Podcasts about from augustine

This week, Laura and Ethan are joined by Dr. Toni Alimi for a conversation about The Tough Stuff in our scripture and tradition. From Augustine to @ladygaga to materialism to Jacob, we cover a lot of ground, all rooted in the essential question: how do we hold disparate and hard things in tension, especially when it's about our faith?Toni Alimi lives in Ithaca, NY, with his wife and their daughter. He teaches philosophy at Cornell University.Toni's latest book can be found here: Slaves of God: Augustine and Other Romans on Religion and Politics

It has been a great semester as The Good Fight discussed the spring readings on the Literature Humanities syllabus. From Augustine to Morrison, this spring has been a wild ride, but this week The Good Fight takes a step back to tie this whole semester together. Tune in to the last episode of the 2021-2022 academic year for an all-star discussion covering all your favorite major texts. The Good Fight will also come back to a question asked at the start of the academic year and ask why Christians can continue to read these texts.

Our modern culture is obsessed with identity. However, theologian Carl Trueman argues that no historical phenomenon is its own cause. From Augustine to Marx, various views and perspectives have contributed to the modern understanding of the self. In his timely book, The Rise of the Modern Self, Carl analyzes the development of the sexual revolution as a symptom rather than the cause of the human search for identity. In this episode of the Q Ideas Podcast, he explains what that means for the Church's witness today, and he gives guidance for the future as Christians navigate our culture amidst humanity's ever-changing quest for identity. Want to participate in more conversations like these? Join The Collaborative, our brand-new cohort experience designed for passionate Christian leaders. Over eight months, we'll build community and take a deep dive into the most important conversations for our moment. Learn more and register at qideas.org/cohort.

In Romans 5, Paul explains the role of Christ in salvation in relation to Adam. How can Christ be a "type" of Adam, since Adam sinned and Christ did not? Does this chapter support the interpretation of universal salvation? Since all "died in Adam," will all "live in Christ"? Western Christian understanding of sin and its effects on the human race was strongly influenced by Augustine's interpretation of Romans 5:12. From Augustine's faulty interpretation, the concept of "original sin" was born and took root in the West. How are Catholic and Protestant concepts of sin and salvation different from the Orthodox understanding? What do these different ideas of sin reveal about our different conceptions of God and His relationship to humanity?

In Romans 5, Paul explains the role of Christ in salvation in relation to Adam. How can Christ be a "type" of Adam, since Adam sinned and Christ did not? Does this chapter support the interpretation of universal salvation? Since all "died in Adam," will all "live in Christ"? Western Christian understanding of sin and its effects on the human race was strongly influenced by Augustine's interpretation of Romans 5:12. From Augustine's faulty interpretation, the concept of "original sin" was born and took root in the West. How are Catholic and Protestant concepts of sin and salvation different from the Orthodox understanding? What do these different ideas of sin reveal about our different conceptions of God and His relationship to humanity?

In Romans 5, Paul explains the role of Christ in salvation in relation to Adam. How can Christ be a "type" of Adam, since Adam sinned and Christ did not? Does this chapter support the interpretation of universal salvation? Since all "died in Adam," will all "live in Christ"? Western Christian understanding of sin and its effects on the human race was strongly influenced by Augustine's interpretation of Romans 5:12. From Augustine's faulty interpretation, the concept of "original sin" was born and took root in the West. How are Catholic and Protestant concepts of sin and salvation different from the Orthodox understanding? What do these different ideas of sin reveal about our different conceptions of God and His relationship to humanity?

From Augustine to Marx, many views and perspectives have contributed to the modern understanding of self. Our guest today will carefully analyze the roots of the sexual revolution as a symptom, rather than the cause, of humanity's search for identity. He will teach us about the past, clarify the present, and offer guidance for an ever-changing future.

Carl Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self - Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution hasn’t even been released, and—already—it’s the best-selling book of 2020! It is, at least, according to the hosts of this program. Yes, the author feels he’s found a pot of gold, and is buying that dream villa in Venice with the royalties. At the same time, co-host Todd feels privileged as he possesses an advanced copy of this treasure and believes he’ll be enjoying a free stay at his friend's Mediterranean estate.  The runaway cultural train is gaining speed, and revolutionary changes that used to take decades to develop seem to be happening at a breakneck pace—especially, where matters of sexual identity are concerned. From Augustine to Rousseau and Marx, and from Descartes to Bruce Jenner, Carl Trueman traces the thoughts underlying the modern view of the self...helping us understand the present, and preparing us to navigate the days ahead. The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self is available for pre-order. Visit Reformed Resources to place your order.

Combining their interest in history and passion for ministry, Joel & Troy have set out to revive long-forgotten sermons. From Augustine to Whitfield, the two are recording long-forgotten sermons form some of history's greatest preachers and sharing them through their podcast, Riving Thoughts.They join me to talk about the show, preaching, and how these historical thoughts can rescue us from the feedback loop of our modern times. Check out their show: Reviving Thoughts Podcast

Drs. Leighton Flowers and Johnathan Pritchett (along with a video from NT Wright) discuss the first century tribal or collectivist culture as it relates to our hermeneutic in approaching controversial passages regarding soteriology. Dr. James Leo Garrett, an esteemed Southern Baptist scholar, wrote of a “Westernized hyper individualization” of certain biblical doctrines: "From Augustine of Hippo to the twentieth century, Western Christianity has tended to interpret the doctrine of election from the perspective of and with regard to individual human beings. During those same centuries the doctrine has been far less emphasized and seldom ever controversial in Eastern Orthodoxy. Is it possible that Augustine and later Calvin, with the help of many others, contributed to a hyper individualization of this doctrine that was hardly warranted …?" Let’s just be honest. We, as American Westerners, do tend to think everything is about us, the individual. We tend to read the text with an ego-centric bent. If someone tells the story of David slaying the giant, we see ourselves as the hero in that story and feel as if it is a lesson is about how we can slay the “giants” in our lives too. However, it’s much more likely that we are better represented by the Israelites hiding in fear while Christ, the actual hero of the story, slays our “giants.” And when we read of God setting certain people apart for noble tasks, we can tend toward a self aggrandizing interpretation of those text by assuming God must have set us, as individuals, apart in a similar manner. For instance, how often have you heard someone quote, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit” (Jn. 15:16) to prove that they were individually chosen to be effectually saved?   To support this ministry with a one-time gift or to become a regular contributor please visit OUR SUPPORT PAGE.   To purchase Dr. Flower’s book, The Potter's Promise: A Biblical Defense of Traditional Soteriology, CLICK HERE.   For more articles and resources from Dr. Leighton Flowers please visit www.soteriology101.com  

Doubt, true doubt (not the mere intellectual variety, but the deep questioning an agonized soul), is one of the most painful and most necessary aspects of the life of faith. All the great saints have been through it. From Augustine in his Confessions to St. John of the Cross’s Dark Night of the Soul, the church […]

From Augustine to Spurgeon great preachers have great beards, apart from some honourable exemptions. What is it about beards that is so godly. And why does the Bible teach about beard care? And a beard growing challenge. An important topic for these beardless times. On target opinionated talk from Mark Peacey and Peter Timothy Cooper, a businessman and a clergyman. Contact Mark and Pete on Twitter @markandpete with your views and questionsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mark-and-pete--1245374/support.

From Augustine to Spurgeon great preachers have great beards, apart from some honourable exemptions. What is it about beards that is so godly. And why does the Bible teach about beard care? And a beard growing challenge. An important topic for these beardless times. On target opinionated talk from Mark Peacey and Peter Timothy Cooper, a businessman and a clergyman. Contact Mark and Pete on Twitter @markandpete with your views and questions

From Augustine to Spurgeon great preachers have great beards, apart from some honourable exemptions. What is it about beards that is so godly. And why does the Bible teach about beard care? And a beard growing challenge. An important topic for these beardless times. On target opinionated talk from Mark Peacey and Peter Timothy Cooper, a businessman and a clergyman. Contact Mark and Pete on Twitter @markandpete with your views and questions

Earlier in the week I engaged with Dr. James White, host of the Dividing Line and notable Calvinistic scholar, on Twitter regarding the doctrine of Predestionation and election.  Oh, and Stewie is back by popular demand. Below are some of the messages from the twitter discussion from my side of the discussion and this podcast dives in a little deeper on the subject.  Enjoy! "From Augustine of Hippo to the twentieth century, Western Christianity has tended to interpret the doctrine of election from the perspective of and with regard to individual human beings. During those same centuries the doctrine has been far less emphasized and seldom ever controversial in Eastern Orthodoxy. Is it possible that Augustine and later Calvin, with the help of many others, contributed to a hyper individualization of this doctrine that was hardly warranted by Romans 9-11, Eph. 1, and I Peter 2? Is it not true that the major emphasis in both testaments falls upon an elect people -- Israel (OT) and disciples or church (NT)?" Now, whether you acknowledge the FACT that two different people can read the exact same sentence and understand it differently based on their cultural up bringing is not within my control, but it is a fact, not just my opinion. And the facts also reveal that the 1st Century culture of Jews and Greeks was very "us" and "them" (tribal), thus the perspective of God predetermining to justify, sanctify and glorify whosoever believes IN HIM regardless of their nationality is most certainly viable and worthy of objective consideration...much more so than your Westernized view of God predetermining certain individual to believe in him, a view clearly not reflected in any of the Early Church Fathers, OR in much of the current cultures who view the text from the corporate perspective today. And of course Adoption and redemption is intensely personal. Who would deny that? Again, you still act as if this view is not equally inclusive of individuals being saved (adopted and redeemed) as your view is... BUT, is your adoption completed yet? Rom 8 indicates adoption is something 'we eagerly await'. So, did God predestine that all who believe would be adopted, and that is why we have hope in that coming adoption, OR does it say that God predetermined individuals to believe so as to be adopted? Again, it is a perspective shift, and BOTH perspectives equally involve individuals. Are you now equating the concept of God's "creating an autonomous creature" with His "creating another God?" Now, who is making categorical errors? So, as to be clear, are you saying that God could NOT, even if he wanted to, create a creature who is autonomously free to make his own moral determinations, because that in itself would be EQUAL to him recreating Himself? Is that your argument? Secondly, man's responsibility is most clearly and undeniably taught though out all of scripture. I happen to believe being response-able is equal to being "autonomous" or as some call it, "contra-causally free" (the ability of the will to refrain or not refrain from a given moral action). The fact that Compatibilism even exists affirms the reality of the biblical teaching regarding such matters, otherwise you'd all be hard determinists without the need to explain how such texts are 'compatible' with your deterministic views.  Third, ironically your explanation regarding the difference between the personhood and being of God is very much parallel to how I would attempt to explain my particular take on the mystery of God's omniscience in light of his creation of morally accountable free creatures...if I were so bold as to tackle such a mysterious matter via Twitter.  Do you appeal to mystery regarding anything, Doctor? And what if God so ordained for autonomous freedom to come to pass? Or is that what you think is beyond his creative abilities? Maybe I'm not being clear so allow me to quote from AW Tozer to make this point:  "God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make but that he should be free to make it. If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, 'What doest thou?' Man’s will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so." - A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God Responsible or punishable? Because you deny, or at least the tenets of your dogma denies that man is "able to respond." (Total Inability) When Calvinist say men are "responsible" I think they mean that men are justly punished due to the federal headship and Fall of Adam, which I likewise affirm, but when I speak of mankind be RESPONSE-ABLE (able to respond) I'm talking about their being held to account for how they respond (for or against) to God's revelation and appeal for reconciliation after the fall. Are you saying lost man IS ABLE to willingly respond to God's revelation? If not, I'm not sure how you can use the term 'responsible' given its connotation of actually being "able to respond." Maybe consider another word? Culpable? Guilty?  So you never 'hide behind mystery,' you have it all figured out and explained? Of course you appeal to mystery on some points...as we know all Calvinists must when it comes to the question of why all his children aren't granted the ability to accept Calvinistic soteriology (Why wasn't CS Lewis Calvinistic? God's choice? Why? Mystery?). We all appeal to mystery at some point in this debate. To claim, as you do, that "God's Word provides clear answers" begs the question up for debate by presuming the Word of God clearly supports your dogma. If anything is clear about this topic is that we, believers, haven't had clarity (or at least uniformity) on it since about the time of Augustine. I think you mean that your view of the scripture is clear to you, which I could likewise claim...but that doesn't help the discussion much. The parallel has to do with the Personhood as it reflects His Immanence and his Being as it reflects His Transcendence, all of which is best summed up in an appeal to mystery, because such matters shouldn't be approached with any more certainty than that which is revealed in the text. To presume upon the text, as I believe Calvinism does, that God must be unable to create response-abled people, on the basis that He knows their responses beforehand is short-sighted at best. My point regarding 'responsibility' has to do with its given connotations, as it makes little sense to call someone responsible who is born unable to respond. We wouldn't call an infant responsible. Why? He isn't able to respond. We don't hold mentally handicap responsible because we recognize their INABILITIES to control themselves. I'm merely suggesting that for clarity you use a word like "guilty" when explaining your view because mankind, according to Calvinism is actually held culpable for God's responses (or His determinations as to how mankind will certainly "respond"...if you can call that a 'response') As to your comments about going beyond the limits of revelation, I could not agree more. But who is going beyond those limits in this case? The guy who says, "I don't know because the bible doesn't reveal enough for us to come to a conclusion as to how man is free while God is omniscient, I just believe both are clearly revealed to be the case (something even Compatibilists affirm)," or the man who denies one seemingly clear truth (human responsibility) due to the mysterious nature of how it works with the other (divine foreknowledge)? BTW, both of us could accuse the other of denying the 'truth' of a text because they don't like what it says. The point regarding the appeal to mystery is that I could likewise accuse you of "hiding behind it" just as atheists are notorious to doing to believers... but it is self defeating unless you never appeal to mystery yourself. Begging the question is to presume true the very point up for debate, and the question up for debate here is which of our views IS clearly supported by the text. Your statements which ultimately claim, "The bible clearly supports my view," are nothing more than question begging fallacies. I learned when judging CX debate years ago that the easiest way to spot question begging is to ask yourself if the opponent could make the exact same statement. We all know you believe your views to be true, but stating that the bible clearly supports your views doesn't amount to more than "I'm right because you're wrong." And one point you refused to engage is this: Either I'm right, or I'm determined by God's sovereign decree to be wrong. Either way, you are debating God... Good luck. :)    

From Augustine to Aquinas, from Freud to Matthew Fox, understandings of the nature of sin have shifted and evolved. Though we have rejected the concept of original sin and though many of us have distanced ourselves from shame-based theologies, we can’t ignore the fact that they exist.

This episode of CS is titled “Augustine – Part 1.”Late have I loved You, O Beauty so ancient yet so new; Late have I loved you. You were within while I was without. I sought You out there. Unlovely, I rushed heedlessly among the lovely things You made. You were with me, but I was not with You. These things kept me far from You; even though they'd not even be unless You made them. You called and cried aloud, and opened my deafness. You gleamed and shined, and chased away my blindness. You breathed fragrant odors and I drew breath, and now I pant for You. I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst. You touched me, and I burned for Your peace.Wrote Augustine of Hippo in his classic Confessions.We turn now to the life and work of a man of singular importance in the history of the Church due to his impact on theology. I'll be blunt to say what it seems many, maybe most, are careful to avoid when it comes to Augustine. While the vast majority of historians laud him, a much smaller group are less enthused with him, as I hope becomes clear as we review the man and his impact.Augustine is the climax of patristic thought, at least in the Latin world. By “patristics,”  I mean the theology of the Church Fathers. If you've ever had a chance to look through collections of books on theology or church history, you've likely seen a massive set of tomes called the Ante & Post Nicene Fathers. That simply means the Church Fathers that came before the Council of Nicaea and those who came after and helped lay the doctrinal foundation of the Church. Augustine was THE dominant influence on the Medieval European; so much so, He's referred to as the Architect of the Middle Ages. Augustine continues to be a major influence among Roman Catholics for his theology of the church and sacraments, and for Protestants in regard to his theology of grace & salvation.Augustine's back-story is well-known because there's plenty of source material to draw from. Some say we know more about Augustine than any other figure of the ancient world because—not only do we have a record of his daily activities from one of his students; Possidius, Bishop of Calama; we also have a highly detailed record of Augustine's inner life from his classic work, Confessions. We also have a work titled Retractions where Augustine chronicles his intellectual development as he lists 95 of his works, explains why they were written, and the changes he made to them over time.Let me begin his story by laying the background of Augustine's world . . .The end of the persecution of the first 2 centuries was a great relief to the church. No doubt the reported conversion of Emperor Constantine seemed a dream come true. The apostle Paul told the followers of Christ to pray for the king and all those in authority. So the report of the Emperor's conversion was a cause of great rejoicing. It was likely only a handful of the wise who sensed a call to caution in what this new relationship between church and state would mean and the perils it might bring.During the 4th Century, churches grew more rapidly than ever. But not all those who joined did so with pure motives. With persecution behind them, some joined the Church to hedge their bets and add one more deity to their list. Others joined thinking it would advance their social status, now that being a Christian could earn them points with officials. Some sincere Christians witnessed the moral and spiritual dumbing down of the faith and fled to the wilderness to pursue an ascetic lifestyle as a hermit or into a monastery as a monk. But most Christians remained in their cities and towns to witness the growing affiliation between the church and earthly institutions. The invisible, universal or catholic church began increasingly to be associated with earthly forms and social structures.I need to pause here and make sure everyone understands that the word Catholic simply means UNIVERSAL. Historically, this is the Age of Catholic Christianity – not ROMAN Catholic Christianity. Historians refer to this time and the Eastern Orthodox Church as Catholic, to differentiate it from the several aberrant and heretical groups that had split off.  Groups like the Arians, Manichaeans, Gnostics, and Apollinarians, and half a dozen other hard to pronounce sects. But toward the end of the 4th Century, the Institutional replaced the Communal aspects of the Faith. The Gospel was supplanted by dogma and rituals in many churches.Jesus made it clear following Him meant a call to serve, not be served. Christians are servants. They serve God by serving one another and the world. During the first 3 centuries when the church was battered, the call to serve was valued as a priority. The heroes of the faith served by offering themselves in the ultimate sense-with their lives. But when the Church rose out of the catacombs to enter positions of social influence and power during the 4th Century, being a servant lost priority. Church leaders, who'd led by serving for 300 years, began to position themselves to be served. Servant-leaders became leaders of servants.This change escalated with the disintegration of the Western Empire during the 4th & 5th Centuries. As foreigners pressed in from the North and East, and civil authorities fled from the frontiers, people look more and more to the bishops and church leaders to provide guidance and governance.We've already seen how the Church and Bishop at Rome emerged as not only a religious leader but a political leader as well. The fall and sack of Rome by the Vandals in 410 rocked the Empire, leaving people profoundly shaken. One man emerged at this time to help deal with their confusion and anxiety over the future.Augustine was born in 354 in Tagaste, a small commercial city in North Africa. His father Patricius was a pagan and member of the local ruling class. His mother Monica was a committed Christian. Though far from wealthy, Augustine's parents were determined he should have the best education possible. After attending primary school in Tagaste he went to Carthage for secondary education. It was there, at the age of 17, he took on a mistress with whom he lived for 13 years & by whom he had a son named Adeodatus. While this seems scandalous, realize it was not all that uncommon for young men of the upper classes to have such an arrangement. Augustine seems to have had a genuine love for this woman, even though he fails to give us her name. It's certain he did love their son. And even though Augustine loved his girlfriend. He later wrote throughout these years he was continually hammered by sexual temptation and often despaired of overcoming it.Augustine pursued studies in philosophy in general; picking no specific school as the focus of his attention. When he was 19 he read the now lost Hortensius by the Roman orator Cicero & was convinced he should make the pursuit of truth his life's aim. But this noble quest battled with what he now felt was a degrading desire toward immorality. For moral assistance to resist the downward pull, he defaulted to the faith of his mother's home and turned to the Bible. But being a lover of classical Latin, the translations he read seemed crude and unsophisticated and held no appeal.What did appeal to Augustine was the Manichaeans with whom we've already treated.  By way of review, Mani was a teacher in Persia in the mid-3rd Century who mashed a Gnostic-flavored religion together with ancient Persian ideas as embodied in Zoroastrianism. Augustine was an intellectual, the kind of person Manichaeanism appealed to. They disdained faith, saying they were the intellectual gate-keepers of reason and logic. They explained the world in terms of darkness and light. Light and Spirit were good, darkness and the physical; evil. The key to overcoming sin was an early form of the campaign used on public school campuses in the US years ago regarding drugs: “Just say no!” Augustine was told if he just employed total abstinence from physical pleasure he'd do well. He was a Manichaean for 9 yrs until he saw its logical inconsistencies and left.His record of this time reveals that while he remained within their ranks, he had problems all along. Assuming he just needed to learn more to clear up the problems, the more he studied, the more problems popped up. When he voiced his concerns, other Manichaeans told him if he could just hear the teaching of Faustus, all his concerns would dissolve. Faustus was supposed to be the consummate Manichaean who had all the answers.Well, Faustus eventually arrived and Augustine listened in the expectation that everything he'd been doubting would evaporate like dew in the morning sun. That's not what happened. On the contrary. Augustine said while Faustus was eloquent of speech, his words were like a fancy plate holding rotten meat. He sounded good, but his speech was empty.Augustine spent time with Faustus, trying to work through his difficulties but the more he heard, the more he realized the man was clueless. So much for Manichaeanism being the gate-keeper of reason.At the age of 20, Augustine began teaching. His friends recognized his intellectual genius and encouraged him to move to Rome. In 382, closing in on 30, he and his mother moved to the Capital where he began teaching.As often happens when someone's religious or philosophical house is blown over like a stack of cards, Augustine's disappointment with Manichaeanism led to a period of disenchantment & skepticism. Remember; he'd given himself to the pursuit of truth and had assumed for several years Mani had found it. Now he knew he hadn't. Once bitten, twice shy works for philosophy as well as romance.Augustine was rescued from his growing skepticism by Neo-Platonism and the work of Plotinus who fanned to flame his smoldering spark of longing for truth.In 384, Augustine was hired as a professor of rhetoric at the University of Milan where his now widowed mother Monica and some friends joined him.More out of professional courtesy as a professor of rhetoric than anything else, Augustine went to hear Milan's bishop Ambrose preach. Augustine was surprised at Ambrose's eloquence. It's not like this was his first time in church. He'd attended the churches of North Africa while growing up there. But he'd never heard anyone speak like this. Ambrose showed Augustine that the Christian faith, far from being crude and unsophisticated, was both eloquent & intelligent.An elder named Simplicianus made Augustine his personal project. He gave Augustine a copy of a commentary on Paul by Marius Victorinus, who'd converted from Neo-Platonism to Christianity 30 years before. Being a Neo-Platonist himself, Augustine went through something of an intellectual conversion, if not a spiritual transformation.Augustine's future was bright. He had a prestigious job, committed friends, wealth, influence and he was still young and healthy. But inwardly he was miserable. His mother Monica suggested what he needed was a normal family. Of course, she was against his long-time but illicit affair with his girlfriend, the mother of his son. She'd followed him on all his various moves; to Tagaste from Carthage to Rome, then Milan. Monica told Augustine his girlfriend was keeping him from finding a suitable wife, someone more fit for his social standing. Though Augustine loved her, his mother's constant urging to put her away eventually moved him to locate his inner unrest with his mistress. So he ended their relationship. He then proposed to a young woman of wealth and society. Problem is, she was too young to marry so a far-off date was set. Augustine couldn't master his lust, and only a short time after breaking up with his mistress, he found another. From Augustine's own account of his struggle in the Confessions, we might describe his problem as a sexual addiction. His inner battle between the higher call of virtue and the lower pull toward vice threatened to tear him apart in a mental breakdown.It was then, as he devoured material in his quest for truth that he heard of Christian hermits like Anthony of Egypt who'd mastered their fleshly desires. Their example shamed Augustine. Until then he'd considered Christians as intellectually inferior -- yet they were able to accomplish a victory over sin he'd been powerless to attain. He began to wonder if maybe Christianity possessed a power he'd missed.Conversion became for Augustine, as it was for so many at this time, not so much an issue of faith as action. He was persuaded of the intellectual strength of Christianity; he just did not want to give up his sin, though he knew he should.One day in 386, while walking in the garden of his house, his soul seething in confusion and moral anguish, he carried a Bible hoping to draw guidance from it. But he could make no sense of it. He dropped it on a bench and paced back and forth; his mind in torment. From somewhere nearby, he heard a child's voice calling out the line of what must have been a game though Augustine did not know it. The voice said, “Tolle lege (tawlee Leggy) = Take up and read.” He reached down and picked up the Bible he'd just dropped. The page fell open to Romans 13 where his eyes fell on words perfectly suited to his current mindset. He read àLet us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.Augustine later wrote, “As I read those words, instantly it was as if the light of peace poured into my heart and all the shades of doubt departed." The following Easter, Augustine and his son Adeodatus were baptized by Bishop Ambrose. A few months later Augustine returned to North Africa. On the way, his mother Monica died and not long after he returned to Tagaste, his son also passed. Augustine lost interest in living and longed to leave the world he once longed for.His friends rallied round and gave him a purpose to carry on. They formed a monastic community, out of which would come the famous Augustinian Order and Rule.While Augustine would likely have been content to live out his life in the monastery, the North African church desperately needed a leader with his gifts. In 391 the church at Hippo ordained him as 1 of their priests. He did the preaching because their bishop was Greek and could speak neither Latin nor the local Punic. He became co-bishop 4 years later, then a year after that, sole bishop at Hippo. He served in that capacity for the next 33 years.He kept up the monastic life throughout his tenure as Bishop at Hippo. His was an extremely busy career; divided between study, writing and general oversight of church affairs.We'll pick it up at this point in our next episode as we consider some of his more important writings. Then we'll get into Augustine's career as a theologian.