A ROCKY FOUNDATION

                               After other Muslim conquests had come and gone, the Turkish Ottomans conquered and ruled over Jerusalem and what was then Palestine for 400 years. The building of churches and synagogues was outlawed. But most catastrophically of all, in 1915 the call had gone out to get rid of Armenian people and every Christian in the Empire-the Armenian Genocide (1915-16). One and a half million were murdered, and many more suffered horrifically before making their escape. Perhaps God decided that enough was enough. As the Turks were allied with Germany in the First World War, the British found themselves fighting against the fading Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. General Allenby was charged with liberating Jerusalem and had expressed concern to his superiors about the magnitude and sensitivity of the task before him. He had been ordered to take the city without firing ...

                              On the front porch of his little country store in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln and Berry, his partner, stood. Business was all gone, and Berry asked, “How much longer can we keep this going?” Lincoln answered, “It looks as if our business has just about winked out.” Then he continued, “You know, I wouldn’t mind so much if I could just do what I want to do. I want to study law. I wouldn’t mind so much if we could sell everything we’ve got and pay all our bills and have just enough left over to buy one book— Blackstone’s Commentary on English Law , but I guess I can’t.” A strange-looking wagon was coming up the road. The driver angled it up close to the store porch, then looked at Lincoln and said, “I’m trying to move my family out west, and I’m out of money. I’ve got a good barrel here that I could sell for fifty c...

  A man was called by the chairman of the community charity. "Sir," said the chairman, "our records show that despite your wealth, you've never once given to our drive." "Do your records show that I have an elderly mother who was left penniless when my father died?” fumed the man. "Do your records show that I have a disabled brother who is unable to work?   Do your records show I have a widowed sister with small children who can barely make ends meet?" "No, sir," replied the embarrassed chairman. "Our records do not show those things." "Well, I don't give to any of them, so why should I give anything to you?" (Readers Digest, 1996). The tenth chapter of Acts is one of the most important chapters in the Bible. It is so important because it tells how a gospel that was originally thought of in exclusively Jewish terms came to be a gospel for the whole world. This chapter describes God's flinging open the door...