thought exercise from deuteronomy 6

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Matthew 22:36-38, Deuteronomy 6:4-5

Have you ever heard of the Greatest Books of the Western World collection? Published by Encyclopedia Britannica in 1954, this comprehensive series was edited by Robert Hutchins and Mortimer J. A...

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Discipling Football Players

Author

Mark Batterson

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Scripture

Deuteronomy 6:6–7, 2 Timothy 2:2, Proverbs 22:6, Daniel 6:3–4, Matthew 28:19–20, Psalm 78:4–7

The U of C [University of Chicago] has produced ninety-eight Nobel laureates, but I’m not sure any of them left as big an imprint on that university as its famed football coach, Amos Alonzo Stagg. Sta...

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Using Repetition to Make a Point

Author

James Boice

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Scripture

Matthew 13:, Philippians 3:1, 1 Samuel 3:1–10 , Exodus 7:12, Deuteronomy 6:4–9 , Psalm 136:

In the second century before Christ the great rival to Roman power in the Mediterranean world was Carthage, the Phoenician city-state located on the north African coast. It had been founded in 822 B.C...

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Can you Grasp the Word of God?

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Jeremiah 20:9 , Deuteronomy 6:4–9, Isaiah 55:10–11, Hebrews 4:12, 2 Timothy 3:16–17, Psalm 119:105

There’s a story that used to make the rounds about the German theologian Paul Tillich. Tillich’s theology was considered dangerous by many Christians in the U.S. Supposedly one time after delivering a...

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Following Jesus Requires Real Commitment

Author

Bradley Long

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Scripture

Proverbs 3:5-8, Matthew 22:37, Romans 12:1-2, Luke 14:26-27, Deuteronomy 6:5, Luke 16:13, Mark 12:30, John 14:15, Matthew 16:24-26, Luke 9:59-62, Matthew 6:24, Hebrews 11:13-16, Hebrews 10:38-39, Matthew 6:33-34, Matthew 10:37-39

What are you willing to do for love? An instructor for the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course shared with a class the major hang-up he had to get over before asking his wife to ma...

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Praying Wholeheartedly

Author

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Scripture

Luke 11:1–4 , Romans 8:26–27, Psalm 119:171–173 , Exodus 33:11 , Deuteronomy 6:4–9 , 1 Samuel 3:1–10

When our will wholeheartedly enters into the prayer of Christ, then we pray correctly. Only in Jesus Christ are we able to pray, and with him we also know that we shall be heard. And so we must learn ...

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Capturing Memories

Author

Donald Miller

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Scripture

Deuteronomy 6:4–12, Joshua 4:1–9, Ecclesiastes 12:1, Luke 22:19, 2 Timothy 1:5–7 , Psalm 77:11–12

The saddest thing about life is you don’t remember half of it. You don’t even remember half of half of it. Not even a tiny percentage, if you want to know the truth. I have this friend Bob who writes ...

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Developing Intimacy

Author

Ruth Haley Barton

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Scripture

Deuteronomy 6:5, 1 Kings 8:22-23, 54 , Isaiah 6:5-8, Mark 12:30, Romans 12:1, Psalm 63:1-4

Intimacy happens as we bring more and more of ourselves into God’s presence. To pray with soul and body means, says Jane Vennard, “praying with all of who we are: our physicality, our emotions, our in...

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When our Prayers Crash into the Ground

Author

Phillip Yancey

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Scripture

Deuteronomy 6:16 , 1 Kings 18:20-40, Job 1:20-22, Matthew 4:5-7, John 20:24-29, Psalm 73:1-3, 16-17

Nine-year-old Leo Tolstoy , convinced God would help him fly, dove headfirst out a third-floor window and had his first major crisis of disappointment with God. Fortunately, Tolstoy survived the cr...

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True Christianity is a Fight

Author

Timothy Keller

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Scripture

Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Joshua 1:8, 2 Chronicles 34:29-33, Matthew 4:1-11, Ephesians 6:10-17, Psalm 119:11

Now I have to ask you: If Jesus Christ, the Son of God, did not presume to face the forces of evil in the world without a profound knowledge of the Bible in mind and heart, how could we try to face li...

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What Is a Family For?

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Deuteronomy 6:6-7, Proverbs 22:6, 1 Samuel 1:27-28, Luke 2:51-52, Ephesians 6:1-4, Psalm 127:3-5

I want to suggest a pretty radical idea about what family is for. Family is about the forming of persons. Being a person is a gift, like life itself—we are born as human beings made in the image of Go...

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All Learning Ought to Lead to Love

Author

Brennan Manning

Keywords

Scripture

Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Proverbs 3:3-4, Micah 6:8, 1 Corinthians 8:1-2 , James 3:17 , Psalm 119:105

Anthony of Padua opened every class he taught with the phrase, “Of what value is learning that does not turn to love?”

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What Keeps us from Experiencing Renewal

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Deuteronomy 6:4-5, 2 Kings 22:23, Isaiah 58:6-7, Psalm 119:105, Matthew 5:17-20 , Acts 2:42-47

There’s a quote by H. Richard Niebuhr that I believe is absolutely true. “The great Christian revolutions,” he argued, “come not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen w...

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The Most Powerful Choices in our Lives

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Deuteronomy 6:6-9, Daniel 6:10, Proverbs 4:23-27, Psalm 119:9-11, Romans 12:1-2, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

The most powerful choices we will make in our lives are not about specific decisions but about patterns of life: the nudges and disciplines that will shape all our other choices. This is especially tr...

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Nudges for the Worse

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Deuteronomy 6:6-9 , Genesis 13:10-12, Exodus 32:1-4 , Matthew 4:8-10, Romans 7:15-20, Psalm 1:1-3

As popularized in Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s fascinating book by the same name, nudges are small changes in the environment around us that make it easier for us to make the choices we want to ...

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Nearly Amish

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Scripture

Ecclesiastes 3:1, Deuteronomy 6:6-7, Proverbs 25:16 , 1 Corinthians 6:12 , Psalm 101:3, Philippians 4:8

Our family is radical, but we are definitely not Amish—although we love to eat the fruit, vegetables, meat, and cheese produced by our Amish neighbors forty miles away in Lancaster County, Pennsylvani...

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Restoring Love for Scripture

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Scripture

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 , 1 Kings 19:11-13 , Nehemiah 8:1-12, Luke 24:13-35 , Hebrews 4:12, Psalm 119:9-16

After I graduated from seminary, I stopped reading the Bible. It’s been said that for all the gain that comes from dissecting a frog, all the hands-on knowledge one amasses from cutting out the organs...

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Discipleship Begins with Active Listening

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Scripture

1 Samuel 3:9-10, Deuteronomy 6:4-5 , Matthew 4:19-20, John 10:27, Luke 11:28, Psalm 85:8

The interplay between listening and obedience expresses itself in our lives all the time. Sound has the ability to “command” us, to summon a response in us, forcing us to take notice. Unlike visual ...

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Listening Leads to True Obedience

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Scripture

Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Exodus 19:5-6, Matthew 7:24-27, Luke 11:28, John 14:23, Psalm 40:6-8

It would seem that hearing is but a narrow channel pouring into the deep sea of doing. Yet the etymological dictionary taught me that the sharp distinction between hearing and doing is the result of h...

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Listening to God and Others

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Scripture

Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Isaiah 55:3, Matthew 11:15, Luke 8:8, James 1:19-20, Psalm 46:10

The very first word of the Rule of St. Benedict, that famous text that has guided the life of monastic communities since the sixth century, is listen . I want for us to put listening back where i...

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Developing an Anthropological Foundation for the Spiritual Disciplines

Author

James Bryan Smith

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Scripture

Genesis 1:26-27 , Deuteronomy 6:4-6, Jeremiah 31:33, Matthew 23:25-26 , Romans 12:2 , Psalm 51:10

Before my mentor, Dallas Willard, passed over to glory, I asked him what he thought about the rapid rise of the Christian spiritual formation movement. He said, “It is a wonderful thing, but my fear i...

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Never Stop Learning, Always Growing

Author

Tom Nelson

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Scripture

Proverbs 1:5, Deuteronomy 6:6-7, Ecclesiastes 7:12, Luke 2:46-47, Romans 12:2, Psalm 25:4-5

The bottom line is this: never grow complacent. Never grow tired of learning. As soon as we stop learning we lose the capacity to grow and mature in our work and our relationships. This continual lear...

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G. K. Chesterton: The Great Defender of Tradition

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Scripture

Exodus 20:1-17, Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Matthew 15:3, 2 Thessalonians 2:15, Psalm 119:97-98

G. K. Chesterton was well-known (and iconoclastic) in his defense of tradition in a time when progress was all the rage in Western Europe- in technology, in the sciences, in philosophy. Chesterton, on...

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Playing for His Father

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Scripture

Proverbs 22:23, Deuteronomy 6:6-9, Philippians 4:13, Hebrews 12:1-3, Psalm 19:93-94

A blind father, proud of his son who played Rugby at its namesake school, would listen intently to the roar of the crowd and the cheers for the winning team. Though he never saw his son in action, he ...

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Jesus Didn’t Drive

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