A Dozen Drunk Rowdies
This Week's Theme: Molding Men
Leighton Ford
Wednesday, January 24, 2001
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Key Bible Verse: Jesus looked at him and said "You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas" (which, when translated, is Peter) (John 1:42). Bonus Reading: Luke 5:27-31
Looking at the rough-and-ready fisherman, Jesus saw an unstable "reed man"implied in the name Simonwho would become a sturdy "rock man"the meaning of Peter.
In 1876, agriculturist William Clark undertook a one-year teaching assignment in Japan. Arriving at a remote province, he found the governor in despair. A dozen young men selected for the course had been transported by river boat to meet their American tutor. But on the trip they'd proved so immoral and drunken he was ready to send them home. Clark persuaded the governor to give him a chance with them and asked if he might provide them with religious and moral education. The governor allowed Clark to teach only ethicsoutside the classroom.
So Clark met with these rowdies every day for one hour before the agriculture classes. Through an interpreter, he taught them morals, using material from the Bible. Gradually the vision of a higher, different life seeped into their hearts and consciences. The impact of Clark's teaching and life never left these men. One became treasurer of Japan, another Japan's representative to the League of Nations, a third the greatest national evangelist in his day.
Leighton Ford in Transforming Leadership Respond:
Are you more likely to be judgmental or accepting?
Thought to Apply:
If we love people, we will see them as God intends them to be.
Russian authorAdapted from Transforming Leadership (InterVarsity, 1991). 1 of 1
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God, I am willing to be used by you. Show me how to give what I have learned from you to someone else who needs it.
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