Augustine was a gifted teacher who had spent years chasing pleasure and wrestling with his sin. He later wrote about stealing pears as a youth just for the thrill of doing what was forbidden. One afternoon, troubled and anxious, he was walking in a garden when he heard a child’s sing-song voice repeating, “Take up and read.” Nearby lay a collection of Paul’s letters he had been reading. He picked it up and read the first thing his eyes fell on, Romans 13:13-14, which says to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and stop feeding the flesh. He later wrote that instantly “all the darkness of doubt vanished away.” One verse, read at the right moment, changed a life that changed church history.
