Musings with PWC

 How to preach morality in an immoral/amoral culture Premise: Christians, followers of Jesus Christ, march to a different beat—than non-Christians.  There are three things that are noted about this: 1.  The ‘different beat’ is all too often unrecognized. 2.  The ‘different beat’ is used as a bat or stick to beat up non-marchers. 3.   The ‘different beat’ needs to be permeated with the soothing sounds of grace and mercy.  1.  The ‘different beat’ is all too often unrecognized. What I mean by this is simple.  If Christians see the Bible as the source of morality (see last blog)—that lifestyle should be easily recognized in our culture.  Our culture is basically ignorant of the Bible—at best—or at worst—anti-biblical.  If you choose to be Biblical in your morality you are juxtaposed to our culture.  The problem that exists is simple—that’s not true in too many situations! Persons, reportedly ‘Christians’ are not following Biblical morality—that’s a problem! 2.  The

When Jesus was being ‘tried’ by Pilate, Pilate asked Jesus an interesting question: “What is truth?” (John 18:38) In the moral landscape that is present in our culture—truth and morals are becoming an increasingly difficult concept to process.  As a Biblical person, I believe there is a less complicated process of understanding this quagmire of opinions. There are simply three questions that need to be asked: 1.  Is there such as thing as morals? I am looking for a definite yes here.  But, perhaps you might find a more amoral culture. Let’s define these terms (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com)  # 1 Morals:  Concerned with the principles of right and wrong behaviour. # 2. Amoral:  Lacking a moral sense;  unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something # 3.  Immoral:  Not conforming to accepted standards of morality, 'unseemly and immoral behaviour.' Most people—I am suggesting—will side with the first definition: they are concerned with prin

           I’m a musician.   I love music.   I started playing instruments when I was seven years old.   I have been involved on the platform in some musical fashion, pretty well all of my life.   That position translates into this:   I have spent the majority of Sundays looking at congregations during worship.   I keep asking myself a question—so now I want to ask it out-loud.   ‘Why do people not sing?’   Are they bored?   Don’t they get it? Don’t they understand public worship?   I’m not sure.            However I want to tell you about my two favourite singers.   I’m going to change their names to protect the guilty—I’ll call them Frank and Herb.   They are my favourite singers because they are — well—awful.   I’m a musician—I have an ear for music.   I can tell if someone is—kind of close to the note that is suppose to be sung.   These two guys are a mile off.   They sing their heads off—in church—and sound hilarious to a musician.   If the song ca

One of the many paradoxes of the Christian life is this thing we call ‘self-confidence.’  As little children our parents would encourage us to be confident.  And, to a certain degree they were correct.  A child scared of her own shadow—will probably not grow to up to be emotionally healthy.  So there is a realm of self-confidence that is necessary and needed, in order to function in this world.      However, there is another realm of self-confidence that could be a boat anchor in your spiritual life.  The Apostle Peter, made the mistake of trusting in himself.  You will probably recall that when Jesus prophesied that the Apostles would all desert Him (Matthew 26:31) Peter boasted: “Even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you!”  Yes!  Boast on Peter. Jesus drops the bomb on Peter’s self-confidence: “I tell you the truth, Peter—this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.”  But,Peter’s self confidence is