Wellington Church of Christ

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.

For instance, say you are out with your family or friends and someone asks the impossibly daunting question, “Where are we going to eat?” (Sarcasm intended, but seriously, why is this such a hard decision?)

You’ve probably heard the saying before, “The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.”  It’s a bit of a cheesy saying, but true nonetheless.

In the case of Daniel, it took great courage for Daniel as a teenage, prisoner slave, to stand up to his captors, the mightiest nation in the world, and decide that he would not break God’s law to please them or to blend in.