D.S. al Coda: Go to the Sign of the Cross, Then proceed to the End

  I remember sitting in a class at Furman University in the mid-’70s when a professor asked the question, “What is your worldview?” I honestly didn’t know what he was talking about but began to realize that I did not have a worldview--only a very small, self-centered, short-term, and local view of life. (i.e. Headline: "Godzilla Destroys Japan--Economy Devastated!" Me: "I hope Yamato over in Harbison doesn't close down.")  It is estimated that 3,000 years ago the world population was only about 50,000,000. Today there are about 8,000,000,000.  Yet, people in the Bible days could still have a worldview bigger than most of us today. There are 196,900,000 square miles on this planet, but one's worldview is not measured in square miles or numbers of people or nations on the earth.  The whole world seemed huge to people whose only mode of transportation was 4-legged. Today our entire planet can be circumnavigated in a day or two. Two people can carry on a norma

When the Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas, "What must I do to become saved?" (recorded in Acts 16:30), he was not asking how to go to heaven or avoid hell.  All he knew was that the prisoners who had been placed in his jail with the strict orders for him  " to guard them carefully" had been set free.  Yes, there had been an earthquake, but how did that unlock the chains and release them from the stocks?  Acts 17:27 tells us that the jailer drew his sword to kill himself because he knew that he would be held responsible for the escape and would likely face a humiliating execution. Paul saw what the jailer was about to do and cried out (verse 28), "Don't harm yourself!  We are all here!" The Jailer called for lights and rushed in and fell at the feet of Paul and Silas and pled, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"  Was he just asking how his life could be spared because he was in big trouble?  I believe there was something far more that pr