Wellington Church of Christ

Every new year I like to go through the Bible to see how Bible verses correspond with the new year.  For instance, this upcoming year is 2021, so I look at every book of the Bible that has a chapter “20” and a verse “21,” just to see what they say.

There’s nothing prophetic or mystical about it, but it’s fun.  This year I thought we could look at the verses together and see what 20:21 has in store for us…

We’ve all heard the saying, “The best things in life are free,” but is that true?  I think that it’s both true and false.

I would modify the saying to say, “Few of the best things in life are free.” 

Think about it.  Now name some good things that are free.  One might say, “To behold the beauty of nature is free.”  Is that free?  Because the last time I checked, it costs me quite a lot to enjoy the beauty of nature.

Holy Scripture does us absolutely no good whatsoever if we do not learn and remember the lessons that it teaches us. 

One of the most important lessons that God teaches us that we must learn and remember is found in the words of the Lord in Isaiah 55:8-9

In the text of Matthew 16:13-20, there is some confusion that must be sorted out, but what we must not do in the midst of sorting out the confusion is miss the point.

The key of the text is the words of Jesus as He proclaims in verse 18, I will build My church.

God doesn’t tell us much about the afterlife.  He prefers for the details to be a mystery, to be something that we believe in based on faith.

Even the apostle Paul is not permitted to tell us what he knows.  In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul explains in vs 4 that he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak.  Why isn’t he permitted to speak these the words he heard there?  Simply put, God won’t allow it.

The song, which is eight minutes thirty-three seconds in length, is loaded with cultural references, some cryptic and some obvious.  His inspiration for writing the song came after three of the worlds most famous musicians died together in a plane crash in 1959 – Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and JP “The Big Bopper” Richardson.  But he didn’t write the song in 1959.  In 1959, McLean was only 13 years old.

It’s easy to be unfair.  It takes time and mental effort to really be fair.  Most people don’t want to do that, which creates a lot of our current world problems.

I know already that it’s a losing battle to try to get you to avoid simplification, but hear me out.  In some ways, simplification is a good thing.