Posts by David Oliver
A brief look at Billy Sunday
At a recent meeting for preachers at Camp CoBeAc, guests had the opportunity to rummage through several boxes of books donated by a retired pastor. Anything found to be of interest was free for the taking. I selected a biography of early 20th century evangelist Billy Sunday. After I brought the book back to my…
Read MoreMY BIBLE
Just days before Christmas of 1970, a package arrived at my home, addressed to me. As a child, of course, I received very little mail, so to have a parcel arrive with my name on it was very exciting. I had started to tear open the brown paper to find out what was inside the…
Read MoreHelp Wanted
Right after graduating from college I enrolled in seminary to pursue a master’s degree. At the time I also became engaged to the young lady I would marry. I needed an increase in income to match my increasing financial obligations, so I applied for a job at a textile mill not far from my school.…
Read MoreHelp Wanted – the vanishing work ethic
Right after graduating from college I enrolled in seminary to pursue a master’s degree. At the time I also became engaged to the young lady I would marry. I needed an increase in income to match my increasing financial obligations, so I applied for a job at a textile mill not far from my school. …
Read MoreNot By Bread Alone…
I recently completed Flags of Our Fathers, James Bradley’s best-seller about the six U.S. Marines who raised the flag on top of Mt. Suribachi during the battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. The flag raising was made famous by a photograph taken by combat photographer Joe Rosenthal. The picture became the model for…
Read MoreRevive Us Again
In 1983 Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn provided a concise explanation as to why, in his opinion, the horrors of Soviet communism occurred. He said, “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Those with any spiritual perception at all are burdened – yea, alarmed – by the accelerating moral and spiritual decline of…
Read MoreScribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites
Last fall (an internet age ago), California Governor Gavin Newsom made headlines when he ate dinner with friends and lobbyists at a Napa Valley restaurant called the French Laundry. Included among the guests at the governor’s soiree were the CEO and the vice president of the California Medical Association. Normally, such an event would not…
Read MoreAn Important Election Day Lesson
Despite everyone’s fixation with the recent presidential election, there were countless other candidates and issues voted on in every state of which this nation is comprised. One proposal on the ballot in the state of Colorado was Proposition 115. This measure, if approved by voters, would have banned the practice of late-term abortion. It would…
Read MoreA RETURN TO NORMALCY
Catchy campaign slogans are not a recent development. During the 1920 presidential election Ohio senator Warren G. Harding struck a popular chord with his promise that, if he were elected, America would “return to normalcy.” Following the hardships brought on by the First World War, Americans longed for the peace and prosperity they remembered. The…
Read MoreThe Light of the World
The influence of Thomas Alva Edison’s inventions on American life – and on life around the world – was so profound that when he died in October, 1931 the suggestion was made to then-president Herbert Hoover that in tribute to the inventor the entire electrical system of the United States should be turned off for…
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