Welcome to another Thursday UNFILTERED blog post, the only blog that suspects the “serving size” on snack bags was written by someone who has never met stress.
Here’s something nobody told me when I was in my late teens and twenties and on fire for God.
Back then I couldn’t get enough. Bible studies, church services, spending hours in the Scriptures, etc.
I was a sponge soaking up everything I could find. More than one Christian camp told me the same thing: just read the Bible, and it will change you. I was told that across the board. The act of Bible reading would transform me.
Read the words = transformed life. And the more you read, the more transformed you’ll be. The more of God you’ll have also. On top of that, the more you’ll have victory over the enemy. Because he hates the mere words of God.
So I read. Constantly.
Then I hit my late twenties and figured out this uncomfortable truth: reading the Scriptures doesn’t change anyone.
What changes you is understanding what you read. That’s first. After that, it’s learning to encounter the living God inside the biblical text and discovering how to apply it by the Spirit.
Here’s the kicker. When I put my plow to God’s work and began traveling and speaking to God’s people, I discovered that very few Christians know much about the “encountering” part and even less truly understand the New Testament.
Sure, they may know verses. But the overwhelming majority are ignorant of The Story in its context. How it all hangs together, and the setting and meaning behind what they’re reading from Matthew to Revelation.
And this understanding changes everything.
To be blunt, reading alone doesn’t magically rewire your soul. That’s superstition dressed up as devotion, and it doesn’t hold water. But I believed it for many years.
Also, merely quoting the Bible doesn’t chase the devil away. (He knows the Scriptures better than you do.) Jesus was doing more than mechanically reciting Scripture in the wilderness, but that’s another conversation.
Yet countless Christians still believe these things today.
This dramatic realization sent me on a decades-long hunt to learn how to actually understand the New Testament.
Here’s the problem I kept running into: not a single New Testament guide ever gave me what I needed. Every one of them took the New Testament books as they appear in our current biblical canon, which are out of chronological order.
They hand you fragments. None of them give you The Story.
Even chronological Bibles don’t give you the whole picture because they don’t connect the dots within the drama. They just rearrange the books with little more.
So last year I wrote the book I spent my whole life looking for. Some are calling it my “masterpiece” because it uniquely and powerfully unlocks the New Testament letters in a way that nothing else does. (That statement has been echoed by the many scholars who endorsed the book.)
(Btw, for those of you who are new to my work, I don’t personally profit from book sales. I write books for one reason: to change lives. Full stop.)
A lot of you already have a copy of the book. Thank you! If it’s altering your understanding of the New Testament, please let your friends know about it. We don’t pay for ads or promotions for the book like most authors do today, so word-of-mouth is the only way for God’s people to hear about it.
However, for reasons I don’t quite understand, plenty of you still don’t have a copy. All of my articles spring out of a chronological, contextual understanding of the New Testament. So the book is foundational.
It will also cause the New Testament to open up to you in ways you couldn’t imagine. So say the testimonials.
If you’re a true follower of Jesus, you have to be interested in transformation. But without truly understanding God’s written word, there will be little to no transformation in your life. So I’ve learned.
Consequently, I want to invite you to do two things this week:
- Listen to all the interviews I’ve given about the book. Each one covers different ground and gives you material that goes beyond the pages. (You can listen while driving, exercising, etc. They are all in audio form.)
- Download the gratis sampler and read it.
Both cost you nothing. Not a red cent.
GO HERE to grab all of it. And if you decide you really shouldn’t live without the book, you can order it at a discount on that same page.
The consistent testimony of over 17,000 early readers has confirmed that it’s a monumental game-changer.
Remember: the Scriptures can’t transform you if you don’t understand them.
Doesn’t matter how many times you’ve read the Bible or how much of it you’ve memorized. Transformation follows understanding, then encounter, then application.
Get a Gratis Copy
One last thing. If you don’t already have the book and you’re part of the staff or faculty at a Bible school, seminary, Bible college, or discipleship school in the USA, we’re offering to mail you a copy at no charge. Shipping is also covered. Just reply to this email and tell us the name of the school with the website along with the mailing address. And who to address it to (your full name).
If you don’t fit the bill, but you have a friend or family member who does, pass this article on to them. I’d love for them to have a copy of the book. Let’s see the Insurgence spread!
To your transformation,
fv
The Antidote to Lukewarmness
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