsky, Gary. “Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes and How to Correct Them.”

  1. GOD’S SOUP KITCHEN “God does not give us what we deserve. He has drenched his world in grace. It has no end. It knows no limits. It empowers this life and enables us to live the next. God offers second chances, like a soup kitchen offers meals to everyone who asks.

Excerpt From: Lucado, Max. “Outlive Your Life.”

  1. GREAT INHIBITOR “This is a hedonistic age, and we are encouraged on all sides to follow our desires, whatever they are – to “do our own thing”. God is represented as the Great Inhibitor, and people are encouraged to rid themselves of these “non-existent gods” that stifle human flourishing. The only limit on behavior is that which is set by the law of the land.”

Excerpt From: John C. Lennox. “Against the Flow.”

  1. WHY DECLINE? “THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is still the pinnacle nation in the world today. It is not, however, the first pinnacle nation to face a decline. Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Great Britain, France, and Spain all enjoyed their time at the top of the world, so to speak — in many cases, for several hundred years. Then, as they began to decline, they all experienced some peculiar similarities: an inordinate emphasis on sports and entertainment, a fixation with lifestyles of the rich and famous, political corruption, and the loss of a moral compass.

Excerpt From: Ben Carson, M.D. “America the Beautiful.”

  1. SORRY OFFICER “It was midnight after registration day at the college when the policeman noticed a couple in a lingering embrace in the campus parking lot. Mildly surprised at the scene before the school year had even begun, he approached the car.

“Sorry, officer,” the driver explained. “We just left our youngest son, our baby, there in the dorm. It’s the first time Mother and I have been alone for twenty-seven years.”

Excerpt From: Hodgin, Michael. “1001 Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking.”

  1. YAWN “Yawning is a surprisingly powerful act. Just because you read the word “yawning” in the previous two sentences—and the two additional “yawns” in this sentence—a good number of you will probably yawn within the next few minutes. Even as I’m writing this, I’ve yawned twice. If you’re reading this in a public place, and you’ve just yawned, chances are that a good proportion of everyone who saw you yawn is now yawning too, and a good proportion of the people watching the people who watched you yawn are now yawning as well, and on and on, in an ever-widening, yawning circle.”

Excerpt From: Gladwell, Malcolm. “The Tipping Point.”

  1. MEN “Masculinity, first and foremost, ought to be defined in terms of relationships,” Joe said. “It ought to be taught in terms of the capacity to love and to be loved. If you look over your life at the end of it … life wouldn’t be measured in terms of success based on what you’ve acquired or achieved or what you own. The only thing that’s really going to matter is the relationships that you had. It’s gonna come down to this: What kind of father were you? What kind of husband were you? What kind of coach or teammate were you? What kind of son were you? What kind of brother were you? What kind of friend were you? Success comes in terms of relationships.

And I think the second criterion—the only other criterion for masculinity—is that all of us ought to have some kind of cause, some kind of purpose in our lives that’s bigger than our own individual hopes, dreams, wants, and desires. At the end of our life, we ought to be able to look back over it from our deathbed and know that somehow the world was a better place because we lived, we loved, we were other-centered, other-focused.”

Excerpt From: Marx, Jeffrey. “Season of Life.”

  1. MERCY JOB “Now to have an honest and lawful employment, in which you do not dishonour God in benefiting yourselves, is no small mercy. But if it is not only lawful in itself, but suited to your genius and strength, there is a double mercy in it. Some poor creatures are engaged in callings that eat up their time and strength, and make their lives very uncomfortable to them. They have not only consuming and wasting employments in the world, but such as allow them little or no time for their general calling, and yet all this does but keep them and theirs alive. Therefore, if God has fitted you with an honest employment in which you have less toil than others, and more time for heavenly exercises, ascribe this benefit to the special care of Providence for you.”

Excerpt From: Flavel, John. “The Mystery of Providence.”

 

 

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

  1. HOW WOULD YOU DO? “In my visits to Russia, particularly in the years immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I came across people who had suffered detention in the Soviet Gulag. The first such man I met had spent several years detained in a Siberian labour camp for the crime of teaching children from the Bible. He described to me that he had seen things that no man should ever have to see. I listened, thinking how little I really knew about life, and wondering how I would have fared under his circumstances. As if he had read my thoughts, he suddenly said: “You couldn’t cope with that, could you?” Embarrassed, I stumbled out something like: “No, I am sure you are right.” He then grinned and said: “Nor could I! I was a man who fainted at the sight of his own blood, let alone that of others. But what I discovered in the camp was this: God does not help us to face theoretical situations but real ones. Like you, I couldn’t imagine how one could cope in the Gulag. But once there I found that God met me, exactly as Jesus had promised his disciples when he was preparing them for victimization and persecution.”

What Jesus said is of immense importance:

“Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” (Matthew 10:17–20.)

“Of course, Jesus did not mean that his disciples were to face every situation unprepared. Jesus is speaking of situations where believers are threatened by court appearances, persecution, or worse, and have no opportunity to make special preparation. He promises to give them the courage and the wisdom to say the right thing. That promise means much to believers in many parts of the world today.

The cost of resisting idolatry is high. But it does not compare with the cost of rejecting God

Excerpt From: John C. Lennox. “Against the Flow.”

  1. BIRTH OF PC “Once there was no longer anything singularly precious about Socrates, Beethoven, or sliced bread, once these underpinnings that supported the Western hierachy of cultures buckled, the leveling impact of cultural relativism became the order of the day.

Amid a purposeful blur of cultural perspectives—among which only the anti-Western is deemed superior—the principles of multiculturalism have flourished and spread, undermining both our attachment to and confidence in Western culture across the land. Hence, Columbus’s remarkable voyage of discovery to the western hemisphere is taught to fourth-graders through the eyes of a mocking West Indian girl (Chevy Chase, Maryland); the father of our country is deconstructed into a slaveholder unfit to name elementary schools after (New Orleans),8 or hang portraits of in government offices (Brooklyn)9; and on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the National Museum of American History showcases permanent exhibitions that emphasize American slavery, slaughter, and strife. (Just next door, interestingly enough, a permanent exhibition at the Natural History Museum called African Voices omits mention of African slavery, slaughter, and strife.)”

Excerpt From: West, Diana. “The Death of the Grown-Up.”

  1. UNSEEN “We habitually think of the visible world as real and doubt the reality of any other. We do not deny the existence of the spiritual world but we doubt that it is real in the accepted meaning of the word.

The world of sense intrudes upon our attention day and night for the whole of our lifetime. It is clamorous, insistent and self-demonstrating. It does not appeal to our faith; it is here, assaulting our five senses, demanding to be accepted as real and final. But sin has so clouded the lenses of our hearts that we cannot see that other reality, the City of God, shining around us. The world of sense triumphs. The visible becomes the enemy of the invisible; the temporal, of the eternal. That is the curse inherited by every member of Adam’s tragic race.

At the root of the Christian life lies belief in the invisible. The object of the Christian’s faith is unseen reality.

We must shift our focus from the seen to the unseen.”

Excerpt From: A. W. Tozer. “The Pursuit of God.”

  1. POWERFUL LIFE “May you live in such a way that your death is just the beginning of your life.”

— Max Lucado

  1. CHARACTER “A society can survive the collapse of its economy, but not of its citizens’ morality. An America that emphasized character development in its public and private spheres was able to survive the poverty of the Great Depression. A vastly wealthier America that neglects character development is steadily sinking. And this neglect can be attributed in large part to the widespread belief that people are basically good and the destructive beliefs that accompany it.” Excerpt From: Prager, Dennis. “Think a Second Time.”
  2. CHILD’S UNDERSTANDING

– The fifth commandment is: Humor thy father and mother.

– Lot’s wife was a pillar of salt by day, but a ball of fire by night

– Mary was the mother of Jesus, and sang the Magna Carta.

– Salome was a woman who danced naked in front of Harrods.

– Holy acrimony is another name for marriage.

– Christians can have only one wife. This is called monotony.

– The First Commandment: Eve told Adam to eat the apple.

– It is sometimes difficult to hear what is being said in church because the agnostics are so terrible.”

Excerpt From: Hodgin, Michael. “1001 Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking.”

  1. CONVICTION “When Hernando Cortez landed at Veracruz, Mexico, on April 21, 1519, he ordered the ships in his fleet to be burned. His reason? His goal—his conviction—was to conquer Mexico for Spain. He knew he and his men would face many obstacles. They would be forced to confront Aztec, Cuban, and Mayan warriors. As long as there were ships to retreat to, retreat would remain an option. But retreat wasn’t an option for Cortez. His conviction, and his decision to burn the ships, eliminated at least one option. That symbolic gesture rallied his troops to focus all their resources on achieving victory. In an amazingly short amount of time, Mexico was theirs.”

Excerpt From: Stanley, Andy. “When Work and Family Collide.”

  1. FEAR GOD “The most common Old Testament word for fear means “to stand before God with reverence and respect.” The most common New Testament word for fear is closely akin to this. It speaks of a reverential awe that becomes the controlling motivation of our lives.”

Excerpt From: O. S. Hawkins. “The Joshua Code.”

  1. CHOICES “In one minute Instagram users post 216,000 new photos and YouTube users upload 72 hours of new video. You read that right—every minute we have 72 more hours of video to choose from. Spotify allows us to choose from among more than 20 million songs and iTunes Radio has more than 27 million. There are almost 1 billion websites. It’s no wonder teens believe they deserve choices!”

Excerpt From: Koch, Kathy. “Screens and Teens.”

  1. TECH AT NIGHT “Fatigue can be a very real side effect of too much screen time. Because technology too often distracts them while studying, kids stay up later to get work finished. Also, too many are sleeping with their phones and waking with every incoming text. Others are gaming in the middle of the night. Two-thirds of eleven- to seventeen-year-olds take their tablet, smartphone, or laptop to bed and talk to friends online, play games, and watch films. Only a third does homework on the devices.mOur internal light cues and sleep-inducing hormones are influenced by the glowing lights emitted by screens. When the lights are bright, the brain can even be tricked to think it’s daytime.”

Excerpt From: Koch, Kathy. “Screens and Teens.”