If you want to find out what mattered most to someone, read his last words. Usually, whatever a person considers to be most important is on his mind when he comes to his last days on earth. That’s why we pay so much attention to last words, especially of people who are important to us.
If you know me at all, then you know that I love football. One of the rules of football is to “do unto others before they can do unto you.” And while that rule may not always apply, the dynamics of the sport keep players uniquely connected throughout the game. Players often feed off of each other, rising to a higher level of performance than they ever could on their own.
Just like any excellent military commander or athletic coach, Satan has a strategy—a game plan—for accomplishing his agenda.
In the tragic play Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare famously wrote, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” While the English playwright didn’t place a lot of merit on them, God has a very different idea on the importance of a name.
But when some were becoming hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the Way before the people, he withdrew from them and took away the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus. (Acts 19:9)