Before I was in the ministry, I worked for an online retailer. During my first year-and-a-half at the company, I managed the customer service department. We hired mostly young people in their late teens and early twenties. For many of them, it was their first job after finishing high school or college.

Over the course of hiring for the various customer service positions, I received many resumes. Some were creative and others were simple records of education and previous experience.

I have a book with some thoughts from stoic philosophers that I look through occasionally. The Stoics weren’t perfect, and the extremes of some of their thinking were off. But the best of them did not fit many of the stereotypes we read. One of them, Seneca, is often thought to have been a friend of the Apostle Paul, and ancient letters they supposedly exchanged are out there, but most good accounts hold that the letters are fakes.

That said, something I read this morning caught my eye. By one man’s translation, Seneca once wrote “There is no vice which lacks a defense.” The rest of the quote goes into how it is easier to tackle bad habits early in life instead of later, and that would be a great post for another time. But this is the part that grabbed my attention, and it is very biblical.