Opinion

The Delta Fair is returning and I couldn’t be more excited. After missing out on the fair last year due to the pandemic, this fair week is anticipated to be one of the most attended ever. I love the fair. The sights, the sounds, and the smells. The fair always brings back such wonderful memories...

College students who major in history are sometimes required to purchase a copy of the book, “Ancient Near Eastern Texts” (often cited as “ANET”). This is an anthology or collection of writings from civilizations in the Middle East from the Mesopotamian region circa (around) 2000 B.C. ...

National Comic Book Day honors the art, artists, and stories of comic books. Fans, collectors, readers, and artists come together to celebrate the day with events across the country. Therefore, if you are reading this on Saturday, September 25, you are celebrating National Comic Book Day...

The word “convert” refers to a person who has made the necessary changes to become a Christian. “Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as a little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3) The word “converted” is defined by Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, “to turn one’s self… from one’s course of conduct, i.e. to change one’s mind.” For the unsaved to be saved, one must change one’s beliefs about Christ, one’s mind about sin, and one’s spiritual state...

I’ve always preferred living in a small town. There’s a certain charm about it. The downtown square, the neighborhoods, and usually, multiple generations of the same families living close to another. It’s a true community. Sometimes you really do want to go where everybody knows your name...

In one Bible survey text, the prophet Jeremiah is described as “only a young man when God called to him. The Lord forbade him to marry, he had no children…was not allowed to attend funerals or parties.” His service to the Lord was forty years of rebuff, rejection, and physical abuse. ...

Fiction is a general term used to describe an imaginative work of prose, either a novel, short story, or novella. However, in the truest sense, a work of fiction is a creation of the writer’s imagination. The two main types of fiction are literary and commercial...

Are you satisfied with the direction your life is heading? Be assured, you can change the direction of your life and thereby change your future. If your life is filled with sin, unrest and hopelessness, you can decide to turn to God and begin serving the living and true God. ...

While fighting off a virus, having a good, healthy immune system is important, and aging is much the same way. However, rather than a strong immune system, lifestyle changes and better habits can stave off and help with resilience while aging. There are numerous circumstances that create a stressful environment, which leads to depression, chronic illness, and even death. ...

The twentieth anniversary of 9/11 is upon us, but in many ways it seems like yesterday. We all remember where we were when we heard the terrible news. My teenaged daughter burst into my bedroom with the unbelievable announcement of, “We’re under attack!”...

A library patron has decided to read or re-read some of the classic novels that he may have missed in high school or college. This got me thinking about my own experience with assigned reading. My high school senior English teacher, Mrs. Hartsoe, provided a list of required readings the summer before my twelfth grade year. ...

Seminary students will often find the prophet Isaiah as an inspiring example to follow. The prophet recounted his calling from God, “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ Then I said, ‘Here I am! Send me.’ And God said, ‘Go… and say to this people: Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.”’ (Isaiah 6:8-9) It is easy to infer that Isaiah would have had a difficult ministry, and he did. ...

I am so thankful that God in His wisdom has given so many of David’s Psalms to uplift us. We tend to put David on a pedestal since he was a man after God’s own heart. (Acts 13:22) However, when you read his Psalms, you realize how often he got down in spirit, and felt discouraged due to his many detractors who sought his destruction. We may not get down about the same problems that David had, but all of us have our own problems which can cause us to be disheartened...

The brain is extraordinarily complex and fragile. It controls every aspect of the body from breathing to feeling. As the body ages, the brain can maintain its vibrancy to recall, learn, and think, and like the body, it needs proper nutrition to function efficiently. We know that oxygen through exercise is important for both a healthy brain and strong heart, but what goes into the body is just as important. Proper nutrition is the key to staying sharp, but what does that entail?...

On Thursday night I attended the Farm Bureau Association of Dunklin County’s Annual meeting at the Kennett Country Club. Lt. Governor Mike Kehoe was the featured speaker and of course he spoke on farming. It started me thinking about my relatives and the history of farming in my family...

Walk into the Dunklin County Library headquarters in Kennett during September and you will be treated to a wide variety of art! Right now, hanging from the balcony railing, magnificent quilts are displayed. These visual wonders continue to the second floor balcony, and they were created by local artists and each quilt has a story. ...

“I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:13-14) Daniel tells us that when Christ returned to heaven from earth, God gave Him a dominion and a kingdom! Consider the following scriptures which confirm this affirmation.. ...

I remember my grandmother, and later my mother, drifting off to sleep early in the evening while watching television. As a child, some of my fondest memories of my grandmother, was her sitting in her rocker while watching Lawrence Welk. She would fall asleep during the polka program, but when I would lean forward and change the channel, she would wake and say, “I was watching that.”...

I continue to be more than disappointed with this administration and the direction our country is heading. A few recent examples: Afghanistan Epic failure. Monumental disaster. And folks, let’s not make this all political and stand by our respective parties...

Recently a leader of a large evangelical church body was found to have delivered a sermon which had been written and preached by his colleague. The preacher/administrator apologized and explained his motivation by saying, “I wanted to show people my heart.” To avoid the “we all do that” dismissal of our sinful practice of self-posturing or “fronting”, we can think of examples of men at the gym who may choose cars some women find appealing, and the women with their makeup and revealing clothes, for whatever reasons. ...

I love a good mystery! Suspense and thriller novels are great for getting your blood racing and keeping you on the edge of your seat, but cozies are a good way to relax and reduce stress. Intrigue and deception draw a reader into the story to see if he can figure out the puzzle before the big reveal. Cozy mysteries offer a story about people and places that makes the reader want to spend time with these characters and become friends...

“Mama” was wise in the past, and I pray that she still will be in the future. Mama had many wise sayings which she quoted. What Mama says is “law”. “My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother.” (Proverbs 1:8) Mothers have laws because they know that God has laws of his own for which He will hold men accountable. ...

As people age, their bodies do not absorb nutrients as well as they did when they were young. It is because of this lack of absorption, many older adults suffer from vitamin deficiencies, and the most common include calcium, vitamin D, magnesium, vitamin E, and B vitamins. The most important are B vitamins, especially, B12 and Vitamin D3...

I have spent hours writing on the hospital project. I have spoke to representatives on both sides of the aisle on the hospital project, those for and those against. I have expressed my personal desire to see some action taken concerning the progression of the hospital project...

Psalm 14 is described by a Biblical Hebrew scholar and commentator as a revealing of ungodliness in two ways: in flouting God’s law and oppressing His people. The former is shown in Verses 1-3, where the psalmist sings, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good. ...