In this episode, we look at the beautiful life of Saint Mark Ji, a Chinese doctor who was executed during the boxer rebellion. Due to the medical practices of the time, Saint Mark Ji became an opium addict and was executed while still addicted. He is the patron saint of addicts, and we have a lot to learn from him about the wonderous grace of our Lord.

In this episode, we take a brief look into the life and work of Saint George, an early saint who stands for bravery, courage, and purity. Saint George is an excellent example of those attributes and the importance of standing against the wickedness of the world for the sake of others.

In this episode, I talk through the significance of the lives and martyrdoms of saints Agnes and Agatha, and how they may help us learn how to pray for the victims of transgender ideology and the evil behind it.

In this episode I discuss why it is beneficial for us to learn about some of the lives of the saints. Regardless of our denominational, or theological affiliations, these men and women are remarkable people of God who can be examples for us today. I discuss 5 main benefits to learning about the saints, though there are many, many more:

1. The saints were real people.

2. They struggled just like us.

3. Their lessons are timeless.

4. Their lessons are timely.

5. They are good role models.

I then spend a few minutes briefly introducing the saints that I will be discussing in the next two and a half weeks.

In this episode, I conclude this series on reading Scripture quickly by discussing some of the materials available to help supplement your reading. Some of these materials may be more surprising than others, and some are more involved and time-intensive than others. I hope you enjoy this.

In this episode, I continue my walk through how I read the Bible and discuss another method for interacting with the text that has been very helpful for me: marking. I will discuss highlighting and note-taking, as well as a number of symbols or icons that I use in the margins while I read in order to create quick reference points for myself.

In this episode, I continue my discussion on how we can improve our knowledge of God's Word by reading it more quickly. To help us in this, I discuss three marking methods that I have found most helpful:

1. Highlighting and Underlining

2. Note-Taking

3. Cross-referencing and cross-referencing

In this episode, I tell the story of when I was encouraged to begin reading through the Bible every 3-4 months. And though I have yet to reach that kind of reading efficiency, I have learned a lot from reading through the Bible 2-3.5 times every year. In this episode, I share what I have learned and why I think you should try to pick up the pace a little bit. There are 8 ways that this may help your Bible reading:

1. It gets you over the hump of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, which is where many Christians often stall out in their reading plans.

2. Begin and end with reading a Psalm. Though the Psalms are beautiful and instructive, they can be repetitive when read through several at a time. Reading one at the beginning and one at the end of your reading time helps not only in breaking up some of that repetition but also allows for reading the Psalms more than once during each reading cycle, which helps in establishing the Psalms in your heart and memory.

3. This allows for being able to see the big picture of Scripture; the meta-narrative of God's Word, which is an exercise in what theologians call Biblical Theology.

4. This allows you to be able to see the connections between passages, chapters, and books. Those headings are not part of the original documents, yet it's easy to allow those headings to influence how we see the connections and flow of the Biblical texts.

5. Familiarity! Because the faster reading pace allows us to read the Bible more often, we can become more familiar with even some of the more obscure passages, which can be very exciting! Are you familiar with the unnamed prophet who anointed a general and then jumped out the window? It's hilarious, you should definitely look it up!

6. This allows you to try different translations, which can help broaden or enrich your reading, by seeing how different translators work with the texts.

7. This also allows you to make use of more study Bibles. I will cover this more in episode 4.

8. Stories will start to jump out at you that you never noticed before, which will enliven your reading and overall experience with God's Word.

In this episode, I introduce my brand new podcast and discuss the difference between theology and theologizing and explain why it is important to stay rooted in the Word of God.