Presby-Musings

Against my better judgment, I decided to watch some cable news this week in an attempt to get caught up on what was happening in the world beyond my daily newspaper.   Yes, I've gone back to reading the newspaper every day.  It's definitely more soothing than listening to people shout at each other on what now passes as "news" programs on television.   But I decided this week to branch out a bit, and I instantly regretted it.   Civility in public discourse is a thing of the past.  All politicians and pundits seem capable of doing now is speaking in angry sound bites that can be tweeted and retweeted with ease.   And everyone is talking around one another, saying whatever gets them the most television coverage or likes on Facebook.   The poet Adrienne Rich summed up the state of our current culture with these hard words:  In those years, people will say, we lost track of the meaning of we , of you we found ou...

One of the many things I struggle with in my journey of stumbling after Jesus is the way I often use words to tear down rather than to build up.   In Proverbs 18:21 we have the following incredibly wise saying from Solomon, the wisest man in the Bible:   "The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love to talk will reap its consequences..."  The things we say have the power to give life or to take it.  When we speak we can speak life---or we can speak death.  We can produce good, life-giving, beautiful things with our words---or we can produce evil, death-dealing, ugly things.  Thoughts become words.  Words become actions.  Our thoughts can become words that produce actions that not only shape our lives, but the very world around us...  As Pastor Craig Groeschel writes, if you want to change the life you have---you have to change the words you speak.  Small changes in the words we speak can make a big difference...

Words are powerful. Words have the power to give life or to take it away.   Words have the power to heal or destroy.   "Death and life are in the power of the tongue," Proverbs 18:21 states.  In Proverbs 21:23 we read, "Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue, keeps himself out of trouble."   I am ashamed to admit that there have been times in my life when I have used my words to hurt or destroy others.   Sometimes I've done it unintentionally, but there have been more than a few times when I've used hurtful and killing words out of malice and anger.  And most of the time, the person I've said those words about never heard them.   We have this mistaken notion that the things we say are somehow harmless if the person we're referring to can't hear us say them.     What I've learned about the power of words is that even though the person about whom I am speaking my angry, hurtful words isn't within earshot---they are hurt ...

This week our daily reflections will be focused once again on one of the "hard sayings" of Jesus.  The difficult words of Jesus that we're wrestling with this week come to us from Matthew 5:22 where Jesus said, "But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, 'Raca,' is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell." There's this verse in the New Testament book of Colossians that I've always thought a bid odd.  The Apostle Paul was writing a letter to a group of Christians in the ancient city of Colossae and he's closing it out at the end with a bunch of "how-to's" on what it means to live as Christians.  The verse reads like this, "Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone."   W...

This week our daily reflections will be focused once again on one of the "hard sayings" of Jesus.  The difficult words of Jesus that we're wrestling with this week come to us from Matthew 5:22 where Jesus said, "But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, 'Raca,' is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell." In Luke 6:45 Jesus teaches what it means when our outside matches our inside--when we our words reveal what we are really like on the inside.     A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of . I've known a guy my whole life, the kind of guy I call a "One-Upper."  Maybe you've run into these kinds of people from time to time...