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Aug 15, 2023Liked by Joseph Lear

Allen Tennison (Assemblies of God Resident Theologian) had an awesome teaching on "faith integration" in the university. I tried to get a recording of it, but it wasn't recorded. I would recommend you write him to ask him for his notes on it. It might add more to your current endeavor.

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Very nice Joseph. A worthwhile project and I will be interested to see how it goes.

I wish as much as anybody that Christianity was sort of the default and the light for the worldview but I have been looking at Matthew 7 a lot lately and can't help but think that it never has been and never will be.

The narrowness of the gate and the few that find it seems very much to be a feature not a bug. While our modern versions soften it, when Jesus says 'broad is the gate that leads to destruction and there are many that go through it' He adds as an explanation as a cause, 'BECAUSE the way to life is narrow'

He is deliberately narrow, deliberately exclusive. I have been wrestling with why this would be true of the one who 'draws all men to Himself' and 'doesn't desire that any should perish but all come to salvation'. My current thought is that He is not a gate for a crowd to walk through, but a gate for individuals and that as long as our identity comes from a group we can only go through the broad gate of the world, the flesh, and the devil. That is where we are always different. Even if we are an 'innumerable number' we remain individuals, never becoming faceless members or anonymous parts of a collective.

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Aug 10, 2023Liked by Joseph Lear

Agree 100%. How about also including a prayer for English and language studies? Okay? Thanks!

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Aug 9, 2023Liked by Joseph Lear

Thank you for being you Joseph! The Church needs you!

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Aug 9, 2023Liked by Joseph Lear

Yes, ALWAYS gold and I too will pray prayers like these though my continued and higher education. Thanks for the inspiration.

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Always gold!

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