Bible

Why do we change? Do you ever think about why you’re not the same person you were ten years ago. Not whether you’ve changed, you obviously have. But, why. (Insert Ryan Reynolds meme) You’ve aged, for a start. Your body has done things you didn’t authorise. You’ve learned things, picked up skills, been handed experience you didn’t ask for. You’ve been moulded by events that you had no control over: a job that ended, a friendship that soured, a diagnosis, a birth. You’ve seen enough of the world to see it differently. And if you’er a Christian you’re also being sanctified, changed by the Holy Spirit into something more and more like Jesus. ...

Imagine that you board a plane and fly to India, when you arrive you catch a train out of the city towards the more rural regions, then you hop on a bus and finally arrive at a small mountain village. The people stare at you strangely, wondering what a foreigner is doing in their village. You then proceed to share the Gospel in fluent English, a perfect articulation of 2 ways to live… The villagers continue to stare. You’d be crazy right? To share the gospel with those people you’d need to speak in their language, you’d need to communicate with them. ...

Note: I originally wrote this to help clarify the 1 Tim 2:1-8 passage, I have reworked it for this format in case it’s helpful for others. This post is written through a reformed understanding of God & His work. While I’d enjoy diving deeper and unpacking that topic, this post seeks to dive deeper into a specific outcome of a of the pillar of “Calvinism” namely, the scope (not value) of Christ’s atonement. ...

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control Galatians 5:22-23 ESV A quick google search for “fruit of the spirit” results in images like this: While these are lovely, heartfelt images created with great intentions, the “fruit” is depicted as several distinct kinds of fruit, sometimes all growing from a single tree, other times depicted separately. But doesn’t quite work logically or botanically. ...