Dear Henry and Hannah,
I trust that you are well and prospering in your current season. While I share with you what is happening in the 21st century, in this rapidly changing world, it’s such a pity that I will likely never experience what it is like in your century, a hundred years from now.
Nonetheless, the Bible makes it crystal clear what the last days will be like. Thus, I am experiencing some of His prophecies, and if life lasts until then, so will you.
Hen and Han, you know your great-great-great-great aunt loves a good reasoning session, and fortunately, I had one with my neighbor a short while ago.
Before I get ahead of myself in relaying the conversation, I need to make it clear that the Holy Spirit helped me during the discourse. Loving a good reasoning session doesn’t mean I can secure victory in this or any other friendly yet serious debate.
By the way, I am not implying that I won the debate because winning wasn’t the end goal, and I highly doubt that the Holy Spirit would have provided these practical examples if my only goal were to score one over my neighbor.
Frankly, I am not that type of person. My fondest reasoning sessions are the ones in which I learn so much that I am motivated to research the topic further.
Anyhoo, let me get right to the meat of the matter. By any chance, in 100 years, these idioms don’t make it over into 2126; ‘meat of the matter’ simply means that I will get to the point.
Okay, here we go.
It started when my neighbor and I, along with others, went to a friend’s house party. The music was playing, and as I sat down towards the center stage, I audibly subjected my body to refrain from moving to the all-too-familiar beats. You see, my body loves to move when it hears music, and since we are not about that life, I wanted to make sure it didn’t react, even though it was mild.
My neighbor, who is also a Christian, sat beside me and took the opportunity to ask a question that would form the basis of the debate. Paraphrasing, he asked me if there is an issue with Christians dancing or reacting to the lyrics of songs by worldly musicians, even when the words are clean.
The question was fitting; my tongue, being the pen of a ready writer, was rife with a response, but the moment and perhaps the location weren’t conducive to clearly communicating it.
I told my neighbor I would respond when we returned to our previous seating area, before the master of ceremonies asked us to gather more closely, as that part of the proceedings required our undivided attention.
The question was right up my alley, mainly because before this neighbor joined me on the right, another neighbor on my left and I had a similar discussion.
When we got our meals, we returned to our first sitting area and waited for our third neighbor to pick up his food and rejoin us.
Henry and Hannah, although you may never meet me in person, from my letters, you would have known enough about me to know which side of the debate I was on. As you would have guessed, my position on the matter was that Christians should not be listening to music from unsaved people, even if the lyrics seem pure.
My neighbor disagreed.
He believes that no matter who sings the songs, he will embrace them as long as the words are right, pure, and authentic.
Hen and Han, I can just sense the tension among some of the people listening to my letter to you, as some have already taken sides across the divide.
With that said, I hasten to remind our listeners that, one, this is a healthy conversation with a neighbor I respect, and at the end of the day, there are no hard feelings either way.
Two, just know that I, like my neighbor, have receipts to back up my position.
Do you?
So there will be no confusion; let me state it clearly so that whoever reads my letter to you can confidently take their position before we present the receipts.
Do you believe that Christians should listen to music by worldly musicians if the lyrics are clean, or ‘conscious’
I, Patrene Dawkins, disagree that Christians should be listening to music from worldly singers, even if the lyrics are clean.
What do you say?
While I made a few points to my neighbor, the location still wasn’t ideal because we were eating, and, of course, I would have to compete with the music.
In my initial points, I also stated that Christians should not even be listening to music by some musicians who call themselves Christian gospel artists. I even stated that one popular “gospel” singer said he writes his music naked.
If need be, I may share more in my private letters to you, but I doubt I will write further about this lowly individual.
Fast forward to about a week after the party, the Holy Spirit placed an analogy in my spirit, and I acted on it to debunk my neighbor’s position. Let’s call my neighbor Matt.
I said, Matt, if I pick up an empty, dirty drink bottle, pour some clean juice into it, and give it to you, would you drink it? Matt said no. I asked him why, and he said the juice would be contaminated.
I kid you not, “contaminated” was the word I didn’t even know I needed Matt to use.
So I said that, just as the juice is contaminated by being in a dirty bottle, the songs are contaminated because they come out of unclean vessels.
I hope no one misunderstands me. I am sharing a debate with my neighbor and am not calling anyone unclean in that context.
Matt reiterated that if the words are clean, he will listen, no matter who sang the song. In his arguments, he went all over the place, from the ability to discern good from bad to pastors in church quoting music by popular worldly artists.
I told him that just because the pastors did that doesn’t mean that they are right. While I didn’t explain this part as I should have, the word of God is sufficient, so pastors don’t need to preach with words from the world.
We also found ourselves conversing about at least two other Christian-related topics, which drained our energy and left me constantly trying to return to the original issue.
Looking back, we both veered off topic and returned whenever we found a spec of ammunition to back our positions on the issue at hand. None of us was backing down from our positions, even when we were just reusing dwindling ammo.
Truthfully, I was underprepared for the dust Matt would kick up as he went all out to prove why he stood behind his position.
In hindsight, reading the room, Matt was working; he was a bit more agitated than I wanted, and I had to decide whether I wanted to savor neighborly relations or prove a point.
While I maintained my position, there wasn’t much more I could say to convince Matt, especially when he put forward the question, ‘What if the worldly artist sang the words from the Bible and, in his songs, instructed people to surrender their lives to Christ, even when he wasn’t living that life?’
At this point, I want to acknowledge that Matt’s question was strong. This question made me think, and even though my ammunition was low, I managed to double down on the idea that artists often mix truth with error, and that truth mixed with error is error.
(Even though this was my argument, as an objective person, I’ve deduced a weakness in this particular argument. Can you detect it?)
My response wasn’t inadequate, but I didn’t think it did enough damage. While accurate, my statement wasn’t an effective antidote to Matt’s thought-provoking question.
I continued to maintain that dirty vessels cannot produce clean contents and that even when we think that the words are clean, they are spiritually corrupted or contaminated- the latter, as Matt puts it, when I asked him about the dirty bottle scenario.
I also shared that spiritual entanglements are more than what we can see and hear and are often rooted in the spirit’s motive in producing the content, whether that be darkness or light.
A stronger point than the one before, if I say so myself.
After a bit of light conversation to pacify Matt’s mild agitation, I went back home.
While I wouldn’t say I was defeated, like any well-thinking athlete, I replayed and analyzed the game once I was home.
One thing I usually do is analyze my play beforehand, considering all the opponent’s possible plays. But this time, I didn’t do my homework because I was so sure that the analogy of a dirty drink container with clean juice would have sealed the deal.
When you consider it, it should have, but it didn’t.
Frankly, in my analysis, I also concluded that while I should have been more prepared, additional preparation likely wouldn’t have made much difference. Matt held strong to his point (I will prove this to you in part two), and again, he was more agitated than I would want to handle.
Henry and Hannah, while we both held our points, being the fair person I am, I would give Matt the upper hand in this round.
Again, some people will agree, and others won’t.
While Matt won this round, it doesn’t mean that I conceded to the idea of people listening to music by worldly artists. There is no such thing as light mixing with darkness; the purpose of light is to drive out darkness. Hence, if the lyrics the artist purports to have written were clean enough to be approved by God, he should have been convinced to surrender his life to God.
But debate winners aren’t always determined by facts; other factors matter, such as presentation style, arguments from both sides, confidence, etc.
But thankfully, there’s part two.
A few days later, I was minding my business on the computer, and the Holy Spirit gave me another analogy. I jumped from the computer desk because I knew Matt could not escape this profound spiritual ammunition.
But the Holy Spirit didn’t stop there; He gave me another one, one that was spiritually sound, and even more so, Biblically backed. The second was to ensure that I didn’t run out of spiritually bulletproof points.
For the next few weeks, I watched Matt over his yard, but it was never the right time. My car was down; he was helping to fix it; the holidays were upon us; and Matt’s responses to my regular greetings were short and sharp.
Matt was either too busy or stressed, and at one point, he even said he had a lot to do.
It wasn’t the right time, and I didn’t want agitation to interfere with the point standing this time. Secondly, I honestly thought it wasn’t a good idea to bring up a roughly three-week-old topic to make the hairs on Matt’s head stand up again.
But as faith would have it, the right time finally came, and this time, I had enough spiritual ammunition to return home with the proverbial trophy.
Did I?
Find out in part two of my letter to my great, great, great, great-nephew and niece, Henry and Hannah, in the 22nd century.
Henry and Hannah, this letter is already too long; thus, I will leave it here until I write to you again.
With lots of love.
Your great, great, great, great aunt,
Patrene
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