PURPOSE DRIVEN WORSHIP (7 OF 8)
by Jeff Strite
Scripture: Romans 12:1-8
This content is part of a series.
Purpose Driven Worship (7 of 8)
Series: Purpose Driven Life
Jeff Strite
Romans 12:1-8
OPEN: I love to collect stories, jokes and all kinds of odd information. As I was going through my files, I happened on the following oddities about how did we ended up with the measurements we now use as a society.
• Inch - was based upon a King by the name of Edgar... and an inch was the distance on his thumb from knuckle to tip. Of course, once he died, they had to come up with another way to make that measurement and so they began using barleycorns instead.
• Our present day Foot - was based upon the length of King Charlemagne's foot.
• King Henry gave us the Yard - measured from his nose to the tip of his fingers
• Our mile is presently 5280 feet. But originally it was a Roman measurement which was based upon the distance a Roman soldier could cover in 1000 paces - about 5000 feet.
But British farmers measured their fields in "furlongs", which were 660 feet long and they didn't want to change. So when the mile was introduced to England, it was changed to 5280 feet - or exactly 8 furlongs.
• Does anybody know the distance from a baseball pitcher's mound to home plate? 60 feet, 6 inches. The pitching distance was 50 feet until 1893 - when some baseball executives changed it to 60 feet. But the surveyor they hired to remap their infield misread their instruction - he saw 60 feet 0 inches and tho't it was 60 feet 6 inches. The extra 6 inches have been there ever since.
• And lastly, the length of a marathon is how far? 26 miles 385 yards. The distance of a marathon was first standardized at 25 miles in 1896. During the 1908 London Olympics, however, Queen Alexandra wanted her grandchildren to see the start of the race. So, the starting line was moved back 1 mile and 385 yards - onto the front lawn of Windsor Castle. Marathons are still that length today.
APPLY: And that is how we got many of the measurements that we now have.
As I reflected on this informatio ...
Series: Purpose Driven Life
Jeff Strite
Romans 12:1-8
OPEN: I love to collect stories, jokes and all kinds of odd information. As I was going through my files, I happened on the following oddities about how did we ended up with the measurements we now use as a society.
• Inch - was based upon a King by the name of Edgar... and an inch was the distance on his thumb from knuckle to tip. Of course, once he died, they had to come up with another way to make that measurement and so they began using barleycorns instead.
• Our present day Foot - was based upon the length of King Charlemagne's foot.
• King Henry gave us the Yard - measured from his nose to the tip of his fingers
• Our mile is presently 5280 feet. But originally it was a Roman measurement which was based upon the distance a Roman soldier could cover in 1000 paces - about 5000 feet.
But British farmers measured their fields in "furlongs", which were 660 feet long and they didn't want to change. So when the mile was introduced to England, it was changed to 5280 feet - or exactly 8 furlongs.
• Does anybody know the distance from a baseball pitcher's mound to home plate? 60 feet, 6 inches. The pitching distance was 50 feet until 1893 - when some baseball executives changed it to 60 feet. But the surveyor they hired to remap their infield misread their instruction - he saw 60 feet 0 inches and tho't it was 60 feet 6 inches. The extra 6 inches have been there ever since.
• And lastly, the length of a marathon is how far? 26 miles 385 yards. The distance of a marathon was first standardized at 25 miles in 1896. During the 1908 London Olympics, however, Queen Alexandra wanted her grandchildren to see the start of the race. So, the starting line was moved back 1 mile and 385 yards - onto the front lawn of Windsor Castle. Marathons are still that length today.
APPLY: And that is how we got many of the measurements that we now have.
As I reflected on this informatio ...
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