the Bible isn’t boring

John Piper on the Bible

God’s gift to you this year

Jeff Mangum taught out of Psalm 19 last Sunday to complete the two part series on the value of God’s word. how would it change our daily routine if we really believed what David said in this Psalm about the word of God, (especially the part that I bolded below)? 7(G) The law of the [...]

biblical literacy

Austin Stone Community Church has just had the first week of a short series on the importance of reading the Bible. I saw somewhere the other day that a slight majority of professing believers doesn’t even have biblical literacy as a goal. Obviously, those folks do not really believe that all scripture has been breathed [...]

uniqueness of the Bible

Paul T. McCain posted this from Ernest Koenker about why reading the Bible is a worthy goal for the new year. The Bible is not simply an historical account or a literary masterpiece; it is the witness to Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and it presents the Deus loquens, the God who uses [...]

PocketBible for iPhone

I have been using Laridian’s PocketBible software on my PDA then phones for a long long time. I used it on my old Handspring Visors, my Treo300 phone, my Treo600, my samsung PPC6500 (windows Mobile), and even on my Windows computer. For powerful Bible software on the go, it has been a dream. Lots of [...]

another reminder

Here from Justin Taylor is another reminder of the importance of an essentially literal approach to Bible translation. Quoting Robert Alter: My notion of effective translation of the Bible involves a high degree of literalism–within the limits of reasonably acceptable literary English–both in regard to representing the word choice and the word order of the [...]

Bible translation tribes

iMonk quotes Scot McKnight’s breakdown of which evangelical tribes prefer which translation of the Bible. Interesting stuff. I don’t know if he meant for it to be amusing, but it kind of is that too. Scott Mcknight recently came right out and said it: We do translations by tribes: “NRSV for liberals and Shane Claiborne [...]

It is not our heart that determines our course

continuing to read Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, you get to page 55. this is some really great stuff on the importance of Biblical literacy: How, for example, shall we ever attain certainty and confidence in our personal and church activity if we do not stand on solid Biblical ground? It is not our heart [...]

God’s will for our lives

Julie Neidlinger nails it again in talking about people searching for God’s will for their lives. A marked memory I had of my one year in Bible college was that of people frantically trying to find the will of God. It came out in all sorts of heartfelt and religious prayers and confessions, and ended [...]

faith comes from hearing

At one of my less regular stops on the blogosphere this morning, I found an excellent example of how to interpret the Bible. Romans 10:17 says: 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. what does that mean and what doesn’t it mean? how do you know? Go read John [...]

biblical illiteracy

Randy Alcorn is concerned about the level of Biblical illiteracy in the church today, even among its leaders. It is a very real concern. Biblical illiteracy among Christians is arguably at an all time high, with chilling implications that can hardly be overstated. I know that various things in the church will inevitably change, such [...]

ESV Study Bible

As I expected when I bought my ESV Study Bible, the most important part of the purchase was access to the online version. Crossway is offering free access to the online version of its study bible through the month of March. Check it out here.

Francis Chan on the Church

I am reading Francis Chan’s book Crazy Love. I am more than halfway finished with it and I will be posting more about it once I have finished it. I can already see that it is going to have to be on my read every year list. This morning I ran across an article he [...]

the Bible

another one of Challies’ Wednesday links was to this article. Ray Ortlund discusses some statistics detailing the shockingly high levels of biblical illiteracy in the general population and among christians. he then gives six excellent suggestions for dealing with this huge problem. an example of the statistics: According to 82 percent of Americans, ‘God helps [...]

read your bible

this is the time of year when people make resolutions. like Todd Bumgarner says, Resolve to Read Your Bible. Todd links to and describes a number of reading plans. here is a direct link to the ESV plans which are all on the web to use every day. here is the one that I plan [...]

D.A. Carson

Here is a quote from D.A. Carson via Vitamin Z about why Christians are surprised by suffering. Here is his first reason: We may get the balance of Scripture wrong. We remember the wonderful triumphs of Joseph, Gideon, and David; we meditate continuously on the miraculous healing of the man born blind, or on the [...]

Update to Why the ESV.

Bryon has posted on his blog about alleged misinformation that I have in my “why the ESV” post. I certainly want to be accurate and to communicate clearly. It sounds like Bryon’s fuss is more with Crossway and/or Good News Bible Publishers. All I can go on is what they say since I was not [...]

New Bible?

Ligonier Ministries is celebrating Reformation Week by giving away a Reformation Study Bible with a donation of any amount. Hurry, offer ends on October 31. I have one of these Bibles and it is an excellent resource. hat tip to the Foolish Galatian.

package arrived

I had a package waiting for me after work today. an innocuous brown box. As anyone would do, I opened it only to find another box. this one white and much less innocuous. I opened the white box to discover a bit of shrink wrapped brown papery goodness. removed the wrap. opened it up. Hmmm. [...]

Why the ESV?

this is a topic that has been well covered by many others. I don’t have much to add, except that as I explained below, it is very important to study scripture in a literal translation as close as possible to the original languages. There are several literal versions. The one I grew up with is [...]

Bible translations and study

as I said before, I am kind of a nut about Bibles. The bottom line is that I think everyone should get one that they will read and then read it for all its worth. Having said that, at Bible study yesterday morning the importance of using a literal translation in your study became apparent. [...]

ESV Study Bible

here is a detailed video introduction to this new study Bible. I have ordered mine (brown Tru-Tone) from the Westminster Bookstore linked here.

Online ESV Study Bible and pitt-minion

Here is Matthew 5 in the ESV online Study Bible. pretty cool. Be sure to hit the “listen” button to have it read to you. Also, the pitt-minion edition of the ESV is out from Cambridge Bibles. Take a look at Mark Bertrand’s review and pictures. That brown goatskin looks sweet. My next Bible is [...]

ESV Study Bible is out

the ESV Study Bible is out. Westminster Bookstore has them at a good discount. Calfskin appears to have already sold out. that brown trutone is looking pretty good.

the canon

From where did the Bible come? why does it contain the 39 books of the Old Testament and 27 books of the New Testament that it does? anytime you have a question like this, the place to start is with the invaluable Christian Research Institute. www.equip.org They have a search box and you can type [...]