With a Heart of Genuine Thanksgiving
I once had the privilege of meeting Alistair Begg, the Scottish pastor who came to America in the 1980’s and faithfully preached the gospel in Chagrin Falls for 40 years, before retiring this year. His ministry changed my life. When I met him, he gave me a copy of one of his books and inscribed […]
Think your thanks, then give them
Have you ever stopped to ask, “What does it really mean to give thanks?” “Is it simply to say to someone the words ‘thank you’?” And if so, “why those words?” Well, the English word “thank” has its roots in the Old English, þanc, meaning “thought, gratitude.” It shares an etymology with the English word “think,” which […]
On receiving…or not receiving…thanks
Yossele was a Jew who lived in Krakow, Poland in the 1600’s. He was an enormously wealthy man, but also very stingy—to the point that he was known in the community as Yossele the Miser. When he died, the people refused to bury him for days, because they despised him for being so uncharitable with his […]
Of geese, gratitude, and greed
Aesop tells the fable of “a Countryman who possessed the most wonderful Goose you can imagine, for every day when he visited the nest, the Goose had laid a beautiful, glittering, golden egg. The Countryman took the eggs to market and soon began to get rich. But it was not long before he grew impatient […]
The wisdom of gratitude
Have you ever thought of Thanksgiving as a holiday for the wise? Or of gratitude as something that requires wisdom? Sure, we all think that being thankful requires a humble heart and warm feelings of appreciation for what we’ve been given. But have you ever considered that gratitude is a matter of knowledge and understanding […]
Practice Temperance…now
So, we’ve all got our “chicken”—the good thing that, like Brother Reynard the Fox, we are prone to indulge in, to enjoy too much. And one way to avoid such indulgence is to refrain from these things entirely. But that is actually called abstinence, not temperance. For some, that may be required. But for Temperance, we […]
What’s your chicken?
You may recall that we’re considering the virtue of Temperance this week. On Monday, we heard the story of the Fox who ate too much chicken and couldn’t squeeze back out of the henhouse. But, it would be a mistake for us to conclude from the story that eating chicken is simply bad and that […]
“War is not the ugliest of things”
Good morning. And to our guests, welcome to Columbus Classical Academy. We are here to celebrate Veterans Day. Veterans are the men and women who bravely served in our armed forces to protect and defend America and her friends around the world. Veterans Day began in 1919, and was originally known as Armistice Day—a day […]
“Temperance keeps the whole man in order”
The last of the four earthly or cardinal virtues is that of Temperance, which we will consider this week. According to Thomas Aquinas, “Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passion.” An old fable may help to illustrate: “A slam, thin-gutted fox made a hard shift to wriggle his body into […]
Courage multiplies
So, this week we’ve learned that David had genuine Fortitude, real courage, not because the battle with Goliath turned out well for him, but because David’s bravery had a reason—his unique experience fighting lions and bears—and his cause was right—he was bold in his stand for God, not for himself. To conclude the week, let’s […]