{"id":753,"date":"2005-12-07T11:56:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-07T11:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2005\/12\/billy-graham-at-christmas.html"},"modified":"2005-12-07T11:56:00","modified_gmt":"2005-12-07T11:56:00","slug":"billy-graham-at-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/12\/billy-graham-at-christmas.html","title":{"rendered":"Billy Graham at Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My parents still live in Charlotte, home of Billy Graham, as well as my family, and they sent me this wonderful story which so epitomizes this wonderful soldier of Christ. I thought I would share it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<br \/>Billy Graham is 86 years old with Parkinson&#8217;s disease.<\/p>\n<p>In January 2000, leaders in Charlotte, North Carolina, invited their favorite son, <br \/>Billy Graham, to a luncheon in his honor. <\/p>\n<p>Billy initially hesitated to accept the invitation because he struggles with <br \/>Parkinson&#8217;s disease. But the Charlotte leaders said, &#8220;We don&#8217;t <br \/>expect a major address. Just come and let us honor you.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p> So he agreed. <\/p>\n<p>After wonderful things were said about him, Dr. Graham stepped to<br \/>the rostrum, looked at the crowd, and said, &#8220;I&#8217;m reminded today of<br \/>Albert Einstein, the great physicist who this month has been honored <br \/>by Time magazine as the Man of the Century. <br \/>Einstein was once traveling from Princeton on a train<br \/>when the conductor came down the aisle, punching the tickets <br \/>of every passenger.   When he came to Einstein, <br \/>Einstein reached in his vest pocket. He couldn&#8217;t find his<br \/>ticket, so he reached in his other pocket. It wasn&#8217;t there, so he<br \/>looked in his briefcase but couldn&#8217;t find it. Then he looked in the<br \/>seat by him. He couldn&#8217;t find it. <\/p>\n<p>The conductor said, &#8220;Dr. Einstein, I know who you are. We all know<br \/>who you are. I&#8217;m sure you bought a ticket. Don&#8217;t worry about it.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Einstein nodded appreciatively. The conductor continued down the<br \/>aisle punching tickets. As he was ready to move to the next car, he<br \/>turned around and saw the great physicist down on his hands and<br \/>knees looking under his seat for his ticket. <\/p>\n<p>The conductor rushed back and said, &#8220;Dr. Einstein, Dr. Einstein,<br \/>don&#8217;t worry, I know who you are. No problem. You don&#8217;t need a<br \/>ticket. I&#8217;m sure you bought one.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Einstein looked at him and said,<br \/>&#8220;Young man, I too, know who I am. What I don&#8217;t know is where I&#8217;m going.'&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Having said that Billy Graham continued, &#8220;See the suit I&#8217;m wearing? <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a brand new suit. My wife, my children, and my grandchildren<br \/>are telling me I&#8217;ve gotten a little slovenly in my old age. I used<br \/>to be a bit more fastidious. So I went out and bought a new suit<br \/>for this luncheon and one more occasion. <\/p>\n<p>You know what that occasion is? This is the suit in which I&#8217;ll be<br \/>buried. But when you hear I&#8217;m dead, I don&#8217;t want you to immediately<br \/>remember the suit I&#8217;m wearing.. I want you to remember this: <\/p>\n<p>I not only know who I am, &#8230;  I also know where I&#8217;m going.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Amen to that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My parents still live in Charlotte, home of Billy Graham, as well as my family, and they sent me this wonderful story which so epitomizes this wonderful soldier of Christ. I thought I would share it. &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-Billy Graham is 86 years old with Parkinson&#8217;s disease. In January 2000, leaders in Charlotte, North Carolina, invited their&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Billy Graham at Christmas - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/12\/billy-graham-at-christmas.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Billy Graham at Christmas - The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My parents still live in Charlotte, home of Billy Graham, as well as my family, and they sent me this wonderful story which so epitomizes this wonderful soldier of Christ. I thought I would share it. &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-Billy Graham is 86 years old with Parkinson&#8217;s disease. In January 2000, leaders in Charlotte, North Carolina, invited their&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/12\/billy-graham-at-christmas.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-12-07T11:56:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ben Witherington\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Billy Graham at Christmas - The Bible and Culture","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/12\/billy-graham-at-christmas.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Billy Graham at Christmas - The Bible and Culture","og_description":"My parents still live in Charlotte, home of Billy Graham, as well as my family, and they sent me this wonderful story which so epitomizes this wonderful soldier of Christ. I thought I would share it. &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-Billy Graham is 86 years old with Parkinson&#8217;s disease. In January 2000, leaders in Charlotte, North Carolina, invited their&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/12\/billy-graham-at-christmas.html","og_site_name":"The Bible and Culture","article_published_time":"2005-12-07T11:56:00+00:00","author":"Ben Witherington","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/12\/billy-graham-at-christmas.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/12\/billy-graham-at-christmas.html","name":"Billy Graham at Christmas - The Bible and Culture","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2005-12-07T11:56:00+00:00","dateModified":"2005-12-07T11:56:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/d1fd6c7893819eabc624db38ecfd8426"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/12\/billy-graham-at-christmas.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/12\/billy-graham-at-christmas.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/12\/billy-graham-at-christmas.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Billy Graham at Christmas"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/","name":"The Bible and Culture","description":"All Things Biblical and Christian","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/d1fd6c7893819eabc624db38ecfd8426","name":"Ben Witherington","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/75e\/75ec11e1916a2008bc4cc638a0a0de2fx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/75e\/75ec11e1916a2008bc4cc638a0a0de2fx96.jpg","caption":"Ben Witherington"},"description":"Bible scholar Ben Witherington is Amos Professor of New Testament for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary and on the doctoral faculty at St. Andrews University in Scotland. A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&amp;E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}