You Think Too Much!

I’m aware that I do not have many readers here, but I would like for any of you to tell or guess who said the following.  If you have no idea, maybe you could guess what the context of the quote might be?  What is the subject being discussed?

You have the idea that the Bible is pristine, directly from God to you. However the Bible took a very, very long time to get to you and in that time there have been many, many people who have handled it. The Holy Spirit has declared the truthfulness of the Bible to us, in that we have not just a belief but a knowledge that the Bible is true. We do not have a witness that the Bible is unaltered by fallible man.

Happy guessing.  Also, please invite all your friends to comment also.  If you do know certainly, please do not give your source of knowledge.

I believe we all would do well to attend to the words that come out of our mouths (or keyboards).  Too many Christians supply sanitized (baptized) words for vulgarity and blasphemy in their vocabulary.  I suppose that young people that grow up in this sanitized environment do not know the real equivalents yet, but God does.  And he says we’ll answer for every idle word we speak.

I do not think that their is anything wrong with expressing pain, anguish, frustration, etc., with groans, or moans, or other sounds.  The problem is when we put vulgar or blasphemous words and ideas with those feelings.

Now, for one example that I hope will get us all thinking before we open our mouths:

• Gosh-darn
• Doggone
• Dadgum, etc.

Now if we are sincerely thinking that the next word is damned by God, or should be God-damned, then just use the real words.  If not, we shouldn’t baptize or sanitize our blasphemy.

The same goes for stink, crap, freakin’, jeso-pete, and many others.

Matthew 12:36  But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.

AND

Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. (Romans 11:22)

Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? (Romans 2:4)

And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. (Jude 1:23)

Today I read the first verse listed and it sent my mind on a recently familiar exercise.  God works in our lives to bring us to repentance.  Until we repent, everything that happens to us is to bring us to repentance — the good things (Romans 2:4) and the hard things (Jude 1:23).

When we deal with people, we are sometimes good (soft) and other times “mean” (hard), but our goal is to bring them to repentance.

Even when God is good to you, it is so that you will come to repentance.

God calls all men everywhere to repentance.

You may have experienced the goodness of God and you may think that you are in the family of God, but if you’ve never come to repentance, that goodness is calling you to Him and soon it may become severity trying to drive you to Him.  But you must come to Jesus, the Lord of all to finally have God’s goodness.

As long as you insist on doing your own thing, you will never end up with God’s goodness.  He will cut you off from Himself altogether.

Turn from your pride and yourself and submit to the Lord Jesus Christ!

Three men were walking on a wall,
Feeling, Faith, and Fact.
When Feeling took an awful fall
and Faith was taken back.
So close was Faith to Feeling
that he stumbled and fell too.
But Fact remained and pulled Faith up,
with Faith came Feeling too.

Annette came home from the mother-daughter banquet with a little card with this poem on it.  She also convinced me to listen to the talk Bridget Brandenburg gave to the ladies that night.  It was an excellent presentation and addresses an issue that is foundational to all of life.  I encourage you to listen to it.  I will begin using a new service at mypodcast.com.  Click on the “You Talk Too Much” tab above and you’ll be taken to my page there where you’ll find her presentation.

It has come to my mind on several occasions that worldliness and immaturity are bedfellows.  The world has no desire to be mature.  The world craves youth and vitality.  The world scorns the gray head.  Whether it be the wisdom of the gray head or the looks of the gray head. Our culture wants to be young forever.  This cultural norm carries itself into every sphere of life — intellectual, spiritual, physical and social.

Intellectual immaturity can reveal itself in many ways, but I believe they all are worldly.

Spiritual immaturity can also be seen in many ways and is also worldly.

The type of physical maturity I’m thinking of here is not a developmental immaturity, but rather a desire for the physical to remain young.  This is worldly.

Social immaturity is seen clearly in styles around us and worldly styles are immature.  Immature styles are worldly.  If you saw a forty year old man dressed like a 19 year old, you’d think he was immature and I’d think he was too concerned with “fitting in” (with the world).

Why should we allow Christian young people to be immature in any of these areas?  We want our young people to be spiritually mature, to be able to make decisions about what they should do with their life, but we allow them to keep their hair in an immature (worldly) way.  We allow them to dress in immature (worldly) ways.  We say, “give them time.”  And I say, “Let’s be consistent.”  Let’s demand maturity of mind, heart, strength, and soul.  Let’s correct immaturity while it’s young.

Some may say, “I don’t want my kids to grow up too fast.”  WHY NOT?

For many reasons, I have been thinking about this for quite some time. I have taught on this topic before and may need to use these questions myself someday. Quite a while ago I saw this list of questions and they have me adding some others.

Here’s a developing list for fathers to ask young men who might be interested in their daughters.  I will occasionally be adding to this list, and when I do, I’ll bring the post to the top of the blog. These are not in any particular order.

• How old are you? At what age do you think you will be ready to get married?
• Do you have any debt? What is the nature of your debt?
• How do you budget your money?
• What characteristics does my daughter have that would strain your relationship?
• What characteristics do you have that would strain your relationship?
• What do you think you will do with your life vocationally?
• …..

All languages consist of individual parts that essentially have no moral value. The smallest parts even have no meaning: qwertyuiop, asdfghjkl, zxcvbnm. The meaning comes when you take the smallest parts (letters) and arrange them into words. This is a simple proposition that works to refute the idea that music is amoral. Music has often been called a language. The idea, while true, does not solve the problem outright. The reason is that “word has meanings.”

Let’s take the word ‘jam.’ How many meanings can you think of for this simple word?

1. I put jam on my toast this morning.
2. These latest developments have me in a jam.
3. Just jam the towel in the bag.
4. I jammed my toe when I had to jam the brakes at the traffic jam.
5. The basketball player had quite a jam!
6. Let’s get our instruments and jam!

How about these words:

• run
• screw
• help
• dog

Where do all these meanings come from? They come from two places: the context immediately and the culture ultimately. I understand what meaning to put with ‘jam’ because I can read the other words and understand their relationship to ‘jam.’ I can read and understand the sentence because I am familiar with my own culture.

Can you imagine what the same arrangement of letters would mean in a different culture? What does ‘jam’ mean in Finnish, Dutch, Malaysian, German, Spanish, French, etc. Even English has cultural differences. I recently traveled quickly through London. While we in America wonder, everyone in London knows what ‘Mind the gap’ means (Watch your step). ‘Way Out’ in England means ‘Exit’ in America.

Our understanding of a language is dictated by the culture in which we find it. I believe the same is true with musical language.

Here’s your assignment: what does the music of our culture that worships sex, materialism, and rebellion sound like?

Terry McGovern asked a good question in the comments of my notes about a Christian and music. After I finished writing my response, I concluded that it was about as long as a whole post. So, I decided to put it on top.

Terry,

The melody/spiritual, harmony/intellectual, rhythm/physical argument about the style of music seems to ring true to me also. But, as far as I can tell, it is not a Scriptural one in the sense of being able to find it articulated that way in the Bible.

Arguing for, or against, specific styles of music is difficult because we can’t hear the music that David sang or Paul referred to. I say that, just admitting that this is a reason CCM musicians cling to their style of music. Someone would be hard-pressed to convince a CCMer that their music is wrong.

On the other hand, someone who has been recently saved or turned back to the Lord should have little difficulty with the “worldly worship music” arguement I presented here. I believe it was probably clearer to hear the arguement than to read the notes I used to develop it.

Fleshing it out…

All styles of music designed to be used to worship the flesh, the eyes, and pride are worldly music. This is music that exalts sensuality, worldly pleasures, materialism, fornication, rebellion. There are many American titles that immediatly come to mind, but the principle should be applicable across cultural lines. I think this principle would be more easily applied than the melody/harmony/rhythm principle.

Look at the culture you are in. Determine what kind of music is used in that culture to worship the world (flesh, eyes, pride). Then refrain from singing, enjoying or employing that kind of music.

For those who would say that this limits the believer to only “sacred” music. Remember that other good, pure, lovely things can be communicated with words and they could also be communicated with music. If the theme of some music was love. Love that is represented biblically, it could easily be performed and enjoyed by a Christian. There’s a difference between love and lust.

 

Epistemology is the study of knowledge. Another way to say that is, “How do we know what we know?” The nature of humanity and knowledge forces upon all of us one of two states: ignorance or omniscience. Ultimately, each of us is either all knowing or not knowing. Now you are probably sitting there with this response, “Oh, come on now, I know I know some things, even if not everything.” Okay, you’ll admit you don’t know everything. Is there a possibility that something that you don’t know could change the meaning of something that you think you know? Of course there is! All of us have changed what we knew about something once we gained more information. So the possibility exists that everything we “know” could be changed by so much that we don’t know. In order to know anything certainly we have to be omniscient. We must know everything or not be sure of anything.

The world today understands this. This is why no one thinks that anyone can know what the truth is. Most question everyone’s authority because “even that person can’t know everything.” This is why the world is hopeless.  The world is ignorant and they know it. It is like they are in a rowboat in the middle of the Pacific with no oars and no compass, drifting and hopeless.

Somebody might be saying, “How do you know that? What about what you don’t know?” Well, that’s a fair enough question. How can anybody be so sure that they know anything? No one is omniscient. True and False. I’m not omniscient. If I didn’t have help, I would be totally ignorant. But I have a Friend Who is omniscient. He knows everything, and whatever I learn from Him, I can be sure it is true and right altogether. The Christian who trusts the Word of God has an anchor that keeps the soul steady on the restless sea of life.

Knowing God. Fearing God. Obeying God. These are all foundational to knowing anything. The source of all knowledge is God, and the only way for ignorant man to be sure of any knowledge is for that man to fear, obey, know, and depend on God and His Word.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.  Proverbs 1:7