Authorities arrested a 29-year-old Florida woman after she allegedly used a stun gun on a woman who tried to hug her on Christmas. Authorities jailed Deborah Downing on charges of aggravated battery after she reportedly used a stun gun on a friend attempting to offer a greeting. Authorities say Sheri Brennan was picking up a friend on December 25 when the incident occurred. A friend of Brennan’s told police that she was stunned after trying to give Downing a hug. Brennan says she was not injured, but Downing’s actions did surprise her. She told authorities that she and Downing had a rocky past, but she believed they had resolved their differences.

Don’t assume a matter is resolved; make sure it is resolved.

—Jim L. Wilson and Jim Sandell99

Giving and Service

In Roman families, the image of the father was severe and harsh, especially when he warned his children against the temptations of life.90 But the Greek moralist Plutarch had another approach. He said that a father should not use beatings but rather reason, exhortation, counsel, and praise of good conduct to instruct his children to follow virtue and shun vices.

Paul’s Goal: For the Thessalonians to Walk Worthily (2:7–12)

Paul’s ultimate goal is the worthy walk of the Thessalonian believers (2:12). The greatest impact one can have on young or needy believers is to love them in Christ (2:7–8). Paul stresses the depth and sincerity of his love by comparing it to that of parents of children: he compares himself to both a mother (2:7) and a father (2:11). Paul wants no possible confusion about his motives, especially in the area of money; and he reminds the Thessalonians that he supports himself through his craft of tentmaking (Acts 18:3).

15. He Took Advantage of the Opportunity

I knew a young freckle-faced boy in Missouri once who was working in a roundhouse. He didn’t go around the saloons at night. He studied telegraphy. He studied about the engines, he was always studying. He was always minding his own business.

There are two reasons why folks don’t mind their own business. One is that they haven’t any business. The other is that they haven’t any mind.

An engineer on the railroad had his little child in the cab of the engine and he stepped off to do something, and the little boy did what he had seen his father do. He threw the lever over and opened the throttle wide and the engine jumped forward and down the track it went, a wild engine.

Jim happened to be in the telegraph office with a friend studying telegraphy. The operator was out, but Jim heard the message going over the wire that the wild engine was coming. He ran out and jumped on a switch engine and started out to meet the other engine.

Everyone said that he would be killed. Why didn’t he stay here? As the other engine approached, he reversed his engine and started to back away from it. Gradually he got his engine to run the same speed as the wild engine. When the engines came together he reversed his engine so that it was pressing hard against the other one, crept back in his cab, then over it to the other engine. When they got there the little boy was sitting on Jim’s knee laughing. Jim was made an engineer on the spot. Was it an accident that Jim did that? No, he seized an opportunity that he had been preparing for.

Some day it will be too late for you to be saved. The opportunity will be gone forever. The water that runs past the mill will never return to go past it again. Become a Christian. Live for others and think of the good you can do.

—E. J. Bulgin