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

March 24, 2014

51. TAXATION “An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.”

–Chief Justice John Marshall, McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819
52. ACTION “We live in a world that, when it’s all said and done, there’s a lot said and very little done.”

— Jim Stovall

53. THE NEXT GENERATION “I think with you, that nothing is of more importance for the public weal [or welfare], than to form and train up youth in wisdom and virtue. Wise and good men are, in my opinion, the strength of the state; more so than riches or arms. I think also, that general more so than riches or arms. I think also, that general virtue is more probably to be expected and obtained from the education of youth, than from the exhortations of adult persons; bad habits and vices of the mind being, like diseases of the body, more easily prevented than cured. I think, moreover, that the talents for the education of youth are the gift of God; and that he on whom they are bestowed, whenever a way is opened for the use of them, is as strongly called as if he heard a voice from heaven….”

— Benjamin Franklin

54. COLLEGE “In the sprawling zoo of bad ideas, the five-hundred-pound gorillas are relativism and materialism. Sending your children off to college without thoroughly arming them against these simian behemoths is like pushing them into a jungle river filled with parasites and piranhas and expecting the experience to toughen them up. No one should be surprised if they get killed by an infection or eaten alive.”

Excerpt From: James Robison & Jay W. Richards. “Indivisible.”

55. WHY EVIL? “The only way to get a bad thing is to take a good thing and spoil it. For example, darkness isn’t made up from nothing; you get it by blocking the light. Disease isn’t made up from nothing; you get it by ruining health. Notice that this doesn’t work the other way around—you can’t get light by blocking darkness or health by ruining disease. So God created only good things, but some of them have been spoiled. That’s even true about Satan. He’s just a created being—an angel who was made good but went bad. To be evil at all, Satan needs good things that he can abuse, things like intelligence, power, and will. Those good things come from God.”

Excerpt From: Budziszewski, J. “How to Stay Christian in College.”

56. ROLE MODELS “No written word nor spoken plea Can teach our youth what they should be. Nor all the books on all the shelves. It’s what the teachers are themselves.”

—Unknown

57. GOD’S WORD “One of the disciplines I have found helpful in meditation is to repeat the verse again and again, putting the inflection on a different word each time. It is amazing how much insight comes from this simple practice for the young and the seasoned believer alike. The early church father Augustine said, “God’s Word is shallow enough not to drown the young, but deep enough that the greatest theologian will never touch the bottom.”

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

58. THE TRINITY “The Bible translates the Hebrew word Elohim here as God. The significance is that the word is in its plural form. It is a plural noun, thus hinting to us in the initial verse of Scripture that God is one pictured as three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Interestingly, the verb created, which follows this noun, is in the singular form, seemingly making a mockery of grammar. Yet it should be singular in that He is the great Three in One. We see this truth revealed later in Genesis 1 when we read, “Let Us make man in Our image” (Genesis 1:26, emphasis added). And then the following verse reads, “So God created man in His own image” (v. 27, emphasis added). The doctrine of the Trinity is one of the great mysteries of the Bible. Yet, beginning with this first verse, the idea of the Trinity is woven throughout the Scripture. It is often illustrated by its similarities to H2O, two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. We all know this to be water—a liquid. However, it can also be a solid (ice) or a vapor (steam). Yet, in all three manifestations, it is still the same in nature: H2O. And so it is with God manifesting Himself in three persons.”

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

59. INTERNET REGRET “Tattoos were once thought to be permanent. Now, they can largely be removed by special lasers. Your vasectomy can be reversed, death penalties can be commuted, and lifetime bans from sports rarely are. But the Internet? That, my friends, is forever.”

Excerpt From: David Avrin & Joe Calloway. “It’s Not Who You Know — It’s Who Knows You!.”

60. CARBON TAX “A British parliamentary committee proposed that every citizen be required to carry a carbon card that must be presented, under penalty of law, when buying gasoline, taking an airplane or using electricity. The card contains your yearly carbon ration to be drawn down with every purchase, every trip, every swipe. There’s no greater social power than the power to ration. And, other than rationing food, there is no greater instrument of social control than rationing energy, the currency of just about everything one does and uses in an advanced society.”

Excerpt From: Krauthammer, Charles. “Things That Matter.”