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HOW A ROMAN BISHOP CHANGED THE WAY I READ THE BIBLE

By Jeffery Porter Leave a Comment

When I became a Christian as a sophomore in high school, it was clear that, as a Christian, reading the Bible was going to be a big part of my life. Every week my Sunday School teacher would ask us how many times we had read the Bible in the previous seven days. At youth group, my pastor encouraged me to memorize Scripture to counteract the worldly information I consumed through movie quotes and pop music lyrics. I recall often hearing other Christians talk about the importance of “getting into the Word,” and how essential a daily quiet time reading the Bible is for Christian spiritual development. In those early days of my faith I also remember finding myself unable to participate in some discussions with other Christians as they talked about obscure Bible stories and passages of which I had not yet learned.

Yet, my relationship to Scripture also quickly became complicated. Frustratingly, even though I knew it was important, I found reading the Bible quite difficult. The first couple chapters of Genesis were easy to read, and enjoyable for the most part. However, as I read along I found most of the Old Testament confusing, difficult to make sense of, and even boring. I always felt like I was missing something. Once I learned some important differences between the Old and New Testaments, I would usually just skip around the Gospels and the Epistles because they were the easiest to read. Making matters worse, I would also overhear older Christians talk about reading the Bible using technical terms like, hermeneutics, contextual analysis, literary-criticism, and apologetics. Simply, early on in my faith the topic of Bible reading often made me feel like a failure because I was not reading it enough and/or I was not reading it correctly. At that time, I wish I had known about St Augustine’s 1500-year-old approach to reading the Bible.

A Main Point of Scripture is to Enjoy God

Augustine of Hippo was a 5th century Roman teacher of rhetoric, which made him an expert in the art of argumentation. He became a Christian well into his adulthood, and immediately began writing about theology and philosophy. His writings, the most famous of which is the book City of God, have influenced Christian theology and Western philosophy for the past 1500 years. His thoughts on reading the Bible are meticulously laid out in his book De doctrina Christiana. He begins his how-to-read-the-Bible book with an odd distinction, the difference between enjoying something and using something. He believed the only thing humans should enjoy for its own sake is the triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Everything else, including our family, friends, vocation, and service, are actually a means to an end. Everything we do should be done for the ultimate enjoyment of God. For instance, our enjoyment of a loving relationship with our spouse is a reflection of our relationship with God, and is therefore something God uses in order for us to better understand his love and how we can love him better.

This entails that God has given us the Bible as a means to an end. The point of reading the Bible is to come to enjoy God better and more fully. It might seem odd, or even a little sacrilege to think of the Bible as a means to an end. This is because we rightly think of the Bible as holy or sacred. But, it is not God. It is holy and sacred insofar as it is the word of God, given to us so we can better understand who God is. By reading Scripture we learn more about God, his work in the world, his plan for us, and his expectations for us. This is one of the means God has provided for us to enjoy him more. In fact, Augustine believed that if a Christian could hypothetically enjoy God perfectly in this life, that they would no longer need to read the Bible. Of course because we will not come to love God perfectly in this life, reading, meditating on, and yes, memorizing scripture, will regularly be a source of knowledge that help us to love God more. However, Augustine wants his readers to remember, that knowledge is not the goal for reading the Bible.

Reading scripture is Purifying

This pursuit of knowledge was one of the things that tripped me up early in my faith. I intuitively believed that knowing more facts about God and theology would make me a better Christian. Augustine, was a very smart person, and he knew a great deal about the Bible, and most likely had large portions of it memorized, as was the custom in his time. Yet, he also knew there was more to the Christian faith than knowing facts. He argued that the process of reading the Bible, while it involved learning new information, was not just about gaining knowledge, it was about transformation, or more precisely, purification.

When a Christian reads the Bible, they are entering into a process God uses to purify them from their sin. It is sin which keeps us from knowing and truly enjoying God. As we Christians undergo this purification we will become wiser, and for Augustine, the best marker for Christian wisdom is the imposition to love. What we learn when we read the Bible should always support Jesus’ two pronged Greatest Commandment: to love God and love others. If this lesson is affirmed in our reading, then we can have confidence that what we have received from our reading is what God has intended. Augustine explains this idea using a lively metaphor. He writes:

If [the reader] is deceived in an interpretation which builds up charity… he is deceived in the same way as a man who leaves a road by mistake but passes through a field to the same place toward which the road itself leads. (Doctrina, 1.37)

This type of freedom in reading the Bible can seem odd to modern readers. When we read the Bible, or any text for that matter, we want to make sure that we are reading it accurately. Elsewhere in De Doctrina Christiana also Augustine makes it clear that the when we error in our reading we ought to figure why we have made the mistake in order to keep from making similar mistakes in the future. However, this does not take away from the freedom God has given us in the Bible. If the purpose of the Bible was only to obtain knowledge of ancient Jewish culture or the history of the early church, the complete accuracy would be the most important part of reading. However the purpose of the Bible is to help us enjoy God. Therefore, God uses the Bible, and the knowledge we gain from reading it, to sanctify us, that is, to make is us purer and more like him. The best way to make sure that we are using the Bible correctly is to check that what we are reading is teaching us to better love God and to love our neighbor.

Why We Make Mistakes

Yet, because there is a very real potential for reading the Bible incorrectly, Augustine also wants to help equip us to avoid common pitfalls. He identifies two main ways readers can misread the Bible. The first way is forgetting or incorrectly using the rules for proper interpretation, and the second is the sin of pride. Rules for proper interpretation are simply a matter of language and reason. This involves understanding differences in genres (like the difference between a history book and a psalm), recognizing tones like sarcasm (like when Jesus says, “have you not read?”), and some knowledge of original Biblical languages (like the difference between God’s names Elohim and Adonai). I would add knowledge of era-specific customs and cultures are also necessary for better understanding of the different books and passages of the Bible. While rules such as these can seem daunting or even burdensome, Augustine believes this is the easiest part of reading the Bible because the technical rules are actually easy to learn. Also, Bible readers need not learn everything all at once. Most of his book De doctrina Christiana is actually on these rules, and the book reads a bit like an instruction manual. In fact, I would encourage all Christians to read this short book themselves. We can also rely on our Christian community of elder Christians to teach us these technical rules. This involves mentorship, small groups, regularly receiving expositional teaching at church, consulting Christian commentaries, and reading books on interpretation from throughout the history of the church. In our day, we are fortunate to also have resources like websites, blogs, YouTube videos, and podcasts which provide a wealth of technical information that is helpful for better understanding of difficult passages, doctrine, and the Bible as a whole. Of course navigating this surfeit of information can also be a daunting task itself. Augustine reminds us we do not have to get everything right all the time, and that our knowledge of the Bible is a journey, which will involve ups and downs and mistakes along the way. Again, the goal is not to be the smartest or the most adept. The goal is to enjoy God truly and more fully. Consistent engagement in our faith community, humility in our approach, and strong mentorship will help us grow more knowledgeable about the contents of the Bible and more adept at reading it on our own.

The second reason for making mistakes in reading the Bible is much more serious for Augustine and cannot be avoided by learning more technical skills or knowledge. He warns us that when we rely too much on our own knowledge of scripture, or if our purpose for reading scripture is simply to learn more facts, then we are approaching the task of reading the Bible in a state of pride. If we attempt to read scripture with a prideful heart, or an over focus on ourselves, then we are essentially attempting to read scripture without the help of God. When this happens, Augustine says we have become, “ensnared by the wisdom of the serpent.” (Doctrina, I.12) By reading scripture with a prideful heart we are falling into the same trap as Adam and Eve when they ate the forbidden fruit. In eating from the tree of the knowledge of good of evil, they attempted to learn things about God without his help. Knowledge is a good thing, but it is not the ultimate good. Knowledge is only good insofar as it helps us enjoy God by loving him and loving our neighbors. If we think we are clever enough, educated enough, or just happen to have a secret method of reading the Bible on our own, we are reading the Bible with a sinful heart.

Augustine warns that this kind of prideful approach to the Bible is what leads to skepticism and moral relativism. When the Bible reader is overly reliant on their own abilities in their quest to acquire knowledge about God, they will inevitably come to unsatisfactory or contradictory conclusions. Augustine believes that as a fallen people in a fallen world, we cannot actually come to true knowledge all on our own. We always need God’s merciful intervention. People who attempt the task on their own will either come to believe that it is impossible to acquire true wisdom at all, which is skepticism, or at best, that we can only have subjective opinions about the text, which is relativism. This is why some people believe the Bible is chock full of errors and contradictions, and why others believe the Bible is open to any interpretation. This is one of the issues I struggled with early in my faith as well. The reason why so much of the Bible was confusing, and some passages seemed to contradict others was because I approached the Bible in a singular and individualistic fashion. That is, these original struggles largely stemmed from my original motivation for reading the Bible. I rushed passed all the grace and love stuff, focusing on trying to figure out all the complicated ins and outs of the Bible so I could feel knowledgeable and smart.

The Necessity of Humility

If we are going to read the Bible in a correct fashion, we need God to cleanse us from such selfish pride. The Bible is not intended to make us feel knowledgeable and smart. In many ways, God uses the Bible to make us pure. In fact, in the same way that we must learn the technical skills and know-how for interpreting the Bible properly, we must also undergo purification. Augustine uses a helpful medical analogy to describe this process. He writes:

Just as he who ministers to a bodily hurt in some cases applies contraries, as cold to hot, moist to dry, etc… in the same way the Wisdom of God in healing man has applied Himself to his cure, being Himself healer and medicine both in one. Seeing, then, that man fell through pride, He restored him through humility. (Doctrina, II. 13)

For Augustine, the humility modeled by Christ is not only a necessary part of reading the Bible, he also believes we need humility before we even open our Bible. Furthermore, humility must also be an ongoing task for every Christian who wants to read and understand scripture as a process of purification. Our humility not only opens us up to receive guidance from the Holy Spirit as we read scripture, it is also necessary in order for us to learn from others.

In his book Contra Academicos, Augustine provides a vivid analogy for this practice of humble openness compared to the limitations of pride. In the analogy he imagines two travelers. One traveler is willing to humble himself and ask for directions. The other traveler is overly careful, relying solely upon his own reason and ability, to the extent that, in his prideful self-reliance, he despises his companion as he, “laughs and ridicules the [humble traveler] for having assented too rapidly.” (Academicos 3.15) Yet, it is the humble traveler, the one open to listening to the wisdom of others, who is able to find their destination. The prideful traveler, however, becomes lost.

When I first became a Christian, while I had accepted God’s gift of grace, I sadly began my reading of the Bible as a prideful traveler. I believed I was smart enough to figure everything out on my own, and that through diligent study I could make myself a better Christian. The source of my shame when it came to the Bible reader was not that I was a bad Christian, as I had thought, but my shame was actually the exposure of my own selfish pride. I hope you will read De doctrina Christiana to learn more about Augustine’s great practical advice for understanding difficult passages and how purifying reading the Bible can be. However, above all, as we Christians read the Bible, I pray we approach it like the humble traveler, with the expectation that Christ is there with us along the path, and by the power of the Holy Spirit may our reading of the Bible cause us to love others more deeply and to enjoy God more fully.

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Filed Under: Featured, Foundation, Grow Tagged With: Issue 36

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New Identity | Exploring Faith
We're happy to announce that the Fall/Winter 2020 We're happy to announce that the Fall/Winter 2020 Issue is out today! There are some great articles inside that we hope you'll love! Enjoy! 🤗 #linkinbio⁠
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#newissue #newidentitymag #liveidentified #magazine #kindness #anxiety #waiting #worththewait #mcu #eatableheroes #marvel #godswill
Prayer isn’t about making the things we selfishl Prayer isn’t about making the things we selfishly want happen; it’s about making us want what God wants.⁠
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✍🏽: @sarahjoysly in "Prayer - The Alignment of Our Souls With God"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
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“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it th “The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” – Haldir⁠
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In Lothlorien, Haldir is encouraging a downcast Fellowship with a glimpse of the larger story in which they find themselves. His words reflect the apostle Paul’s encouragement to the church, that we “do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13). For there is a form of grief from which there is no recovery – one in which there is no resurrection of the dead. If death is the final word, then we must suffer grief without hope, grief that diminishes our love for life because of the crushing weight of the loss we’ve experienced. But Tolkien believed that death was not the end; therefore, we may experience the beautiful juxtaposition in our own lives of deep sorrow mixed with rivers of joy. Instead of crippling us, our grief may actually help to cultivate in our character the virtues of faith, hope, and love that are necessary to continue to carry our heaviest burdens. ⁠
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✍🏽: @slimkeman in "Memorable Middle Earth"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
#faithhopelove #lotr #thefellowshipofthering #thelordoftherings #middleearth
The Bible stresses that despite our differences we The Bible stresses that despite our differences we are called to love each other above our political positions. “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (Colossians 3:12-14). You may feel like how politics and religion intersect in the public sphere communicate the exact opposite of this, and you’d be right. Media outlets report drama and conflict. Gracious and loving political opponents are not newsworthy.⁠
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✍🏽: Matthew Hamilton in "Our Identity In Christ Is Always Greater"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
📷: Photo by Lum3n from Pexels⁠
#politics #voting #love #loveyourneighbor #loveyourneighbornotmattertheirpolitics
The trees, with their bark, the skin of the forest The trees, with their bark, the skin of the forest, with its scars and wrinkles, lean toward me, and brush me with their limbs. The leaves beg me to examine their veins. “Have you seen this?” Each different, but each spectacular. The infinite busy creatures. The carpet of green, the dome of blue.⁠
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A few moments later, I feel like an amazing creature in a world amazingly made. I feel the astounding power of God, where the smallest thing around me, a leaf, an ant, is more complicated, and alive and amazing than anything humanity has ever thought of.⁠
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Really, there is nothing like it. The author C.S. Lewis noted that the best place to take a non-believing scientist or a real thinker is nature.  Eventually the noise of God in nature is deafening.⁠
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Once you’re in that place, just a few minutes into your walk, your mouth will hardly be able to keep from pouring out praise to God. It becomes so easy. Connecting to God like that, in praise, as a consequence of observing nature, is so freeing and so empowering that you will return to your office balanced and ready, clear headed and encouraged.⁠
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The prayer that most blesses God, most blesses the one who prays it. And there is almost no easier way than from within the sanctuary of nature, which itself raises up its branches to him in prayer with every sunrise.⁠
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✍🏽: Tom Koel in "Muting The Noise of the World - Deconstructing The Prayer Hike for City Dwellers"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
📷: Photo by Lum3n from Pexels⁠
#prayerhike #prayerworks #prayandpraise #prayerwalk #timewithgod #prayerchangesthings #heispraiseworthy #faithjourney
Each person comes to a Bible passage with his own Each person comes to a Bible passage with his own culture, language, and historical understanding. Sometimes we use these to interpret the Bible, but the hard work of bible study requires that you get rid of those things and interpret the passage by allowing it to speak for itself in its own language, cultural context, and historical background. In other words, interpretation is hard work because you are trying to to discover what the passage meant to its (original) audience 2000 years ago (even though we are reading it today). ⁠
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✍🏽: @the_christopherscott in "How Anyone Can Study The Bible"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
#biblestudy #biblestudytools #growingingod #godsword #spendingtimewithgod #biblejournaling #holybible #christianliving #biblescriptures #dailybiblereading
Everything we do should be done for the ultimate e Everything we do should be done for the ultimate enjoyment of God. For instance, our enjoyment of a loving relationship with our spouse is a reflection of our relationship with God, and is therefore something God uses in order for us to better understand his love and how we can love him better.⁠
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This entails that God has given us the Bible as a means to an end. The point of reading the Bible is to come to enjoy God better and more fully. It might seem odd, or even a little sacrilege to think of the Bible as a means to an end. This is because we rightly think of the Bible as holy or sacred. But, it is not God. It is holy and sacred insofar as it is the word of God, given to us so we can better understand who God is. ⁠
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By reading Scripture we learn more about God, his work in the world, his plan for us, and his expectations for us. This is one of the means God has provided for us to enjoy him more. In fact, St. Augustine of Hippo believed that if a Christian could hypothetically enjoy God perfectly in this life, that they would no longer need to read the Bible. Of course because we will not come to love God perfectly in this life, reading, meditating on, and yes, memorizing scripture, will regularly be a source of knowledge that help us to love God more. However, Augustine wants his readers to remember, that knowledge is not the goal for reading the Bible.⁠
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✍🏽: Jeffery Porter in "How A Roman Bishop Changed The Way I Read The Bible"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
📷: Photo by @ rickyrecap from Pexels⁠
#biblereading #heartknowledge #
People with unbelieving hearts only seek after wha People with unbelieving hearts only seek after what prospers them. Apart from Jesus, we set in motion lives filled with harm, with no hope and no future. A person can only have hope and a future when life is lived out for Christ. We get light through reading the Bible, prayer, and fellowship with other Christians. This light of life can be obtained through an open line of communication with the one who gives it—Jesus. Apart from him, life can appear meaningless. Our purpose in life is to glorify God with who we are and what we have. –Steven Butwell⁠
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"No one who trusts in you will ever be disgraced, but disgrace comes to those who try to deceive others." –Psalm 25:3 NLT⁠
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✍🏽: Steven Butwell in "The Light Christ"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
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#hopeinchrist #hope #faith #godsplan #godisgood #hopeinthelord #bethelight #godislove #livinghop #thegospel #godislove #godisfaithful #christianliving #bethelightinthedarkness
What’s your favorite article in the new issue? F What’s your favorite article in the new issue? Follow the link in our bio to read it online or download it free to your tablet. ⁠
Even as God demonstrated love by sending Jesus to Even as God demonstrated love by sending Jesus to die on the cross to take punishment for our sins, God reminded people of the importance of fearing him. God is not only our savior, comforter, and friend who promises to be with us always (Hebrews 13:5; Matthew 28:20), but also the most powerful being in the universe. There is a place for the right kind of fear—the reverential awe and respect—in our lives.⁠
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✍🏽: Délice Williams in "Fear The Lord?" Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
📷: Photo by @emrrekuzu from Pexels⁠
Like the Psalmist, John describes Jesus as God’s Like the Psalmist, John describes Jesus as God’s Word who brings light and life to the darkness. Jesus is God’s Word that comes to us, to those who are dwelling in darkness. In fact, this is exactly what Jesus declares his mission to be in John 12:46: “I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.” This Light and Darkness imagery pervades the gospel of John. People love darkness because they don’t want their actions, thoughts, motives to be exposed by the light. But the truth is that deep down we need (and want) to be seen. We want to be loved despite our dirtiest deeds and foulest feelings. We need to restore the relationship that Adam and Eve once had with God–complete openness, and deep love–but we can’t do it on our own. Only God can (and did through Jesus) bring that relationship back.⁠
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✍🏽: Brandon Hurlbert in "The Light of God's Love"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
📷: Photo by Emre Kuzu from Pexels⁠
In John 15:1 Jesus says that God is the gardener a In John 15:1 Jesus says that God is the gardener and he prunes every branch that does not produce fruit. A person stuck in his or her ways of sin is like a prickly shrub growing a lot of branches with no fruit. These branches must be removed so good fruit can grow. In the same way as a bush is unable to prune itself, a person who is living in sin is unable to remove all the unfruitful branches in life. Paul described this condition in chapter seven of Romans when he called himself a wretched man and realized only Jesus can change him.⁠
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Jesus provides the essential elements for growth; he gives us his Word (the Bible) for fertilizer, other believers for sunshine, and the Holy Spirit for water. When our roots begin to receive this new water, sunshine, and fertilizer, new branches begin to grow. This time the branches are not prickly bushes, but beautiful new branches adorned with the fruit of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control,” (Galatians 5:22). Our old acquaintances will marvel at who we have become. When we allow God to be the gardener, he will shape us into his design.⁠
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✍🏽: Delbert Teachout in "God The Gardener"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
📷: Photo by Timothy Grindall from Pexels
As new creations, those who have been forgiven by As new creations, those who have been forgiven by and reconciled to Jesus, we now have the task of being reconciled to each other. As Christians, we are not just called to forgive others in our hearts but keep them at an arm’s length away. No, we are called to be of one heart and one mind (Acts 4:32) with our brothers and sisters—we are called to be reconciled.⁠
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✍🏽: Brandon Hurlbert in "Repairing Broken Bridges"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
We are faced with a challenge: to make God the cen We are faced with a challenge: to make God the center and purpose of our lives in a world of demands. God asks us to listen for his voice, and it’s no wonder why he chose to speak to Elijah in a “still, small voice” in 1 Kings 19:12-13. He doesn’t always shout at us because he wants us to choose to listen, to put other things aside so that all of our focus is towards discerning his will in the specifics of our lives. We have his will for us in general, as communicated in the Bible, which is to make disciples of all nations, to glorify the one true God, to serve no other gods, to love our neighbors as ourselves, etc., but sometimes we need to figure out how those general plans fit the specifics of our lives. Hearing God’s voice is part of how we relate to him, but in those moments of uncertainty, quieting ourselves becomes even more important.⁠
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✍🏽: @sarahjoysly in "Listening For A Whisper"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
📷: Photo by Jara from Pexels⁠
Imagine if every Christian started praying to God Imagine if every Christian started praying to God and asking for him to bless us with gifts of encouragement for the sake of the world around us. The Church would make an immediate impact on the lives of people.⁠
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✍🏽: @lukegeraty in "The Gift of Encouragement from the Great Encourager"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
📷: Photo by Lum3n from Pexels⁠
Everything sad will come untrue because we are not Everything sad will come untrue because we are not doomed to be forever parted with those we love, nor will our souls simply turn to dust and fade with the memory of those we leave behind.⁠
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✍🏽: @slimkeman in "Memorable Middle Earth - Why I'm Always Tolkien In Movie Quotes"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
📷: Photo by Dirk Förster from Flickr
"Remembering God's promises and his faithfulness a "Remembering God's promises and his faithfulness as a community will help us to endure our sorrows for the night, for joy comes in the morning." @slimkeman from his article The Beauty of Community & The Beast of Isolation 🌤 Can you name some of God's promises that keep you encouraged and grounded? We'd love to hear in the comments below - and just maybe it might be the hope someone else is needing right now! 🤗⁠
“Every night I lie in bed, the brightest colors “Every night I lie in bed, the brightest colors fill my head. A million dreams are keepin’ me awake. I think of what the world could be, a vision of the one I see. A million dreams is all it’s gonna take. A million dreams for the world we’re gonna make.” ⁠
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As P.T. Barnum sings these words to Charity in the beautiful montage of their young lives, we are captivated by the hope that they share, the possibilities of their bright future, and the chance of their love overcoming the wall between privilege and poverty that keeps them apart. The Greatest Showman asks us to wrestle with the quest for the holy grail of our modern world: success and happiness. ⁠
What is the good life? If a million of our wildest dreams came true, would we truly be happy?⁠
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In Jesus, we find a man who invites us into his presence with these words: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). He is the only one who can fill “the infinite abyss” of desire in our souls. When you have fully devoted yourself and your dreams to your Creator, you will discover that “everything you ever want” and “everything you ever need” is “right here in front of you” in Christ Jesus.⁠
{Steve Limekman}⁠
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✍🏼: by @slimkeman in “The Greatest Showman”  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com by clicking on the link in our bio ⁠
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📸: from newidentitymagazine
Every day in sub-Saharan Africa, one child in ten Every day in sub-Saharan Africa, one child in ten under the age of five dies of a preventable cause, and nearly every day in America eight in ten adults consume coffee. What do these numbers have to do with each other? A lot, according to the One Cup Project, which is using America’s love for coffee to reduce the number of children dying in Africa by converting coffee profits into life-saving aid.⁠
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The One Cup Project started in 2010, when Christian Kar, the founder of an award-winning Seattle-based coffee company, partnered with the Christian humanitarian aid organization, World Vision.Remarkably, every dollar spent on One Cup Coffee generates a dollar of aid for Africa.⁠
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Buy some coffee, put up a post on your Facebook page, ask your church, local café, or workplace to change their coffee, or run a One Cup Fundraiser. In doing so, you just may help hurting people find healing, hope, and life. Change the world for the better, one cup at a time.⁠
{Thame Fuller}⁠
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✍🏼: @thamefuller in “One Cup Project”  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com by clicking on the link in our bio or click on this link to take you directly to the One Cup website: https://onecup.org/our-story/⁠
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📸: by @AftaPuta from Pexels
When someone accepts Jesus, they leave their old p When someone accepts Jesus, they leave their old priorities behind and make Jesus the center of their life. Jesus calls each of us to share the good news with the world. He came to give living water to a thirsty world, and we have the honor and privilege of sharing his message by the power of the Holy Spirit (John 7:37-39).⁠
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The most important thing you can do is enter each conversation with a posture of prayer. Pray for the person you’re sharing with, that God would open their heart to accept him. Pray that God would give you the words to say. And a loving way to say them.⁠
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Expect God to work in your relationship and use you to share Jesus through your friendship in his own timing. No matter how long you have been a believer, you can share Jesus with the confidence that he is with you and that he will use you for his glory.⁠
{Eric Gulley}⁠
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✍🏼: Eric Gulley in “Sharing Your Faith”  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com by clicking on the link in our bio ⁠
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📸: by @OliverSjostrom from Pexels
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