PlainSpeech Messages | Find YOUR way to GRACE.
I recently read a message I’d given in 1984 and felt a mixture of embarrassment and surprise. Embarrassed because it seems inadequate now, and surprised by how much my worldview has changed. Twenty-five years from now, I might read these messages and have a similar reaction. I offer no guarantee that my work or words will endure the eroding effects of time. I can only assure you these thoughts have been helpful to me, and perhaps a few others, today. With that qualification, I offer them to you.
~ Philip
NEW!
If America Were Great (3)
I’ve been fascinated by politics since 1974, when Richard Lugar first ran for the United States Senate against Birch Bayh and lost. During the campaign, my dad gave me a box of Richard Lugar pamphlets to distribute around the town, which became my after-school job....
If America Were Great (2)
We spent part of the week down at Sam and Kelsea’s house, visiting our grandchildren. It was fall break down there, so kids were out in full force, riding their bicycles up and down the streets and playing football in the side yards. The family next door home schools...
If America Were Great (1)
When our kids were little, the Harry Potter books arrived on the American literary scene, much to the dismay of Evangelical Christians who urged parents not to buy the books for their children because Harry Potter was a wizard, a vocation specifically prohibited by...
The Truth Will Out
Joan sends her regards. Our daughter-in-law Kelsea phoned us last Thursday to tell us her contractions had started. I tell you; less planning went into the Normandy Invasion than went into this delivery. Here was the plan: Our daughter-in-law would phone us when her...
Money (7) Wealth Is an Addiction
Wealth7 Wealth Is An Addiction Philip Gulley I visited my alma mater, Marian University, several weeks ago. I had met the president, and he invited me to tour the campus with him, so off we went on a golf cart and saw the sights. I think he thinks I have more money...
Money (6) Wealth Is a Tool to Be Used, Not a Treasure to Be Hoarded
When I was nine-years-old, my parents moved to a stately old house on the south side of Danville, which is how I acquired my southern accent. The house had been built in 1913 for a Quaker minister and had a double parlor where Quaker weddings were held. When I was...
Money (5) Wealth and Vocation
When we had our house renovated twenty years ago, I had bookshelves built in my office, which are now stacked with books in haphazard piles. They were once arranged by topic, but now they’re arranged by convenience, the books I never read toward the back, and the ones...
Money (4) Wealth and Decadence
I was up on the ladder last month cleaning our gutters and noticed our 30-year roof that was installed 18 years ago already needs replaced. The month before I had replaced our 80,000-mile tires after 49,000 miles, and just before that I replaced a half dozen LED light...
Money (3) Wealth and Morality
I had a neighbor growing up whose name was Roger. We were the same age, maybe 7 or 8, and we shared a sandbox, a sort of communal sandbox, which we shared with several neighborhood cats. Every morning we’d clean it out, then play cars, building highways, tunnels, and...
Money (2) The Myths of Wealth
For years, I preached stand-alone sermons, but after a while noticed I was whaling away at the same subject every Sunday, so began doing series preaching, carefully selecting varied themes so as not to repeat myself. But the weakness of series preaching is the...