Since Jesus had many of his people in the typical sailors' city of Corinth, he must have many more good people here in Jacksonville.

Friday, 5/30/14

The city of Corinth, where St. Paul spent a year and a half, was a typical sailors’ town. Perched on a narrow isthmus between the main peninsula of Greece and the island-like mass of the Peloponnesus to the south, it was a port on the Aegean Sea to the east and on the Adriatic to the west. Shipments from Asia were unloaded at one port, than with a lively thievery, carted across town to be shipped off to northern Italy. To satisfy the dubious needs of the superstitious sailors, Corinth employed so many temple prostitutes that all over the Mediterranean prostitutes were known as  Corinthian girls.

Still, the Lord assured Paul, saying, “I have many people in this city.”

So, if the Lord had many people even in that notorious place, how many more must he have here in Jacksonville?

To get a feel for the goodness of our city, it is necessary that we get out and mix with the people on the busses and with the crowds in the stores, and with the people grabbing quick lunches as they go about their jobs.

With the TV news and the newspapers every day featuring stories of random shootings, the people who live in gated communities and those who are housebound could get the idea that Jacksonville is crawling with evil people.

The false feeling that we are living in an evil world, is created by the news media that every day leads off with gruesome stories about mindless mass killings. NBC, ABC  and CBS should keep  from giving undue prominence to the evil around us. If you would let me make a tongue in cheek suggestion, I’d propose setting up a separate channel that would bring us only the coverage of senseless slaughters. It might be the most popular one of the channels, and the gun dealers could advertise on it.