Swearing

I’ve recently been involved in a number of conversations about Christianity and swearing.

This week, a Catholic friend whom I very much respect suggested the possibility that it might be okay to “swear intentionally in the proper context”. I took some time to write a substantial reply on social media, so I thought I’d share it here as well, as I think it sums up my main thoughts on the subject…

Objections To Swearing

1. Biblical Baseline

The first objection I see to swearing is the clear motif from Scripture concerning Christian speech. To begin with, we are told that the words of our mouth are important:

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Psalm 19:14
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PWJ: S4E45 – AH – “After Hours” with Dr. Robert Royal

After hearing Dr. Robert Royal give a two-part lecture series on The Screwtape Letters to The Institute of Catholic Culture, we invited him onto the show to talk about everyone’s favourite devil.

S4E45: “After Hours” with Dr. Robert Royal (Download)

If you enjoy this episode, you can subscribe manually, or any place where good podcasts can be found (iTunesGoogle Play, AmazonPodbeanStitcherTuneIn and Overcast), as well as on YouTube. The roadmap for Season 4 is available here.

More information about us can be found on our website, PintsWithJack.com. If you’d like to support us and get fantastic gifts, please join us on Patreon.

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Sitting down with a Jehovah’s Witness

So, as many of you know, a couple of weeks ago I had Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) scheduled to visit my home. I had already received two rounds of visits from them but had not yet managed to get them across my threshold. However, on their previous visit they had promised that next time they would have time to come in and have a proper chat.

I had received my first visit about a month earlier when two female JWs had called. During our discussion on the doorstep, I had spoken a little bit about my reversion to Catholicism and about how the question of the canon had played an important part in my return, being rather unimpressed with the various Protestant explanations as to the Bible’s Table Of Contents. Since JWs are distinctly set apart from Protestants, I asked the ladies on my doorstep how they would justify the contents of the Biblical canon. They had no explanation, but said that they would find out and get back to me.

Several weeks later, two gentlemen rang my doorbell, saying that they had heard from their associates that I was interested in knowing about the “hidden” books of the Bible. I explained that my question was not about the deuterocanon/apocrypha per se, but rather about the Biblical canon as a whole. How did they know the right books were in the Bible? How did they know that there were no wrong ones included and no books missed out? Unfortunately, they said that they didn’t have time to talk with me there and then, but they booked an appointment for the following week.

In today’s blog post I’d like to explain what happened on this next visit and the rather interesting turn of events towards the end…

Tea_Feature

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PWJ: S4E5 – TSL 1 – “State of Confusion”

Today I was joined by guest co-host, Trent Horn, to discuss the first of Screwtape’s letters where the senior demon discusses reason and rhetoric.

S4E5: Letter #1 – “State of Confusion” (Download)

If you enjoy this episode, you can subscribe manually, or any place where good podcasts can be found (iTunesGoogle Play, Amazon, Podbean, Stitcher, TuneIn and Overcast), as well as on YouTube. The roadmap for Season 4 is available here.

More information about us can be found on our website, PintsWithJack.com. If you’d like to support us and get fantastic gifts, please join us on Patreon.

The roadmap for Season 4 is available here.

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PWJ: Bonus – Counsel of Trent and The Classical Theism Podcast

I was recently interviewed as a guest on two different podcasts: The Counsel of Trent and the Classical Theism Podcast. I would strongly encourage you to listen to the full episodes on the respective podcasts:

…however, I have put together this bonus episode with clips from those interviews to whet your appetite…

Bonus: Interviews on The Counsel of Trent and the Classical Theism Podcast (Download)

If you enjoy this episode, you can subscribe manually, or any place where good podcasts can be found (iTunesGoogle Play, Podbean, Stitcher, TuneIn and Overcast).

Time Stamps

00:40 – Clip from Counsel of Trent, Episode #190
04:44 – Clip from Counsel of Trent, Episode #191
10:05 – Clip from the Classical Theism Podcast, Episode #59

PWJ: S3E38 – Narnia – “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” (Part 2)

In today’s episode we finish our discussion of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

S3E38: “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Book, Part 2” (Download)

If you enjoy this episode, you can subscribe manually, or any place where good podcasts can be found (iTunesGoogle PlayPodbeanStitcherTuneIn and Overcast), as well as on YouTube.

More information about us can be found on our website, PintsWithJack.com. If you’d like to support us and get fantastic gifts, please join us on Patreon.

The roadmap for Season 3 is available here.

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Selah?

A very quick post today. As I mentioned before, I’m trying to read through the Bible in a year. At the moment in the plan, each day I a section from Genesis, a psalm and a section from Matthew’s Gospel. As I’ve been reading the Psalms, I noticed a curious word occasionally interspersed within the text, “Selah”:

O Lord, how many are my foes!
Many are rising against me;
many are saying of me,
    there is no help for him in God. Selah

But thou, O Lord, art a shield about me,
    my glory, and the lifter of my head.
I cry aloud to the Lord,
    and he answers me from his holy hill. Selah

I lie down and sleep;
    I wake again, for the Lord sustains me.
I am not afraid of ten thousands of people
    who have set themselves against me round about. – Psalm 3:1-6

I wasn’t sure what this meant so I did a bit of googling…

It turns out that the exact meaning of “Selah” is somewhat disputed, but Wikipedia suggests that “It is probably either a liturgico-musical mark or an instruction on the reading of the text, something like “stop and listen”. Selah can also be used to indicate that there is to be a musical interlude at that point in the Psalm”

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