This is a short one but the first one is a good series on prayer and I wanted to let you know about the reading plan post if you haven’t seen it and are interested.
Here is a post that goes along with the last plan listed in the post above which has Seven Tips For the Two-Year Journey at the end of the post with some tips that pertain to any reading plan (if that made any sense).
Christmas: The Hinge of History at The Gospel Coalition – Bryan says, “Trust me, you’ll want to read it.”
I updated an earlier post titled “For God so loved the world” with links at the bottom. Let me know if you have an opinion.
Does God have a purpose for false teachers?
Caring about All Suffering, Especially Eternal Suffering
There are a lot of lot of blog posts that have photography tips that just state the obvious. Some of them don’t even include pictures! I tried to find some that are at least decent for Christmas, except for the last one which is excellent but only on one topic. If these are over your head, well, you’re probably hopeless anyway. (smiley) Just remember to fill the frame, which usually means get closer and don’t forget to photograph the food since everyone loves it so much.
Christmas Photography Tips at Flickr
Christmas, Holiday, Winter and Vacation Photography Tips – More links
How to Photograph Christmas Lights
Trials and Suffering at Isaac’s Musings
Christian Carnival CCCLV at who am i?
2010 in photos at boston.com (some are disturbing)
In the Mail at THEOparadox
I now partially agree with the last one. I think it’s better use of readers’ time to write about books that the blogger is reading or has read unless a specific list or question about it is relevant.
I participate in a home coffee roasting (no, it’s not illegal as Dr. Jim West might think) bulletin board. It’s very frustrating to read about someone who just bought some green (unroasted) coffee beans and then says, “I can’t wait to roast these tomorrow night!” Well thanks for wasting my time! How about wait a few days and tell us how you like it?
Click for a larger one
Photo ©Jeff Oien
I cannot offer this as a Free Photo
Quite a while ago I did a similar post about another publisher and since then the New Living Translation (NLT)/Tyndale has made great strides in what they have to offer online.
One regular item is their Thursday Giveaway. This week (the week of December 5, 2010) they are giving away the The One Year Bible NLT which is what this post is about. They are asking bloggers to let people know about and write about what they like about the New Living Translation Facebook page.
Since the NLT has been adding new web sites and features I was planning on doing a post like this anyway, so I would like to let you know about most of the things the NLT provides us with that’s featured on their Facebook page. There are so many, you may not know about some of them.
You can find the main web site at www.newlivingtranslation.com.
nlt.to is a fast loading site with a simple interface for quickly looking up a verse or passage, especially if you want to copy and paste a passage as it’s formatted in a paper Bible. This is also a great for mobile users. You can easily share on Facebook or Twitter. I asked about including the verse itself instead of just a link back to the site and they may include this feature in the future. You can find a list of other features on their blog announcement post.
Another great site for original language users is their interlinear site:
nltinterlinear.com
This also shows how closely a truly dynamic translation can stay to the original languages. Although interlinears may be unpopular with some educators, this can show you how they chose certain words in translating this version.
The NLT Study Bible is available online with a free 30 day trial so you can try it out and see if you would like to purchase it:
www.nltstudybible.com
The NLT gives:
The New Living Translation presents the Give the Word contest and giveaway, a partnership with three great ministries—the Dream Center, Oasis International, and Wycliffe Bible Translators. All three of these ministries Give the Word to people and in places where it is desperately needed, and all three will benefit from the Give the Word contest.
Give the Word page
Sweepstakes page (linked in the quote above)
Most of these things are listed on their Facebook page if you go to Info. If you’re a Facebook user and ‘Like’ the page, you’ll get updates and also a daily NLT verse.
The staff have been the most accessible of any translation I know of. I’ve corresponded with Laura Bartlett, Sean Harrison and Keith Williams who has been an encouragement to me as a blogger and they are all very professional and friendly.
I’m sure I’ve forgotten something, but those are some of the things and people you will find online regarding the NLT.
The last one is video Acidri’s Blog brings us that you may have seen. The absolute sovereignty of God is a counter-intuitive comfort once God showed it to me. When I get in the “dark valley” and am having deep trouble with the difficulties with mental and physical health, I always go to Psalm 139:13-16 which the man in the video alludes to at one point.
I’m so impressed with his knowledge of Scripture and you can see how important Scripture memory is for him.
As the evangelical community turns to CBMW for trusted counsel on contemporary Bible translations that are faithful and accurate in their rendering of gender-language,
–CBMW
Really? Are you sure?
I get so mad when I read this. If only I had this as a kid:
The [Heidelberg] Catechism is an introduction to the Christian worldview and the basic teachings of the Bible; it is divided into fifty-two sections, called “Lord’s Days,” which were designed to be taught on each of the 52 Sundays of the year. Elders and deacons were required to subscribe and adhere to it, and ministers were required to preach on a section of the Catechism each Sunday so as to increase the often poor theological knowledge of the church members.
–Michael Acidri
I have The Heidelberg Catechism on its own page with Scripture references shown on most systems if you pass your cursor over them.
There has been a little bit of interest in the HCSB lately so I thought I’d remind people (I had forgotten myself) of the HCSB Bible Translation Web Sites blog post. I removed the bad links. There may be some new ones I’ve missed. If you know of any, let me know and I’ll add them.
There are quite a few links to the old This Lamp but they work.
Also on this blog you’ll find:
NLT Study Bible Reviews Roundup
ESV Study Bible Reviews Roundup
which I haven’t checked for dead links.
Near Emmaus has a post titled NIV Around the Blogosphere
I like what this article says. It offers some things I didn’t cover.
Scripture Memorization at Bible Study Tools
Be careful of popups >:-/
It mentions a woman who used her memorized Scripture to make it through prison camp. In the back of my mind I think I think about how valuable this would be if I was blind or imprisoned. Maybe that’s paranoid.
There is a quote in the article:
What if I offered you one thousand dollars for every verse you could memorize in the next seven days? Do you think your attitude toward Scripture memory and your ability to memorize would improve? Any financial reward would be minimal when compared to the accumulating value of the treasure of God’s Word deposited within your mind.
If God’s instruction is worth more than any amount of money and sweeter than any food (Psalm 19:10), I would think more people would really want to have this “written on the tablet of their heart” (Proverbs 7:2-3). This isn’t to guilt people into memorizing Scripture. It’s just to say that this is the attitude that God is transforming us into having by renewing our mind (Romans 12:2) if we want it. So the result would be to want to memorize it (Proverbs 2:1-6). We may not have it right away and some may always struggle. We need to pray for God’s grace (2 Corinthians 12:9) to change us into wanting these things so bad they’re worth more than anything this world could offer and then as ‘side effect’ wanting to memorize them too.
Getting people to do things out of guilt is exactly the wrong way to go about it. It’s taking God out of the picture, other than wanting to please Him out of guilt, and doing it on our own out of fear. I believe it’s the same thing with being ‘accountable’ to someone. We should be accountable to God first! Use a partner for encouragement and prayer, not guilt. Maybe that’s for another post.
I would also say if one or two verses a week sounds daunting they do two verses a month. 20-25 verses (hopefully some within passages) a year is better than nothing and over a few years you’ll have something substantial and it will hopefully get easier.
Scripture Memorization at Bible Study Tools
At the risk of offending some people, I think that to look for and believe there are contradictions in the Bible is because of unbelief. I would rather really look into it and find ways of defending the living and active document that God inspired than be suspicious.
I’ve also always believed that there are difficult portions to cause us to trust it by faith as opposed to judging it. Matt Perman has a different take on that idea and writes about the Bible’s “contradictions”.
A Few Thoughts on the Fast Company Article, “What the Bible Got Wrong”
HT: Justin Taylor
The most important part of this post is at the bottom.
Crossway has done a lot of innovative and helpful things for those who like the ESV translation. They’ve made free modules for e-Sword, The Sword Project, mobile devices etc. and many other things I listed here (and got completely misunderstood and slammed for it here).
Lately a video has come out that really send negative vibes through me to put it nicely.
ESV Trusted By Leaders from Crossway on Vimeo.
A commenter on TC’s blog named Ronald (raddestnerd) wrote a comment that sums up how many of us feel. Both him and I respect many of the people in the video but don’t have warm happy feelings about it. He says, “I am not attacking or disparaging these individual Christians. I am sure they love God and care about people as much as any believer. I am trying to critique Crossway’s marketing message. Enjoy the tongue-in-cheek!”
An example:
Tullian Tchividjian:
What I love about it, is that it’s both accessible [except for Millenials, but screw them], and accurate [all other translations are inaccurate]. It’s both readable [but, if you weren't brought up in church hearing Christianese, sorry], and the product of rigorous scholarship [because the NIV -- even though it was a fresh translation from the original language that started from scratch, unlike the ESV that was a revision of the RSV -- is not a product of rigorous scholarship. Sorry Doug Moo and the CBT, your scholarship is not rigorous.]
Two things that bother me about the video are one person who says there are “word for word” (of which there is no such thing but maybe it’s just an antiquated term some people still like to use) and ‘paraphrastic’ translations leaving people who aren’t educated in these things to believe those are the only two types and you definitely want the type the ESV is.
The other is John Piper saying the ESV is the best ‘version’ of the Bible. That’s quite a statement to say the least!
I don’t need to say anything else that’s negative. You’ll find a lot of that and maybe for good reason. Here are some positive things.
Stan has a positive spin on the video in his comments on his blog post about it.
Keith Williams of Tyndale/NLT writes about the value of endorsements.
I would like to leave you with the most important part of this post and that is a link to an open letter to Crossway from Stan McCullars at his blog. If Crossway sees this that would be great.
With the new NIV coming out, we don’t need another round of Bible translation wars.
Also see:
It is time for a truce…
A meandering post.
Willow Creek made basically a thirty year mistake that lead untold thousands or more down the wrong path. It’s not nifty programs and growth in numbers that’s important or what the people of the congregation need.
spiritual growth doesn’t happen best by becoming dependent on elaborate church programs but through the age old spiritual practices of prayer, bible reading, and relationships.
It seems that Saddleback hasn’t learned from them either. But the pastor admittedly isn’t much interested in theology, learning how to interpret the Bible or scholarship. And on it goes.
This may be why there is some sort of a resurgence in Reformed theology. There seems to be a backlash of the post-modern (I can’t believe I used that term) way of thinking and a need to clear unwavering truth from people who aren’t afraid to lay it all out there. Of course a congregation doesn’t need to be Reformed to teach solid Biblical truth. There are plenty of all types are offer sound Biblical doctrine from pastors and teachers who care very deeply about helping people to know God better through the Bible.
What I like about Reformed theology is that the leaders talk about their beliefs without sounding defensive or having any qualifiers. (I like this one too.) They also don’t have any “best kept secrets” that some denominations seem to have. (I’m not going to name them.) People know exactly what they believe in. Again there are other denominations that offer the same conviction. When listening to or reading about Reformed doctrine, one can know pretty quickly if it’s not to their liking and move on to something else pretty quickly.
And contrary to popular belief, Reformed people have a sense of humor.
Here is a comment I found on a post by an Arminian to “those” types of Calvinists. It relates to relativism and certainty (regarding certain doctrine–we obviously can’t be certain about everything and need to embrace mystery and paradox) as mentioned above but it also speaks about Calvinists/Reformed being more gentle.
Religious hard liners are often those who have been victims of chaos. Religious softies are often the children of religious hard liners. Children of skeptics often seek certainty. Children of the certain sometimes wish for the freedom to doubt.
Being patient, kind and gentle is not necessarily the result of relativism but can be a product of deep faith because anger, violence and a need to control or silence others is usually the product of fear. I like it when Calvinism helps people become old and gentle because they have a deep seated belief that our God is all understanding, just and generous. Only such a God can address this world because we both can’t because we don’t know and can’t because we don’t have the power.
– paulvanderklay – link to comment
Calvinists–behave!
Post HT: Brian Fulthorp via Billy Birch on Facebook (not sure how to link that)
Also see:
Spurgeon: A Defense of Calvinism (and Arminians)
This site looks interesting with some good people answering questions. Let me know what you think.
From an email message:
Dear Friend [they don't know me, but I guess I made a new friend],
Our team has been hard at work building a new online destination that seeks to advance the Gospel and ministry of Jesus Christ. Jesus.org is a rich database of answers to some of the most perplexing and frequently questions asked about who Jesus is and what He means to us today. Whether reading an article, listening to an audio clip, or watching a video, visitors to Jesus.org will be engaged with solid Biblical theology.
I wanted to let you know about this website for a couple of reasons
Autumn is coming to a close here. Click for a larger one.
I have taken this from my blogging friend Derek Ashton’s ThEOparadox blog as a summation of the posts that my blogging friend Robert Jiminez posted in a series titled Has inerrancy outlived its usefulness? and Derek’s responses.
While I strongly affirm the innerancy of Scripture, I wanted to put up links to these posts from my two friends so that people who are unfamiliar with this concept and want a starting point can read them and make decisions for themselves. There are a lot of comments to read also.
I believe Robert’s first post is his strongest and Derek’s last is his.
The things that bother me the most about those who believe the Bible is errant is that “the Bible doesn’t speak about itself” and the apparent contradictions that are accusatory in a way, instead of apologetic towards Scripture. Derek addresses both of these in his last post.
Although Derek doesn’t know Robert, I can vouch for Robert’s sincerity and genuineness as a Christian and brother in Christ. I’m very thankful to have these two as my blogging friends. x
One more post on Greek before I lose a lot of people. If you go to David Black’s web page, a professor, scholar, fence mender and the author of New Testament Greek, and scroll down to Wednesday, October 20 you’ll find a little article on how to “stick with it”.
Highlights:
www.daveblackonline.com/blog.htm
I struggled with posting the last one. I’m one who has never really been into food, I’ve always exercised and my body fat is especially low now due to nausea, which is great for losing weight. If someone with chronic fatigue and chronic back pain can exercise so can just about everyone else. I used to be an evangelist for living healthy but I found most people don’t want to hear it so I stopped. It’s like correcting people’s spelling.
I don’t think the word “fat” is very kind. But there are many who really struggle with it and after reading an article like this we can more easily judge people wrongly. I think the comments are just as valuable because they balance everything out.
I think the majority of people just don’t care until a crisis like a heart attack or diabetes comes along, which I realize can also happen no matter what. Then all of a sudden they’re interested in taking care of the temple that God has given them. Sometimes couples both gain weight and enable each other. For those that struggle, we need to have compassion just as any other weakness which we all have a lot of. This means we need to give everyone the benefit of the doubt especially if we don’t know them. And maybe pastors shouldn’t be singled out because it’s more than half the population in the U.S. that has this problem, especially in Wisconsin!
That’s it for me writing about exercise and weight.
1 Corinthians 6:19-1 HCSB
Do you not know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body.
This simplifies things which I think is helpful and describes what I’ve always believed and still do after reading other points of view.
Zacharias Ursinus, principal author of the Heidelberg Catechism, commenting on Q/A 21, describes “the man who truly believes,” the man with “justifying faith,” saying:
He believes that every thing which the Scriptures contain is true, and from God. (Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, 111 [pagination may not be the same]).
In a nutshell, this is what I mean by inerrancy. There is nothing false in Scripture, no errors in fact or doctrine, no mistakes in history or theology. Everything in the Scriptures is true, because it is all from God. This is what our confessions teach, the Reformers taught, and how the overwhelming majority of Christians throughout history have understood the Scriptures. It’s also how Jesus and the apostles approached the Old Testament.
–Kevin DeYoung, Inerrancy and the Reformers (blog post)
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