Augustine

What Can Spiritual People Understand That Others Cannot? (Or Can the World Teach Christians Anything?)

August 20, 2018 by wagraham Leave a Comment

The apostle Paul declares that “the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor 2:14). So unlike the spiritual person (1 Cor 2:13), the natural person does not accept nor is able to understand spiritual truths.

So that’s what Paul says. But what does he mean? Surely, natural people have something to say when it comes to grammar, maths, sciences, or even giving directions to the local market! So what is it that natural people do not accept or understand? [Read more…] about What Can Spiritual People Understand That Others Cannot? (Or Can the World Teach Christians Anything?)

How to Read the Bible to Know What It Means by What It Says

July 14, 2018 by wagraham Leave a Comment

When Augustine wrote his manual on biblical interpretation, he observed that reality is made up of signs and things. Here’s an illustration to explain what he meant. A wedding ring signifies a promise of marital union. So a wedding ring is a sign. Yet it also a ring, which means that a wedding ring both signifies and is a thing. While such a distinction might seem pedantic or obtuse, it provides easy categories to explain why I am suggesting that we sometimes misunderstand the Bible’s meaning.

To understand the importance of signs and things, we first need turn to the Bible to see how it talks about heaven and earth and the Bible. [Read more…] about How to Read the Bible to Know What It Means by What It Says

How to Complain Christianly

November 16, 2016 by wagraham Leave a Comment

The Psalms also teach us to talk to God, to pray. They teach us how to complain to God and to praise God. How to accuse God, how to honour God. How to lament to him, how to thank him.

Many of us probably feel comfortable praising and honouring God, but it feels intuitively wrong to complain, accuse, or lament to him, and yet the Psalms often teach us to do just that.

We need to be very careful here, because simply telling God how you feel in all its ugliness can be a recipe for darkness, despair and God’s displeasure. The Psalms avoid these dark paths, and they instead lead us down a road of sorrow, reconciliation, and praise. They supply divine words to our distasteful experience. By speaking the words of the Psalms to God, we are really using words supplied by the Holy Spirit to work through our relationship with our Father. [Read more…] about How to Complain Christianly