Nurturing Truth & Confronting LiesNURTURING TRUTH & CONFRONTING LIES

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

 Timothy 3:16-17

What causes poverty? It’s a complex problem with many answers. However, much of poverty and human suffering are rooted in wrong beliefs. The reality is that what we believe impacts what we do. It affects people individually as well as allowing for corrupt and oppressive systems.

There are many examples.

The belief that women are less valuable allows domestic violence to be normal in many nations. The belief in India that a daughter is a burden—her dowry an expense that will cripple the family—allows at least 500,000 girls to go missing each year through sex-selective abortions or infanticide. Fatalism—the belief that you can’t change the future—results in many people accepting appalling situations. Children are not sent to school when parents believe that they will only be farmers and don’t need an education. And the belief, carried over from so many religions, that those above you need to be appeased, usually with gifts, allows bribery to flourish.

However, in every culture there are great examples of the impact of truth. The high value of education means that literacy rates in much of Asia are very high. The value of elders in many Asian cultures has led to fewer older people living neglected or lonely. The high value of community and relationship in Africa means that people are willing to serve one another.

How This Impacts Our Work

As we start any project, we look at what we hope to achieve. We ask, “What are God’s intentions for this situation?” From there we look at what beliefs are helping or hindering that from happening and what the Bible says is true in that situation. Then we seek to bring truth through teaching, modeling, and sharing stories. We want the truths we teach to be practical so people can apply them and have experiences that then change their view of the world.

Examples From Our Work

In His Image, helping the disabled to reach their full potential.

We model truth. The beliefs that disabled children are the result of a curse on their family, that they are worthless and shameful, mean that parents often hide these children away. In His Image Center brings truth to families and the surrounding community by treating children with disabilities as valuable and helping them reach their God-given potential.

Truth Centered Transformation, addressing rural poverty through the Church.

We teach truth. Around the world, Christians have been taught that God only cares about spiritual things. In one module, the Truth Centered Transformation brings pastors together to learn about God’s concern for His people’s health and physical bodies. The response is often tears of joy as they realize for the first time that God cares about these things. Their churches go on to clean water sources, build latrines, educate their neighbors, and greatly reduce preventable illnesses in their communities.

Truth Centered Transformation

‘NURTURING TRUTH & CONFRONTING LIES’ BOOKLET

If you want to go deeper in understanding what this principle is and how you can apply it – this booklet gives more information.

Download the ‘Nurturing Truth & Confronting Lies’ Booklet

GO DEEPER

If you want to learn more about this principle and how to apply it, you can find articles and a free downloadable booklet at the Framework for Transformation website.

Go To frameworkfortransformation.org

FROM THE BLOG

Here are two of our favorite blog posts related to the core principle Nurturing Truth & Confronting Lies. You can read more related blogs here.

Pray: Fatalism

*Fatalism* is one of the more universal lies that we see in much of the Majority World. Fatalism says, “We are born poor and will die poor; it is our destiny; you can’t change the future.”

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Nurturing Truth and Confronting Lies – The Village Story

In a nutshell, this means that we believe that every culture and community holds onto some truths and some lies. To see a community thrive, we must nurture the truths that exist while exposing beliefs that cause brokenness, poverty and injustice to the light of biblical truth.

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