Learning Order Printed Copy

Author: Karen Kingsbury
Size: 552KB
|

Download Read Online

Continue with

Google Twitter

Email Register

Others like learning Features >>

What Husbands Wish Their Wives Knew About Men

A Husband After God's Own Heart

About the Book

"LEARNING" by Karen Kingsbury is a heartwarming novel that follows the lives of Bailey Flanigan and Cody Coleman as they navigate relationships, faith, and personal growth. Through their individual journeys, they learn valuable lessons about forgiveness, redemption, and the power of love. This inspirational story explores the complexities of life and the importance of learning from our experiences to become better versions of ourselves.

Augustine of Hippo

Born in 354 CE in the North African city of Tagaste to a Christian mother and pagan father, Augustine began his career as a pagan teacher of rhetoric in, among other places, Carthage. In search of better students, Augustine traveled to Rome in 383, assuming considerable personal risk in doing so, but was disappointed to discover his newfound students lacking the virtue he thought the necessary prerequisite for a proper education. Failing to acquire satisfactory students, Augustine moved once again, this time to Milan where he accepted a position as a professor of rhetoric. It was in Milan that Augustine adopted the study of Neoplatonism in earnest, though he had shown a fondness for classical philosophy, particularly the works of Virgil and Cicero, from an early age. In Neoplatonism the still-young Augustine thought, with great confidence and enthusiasm, that he had found an academic school capable of uniting the teachings of Christianity with those of Greek and Roman philosophy. Shortly thereafter Augustine converted to Christianity and, returning to North Africa, accepted the position of bishop in Hippo in 396, one that he would retain for the remainder of his life. It was arguably his encounter with Neoplatonism that caused Augustine to recognize the teachings of the Church as a source of intellectual insight not unlike that of classical philosophy. An autobiographical account of his religious conversion is the subject of Augustine’s Confessions, which numbers among the most famous and influential of his works. Upon rising to the position of bishop, Augustine increasingly immersed himself in the daily routine of monastic life and became entangled with internal Scholastic controversies facing the Church, particularly those involving the Donatists and Pelagians. Because of his considerable intellect and rhetorical skill, Augustine grew to be a particularly skillful and persuasive defender of Christianity against critics from multiple directions. At the same time, Augustine appears to have grown increasingly skeptical of his youthful opinion that Christianity and classical philosophy might be readily reconciled by way of Neoplatonism. Though Augustine’s work De Civitate Dei (The City of God) contains considerable praise for Platonic philosophy and its intellectual inheritors, more apparent within the work are the major differences between the Platonic tradition and many of the teachings of the Church, with Augustine, not surprisingly, lending his own support to the latter. In his personal life, Augustine is described as living a life of tireless work and rigorous denial of earthly pleasures. Augustine devoted his final days to prayer and repentance as he battled illness and watched his home, Hippo, besieged by Germanic invaders. Shortly after his death in 430 the city was burnt to the ground by its attackers, who, nonetheless, left Augustine’s library unharmed. He was subsequently canonized and was named a Doctor of the Church in 1298. He continues to serve as the patron saint of printers, brewers, and theologians.

Why Not Giving Can Hurt You

I have this one friend, everywhere she goes, she gives gifts. Roses to teachers, journals to me, and flowers to so many. She is gifted in gifts. Is she trying to make me look bad? She is so impressive! I am normally the one loaded with 2 kids, a purse loaded with the rock of baby wipes and a to-do list times one thousand. Getting out to buy gifts feels as impossible as moving a herd of animals through the eye of a needle. Giving is something I always want to do, but it takes a back seat to my life. It's something that I love to get, but have a hard time extending. I know it blesses, but it also heightens my stresses. Yet, research has proven that giving: - increases the health of those with chronic illnesses (Stephen Post, Why Good Things Happen to Good People) - decreases the risk of dying in the elderly after volunteering (Doug Oman, University of California, Berkeley) - lowers stress and blood pressure. Clearly giving is a great thing. The more we outpour the more that inpours to us. A woman came with a special sealed jar. It contained very expensive perfume made out of pure nard. She broke the jar open and poured the perfume on Jesus’ head. Mk. 14:3 This woman outpoured a ton - a year's worth of salary. Her deep sacrifice was a true outpouring of her heart. There is no mention of the kids screaming at home, the wipes in her bag or the lists of things she had to do, she just poured out. When we keep our eyes on Jesus, suddenly our excuses grow small and our causes grow big. This woman poured out great love through this great gift, a great sacrifice for a great God and a great example for the great, great, great...grandchildren of Jesus today. What would happen if we poured out like she did? Might Jesus say to us: She has done a beautiful thing to me... Mark 14:6 Might our name be more greatly etched into the world and eternity? What she has done will be told anywhere the good news is preached all over the world. It will be told in memory of her.” Mk 14:9 As she stood...weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. Lu. 7:38 When we pour, like this woman and then our hearts melt like wax. The wick of our pride, selfishness and complacency melt down to the ground, leaving us on our knees, where we receive and give our very best. We take our hair and we wipe the feet of others. We get into the nitty gritty of grime, into the places where it feels uncomfortable, into the places where we prepare others for a new life. It's in the offering of our greatest - in the wiping of the dirty - that we get to kiss the feet of the one who walked into desolate dry hearts to make abundant new life. When we touch these needy, unseen and untouchable places with our greatest gift, love, we find our hearts are restored. We find it's so much less about the other and so much more about Jesus reconfiguring our vision. We find deeper connection with the recipient and with the one who is all sufficient. Giving is the only gift that hands back more than we could ever hand out. It's one of the only ways to get more than you ever asked for. Kelly Balarie