The Bible Story Family

FIREWORKS AND LIGHTHOUSES J. Frank Norris was a firecracker.   Announcing messages with titles like “The Greatest Sinner in Fort Worth,” he attracted a crowd by actually naming one of the town leaders and exposing his sin.   I had the privilege of writing the biographies of two other firecrackers.   Evangelist Billy Sunday fought the Booze industry.   After saloon-keepers walked his Sawdust Trail, they put signs in the front windows of their bars proclaiming “Closed by order of Billy Sunday.”   William Jennings Bryan took on the corrupt politics of his day and accepted the Democratic nomination for President three times.   But he was best known for fighting evolution as a lawyer in the “Monkey Trial.” J. Gresham Machen was a scholar, a lighthouse.   As a professor at Princeton Seminary and later Westminster Theological Seminary, he taught New Testament, defended the faith against liberalism, and wrote a number of scholarly works still used ...

WHAT TO DO WHEN THERE IS NOTHING TO DO! One of my favorite books as a boy was a green-covered volume called What To Do When There Is Nothing to Do. During those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, when we finally finished the Monopoly game after breaking the bank, I could grab that book and explore imaginative vistas through previously unexplored territory. Word games, building projects, science experiments, physical challenges, magic tricks and an infinite variety of other boredom-busters awaited me within its pages. I often wished that my forays into Bible study could be accompanied by a similar volume. Knowing God’s Word became an ambition through the years, aided by time in Bible college and Seminary. I read and studied, taught and preached. But I didn’t always find myself DOING. Too often, KNOWING became an end game rather than a preparation for participation. Living for God depreciated into a satisfaction with personal devotions, attending church, and...