Abraham Lincoln once famously said, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.” It is no small challenge to hold our tongue. Multiple studies show that people tend to speak at least 7,000 words per day (some studies suggest the average exceeds 10,000 words).

This year marks the 103rd anniversary of the end of the Greco-Turkish War—a war fought between Greece and the Turkish National Movement during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of WWI. It was fought between May 1919 and October 1922. The reality of living through such tumultuous and violent days is hard for us in North America to imagine, as we look back from our vantage point of peace and stability. Few of us will have first-hand experience of living through any type of war. But the Apostle Paul tells us that if we belong to Jesus Christ, we are living through a civil war each and every day.

Some time ago, experts from Scotland were called in to examine a bottle of very expensive whiskey sold by an exclusive Swiss Hotel. A Chinese millionaire had been staying at the hotel and decided to treat himself to a drop or two from a bottle in the hotel’s collection dating from 1878. This guest paid 10,000 Swiss Francs, over 12,000 dollars, for those few drops.

The great Victorian preacher, Charles Spurgeon, once told a story about a crossing-sweeper—someone who swept the dirty street ahead of a wealthy person, in exchange for a tip. Apparently, an artist wanted to paint the city and include an unkempt, ragged, filthy crossing-sweeper in the picture.

Jesus was no ordinary man. He performed countless miracles. In one chapter alone (Matthew 8), we are told that Jesus cleansed the defiled, healed the diseased, and drove out demons with a word.