Sunday, August 21, 2011

Open a Door

I preached on Colossians 4:2-6 today. The sermon is online here.  While I don't always use extra biblical stories or illustrations in my sermons, I did yesterday. In fact, I used several.  The two that really resonated with me were these:



In 1269 Kublai Khan sent a request from Peking to Rome for "a hundred wise men of the Christian religion...And so I shall be baptized, and when I shall be baptized all my baron and great men will be baptized, and their subjects baptized, and so there will be more Christian here than there are in your parts." The Mongols were then wavering in the choice of a religion. It might have been, as Kublai forecast, the greatest mass religious movement the world has ever seen. The history of all Asia would have been changed. 
But what actually happened? Pope Gregory X answered by sending two Domnican friars. They got as far as Armenia, could endure no longer and returned home. So passed the greatest missionary opportunity in the history of the church. 

And this poem...

Press on. 

Nothing in the world 

Can take the place of persistence. 

Talent will not; 

Nothing is more common 

Than unsuccessful men 

With talent. 

Genius will not: 

Unrewarded genius 
Is almost a proverb. 

Education will not; 
The world is full of 

Educated derelicts. 

Persistence and determination 

Alone are important




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