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Stealing
This Child Tends to Shoplift
As I waited in a supermarket line, I observed a number of young mothers carrying their babies in backpacks. One pack stood out especially, for it had a large sign fixed to it. “This child tends to shoplift,” it read. “Please inform mother.”
Patricia B. Arnt (Orcas, Wash.)
Painting $20 Bills
Zig Ziglar tells of a thief, a man named Emmanuel Nenger. The year is 1887. The scene is a small neighborhood grocery store. Mr. Nenger is buying some turnip greens. He gives the clerk a $20 bill. As the clerk begins to put the money in the cash drawer to give Mr. Nenger his change, she notices some of the ink from the $20 bill is coming off on her fingers which are damp from the turnip greens. She looks at Mr. Nenger, a man she has known for years. She looks at the smudged bill. This man is a trusted friend; she has known him all her life; he can’t be a counterfeiter. She gives Mr. Nenger his change, and he leaves the store.
But $20 is a lot of money in 1887, and eventually the clerk calls the police. They verify the bill as counterfeit and get a search warrant to look through Mr. Nenger’s home. In the attic they find where he is reproducing money. He is a master artist and is painting $20 bills with brushes and paint! But also in the attic they find three portraits Nenger had painted. They seized these and eventually sold them at auction for $16,000 (in 1887 currency, remember) or a little more than $5,000 per painting. The irony is that it took Nenger almost as long to paint a $20 bill as it did for him to paint a $5,000 portrait!
It’s true that Emanuel Nenger was a thief, but the person from whom he stole the most was himself.
Signs of the Times, Oct. 1988, pp. 22-3
Stephen
1. What he was—irreproachable
2. What he did—irrefutable
3. What he said—irresistible
He was full of the Holy Spirit, wisdom, faith, grace, power.
S. Briscoe, Getting Into God, p. 36
The Called Man
(The called man) sees himself as a steward...He’s obedient rather than ambitious, committed rather than competitive. For him, nothing is more important than pleasing the one who called him.
We obey his commands and do what pleases him. I John 3:22 NIV
God’s Little Instruction Book for Men, (Honor Books, Tulsa, OK; 1996), p. 43
Steward
- A steward of God, a high honor Titus 1:7
- A good steward, a great trust 1 Peter 4:10
- A faithful steward, a noble aim 1 Cor. 4:2
- A wise steward, a discerning mind Luke 12:42
- An unjust steward, a selfish motive Luke 16:2
From the Book of 750 Bible and Gospel Studies, 1909, George W. Noble, Chicago
Resource
- John R. W. Stott, The Preacher’s Portrait, Some New Testament Word Studies, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., 1961), pp. 11ff
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