How many times have you read the Bible?

An article I wrote for the local paper:

As a Christian, we believe that the Bible teaches justification by faith alone through the perfect, complete work of Christ Jesus, through his death, burial and resurrection. Through faith in Christ alone the Christian knows and experiences the forgiveness of sin and the hope of eternal life with Christ. Being brought into newness of life, it is important for the believer to grow in their walk with God by constantly being in the Word. But how many Christians make time for daily Bible reading? And if asked by an outsider to the faith, "So, if the Bible is the central book of your faith, how many times have you read it, cover to cover?", could you give an answer other than just a shrug and a response of, "Well, I've read a lot of it..."

The Bible is the perfect, inspired word of God, and as 2 Tim. 3:16 teaches, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness". The love and study of the Scriptures should be essential for the believer, and Christians should strive to read the Bible in its entirety if they haven't.

"But I never have time. I've got work, and this, and that, etc." Well, what I'd like to offer here is a suggestion of how busy people can include daily Bible reading, that the believer "may be competent, equipped for every good work" (2 Tim. 3:17)

Since so many people are always on the go, “listening” can be a good option for working through the Bible. A good step is to invest in a cheap MP3 player (and NOT a phone, since anything that will ring, beep, chirp, or otherwise distract you isn't going to help...)

A cheap, simple MP3 player I've been happy with is the Philips GoGear Vibe 4 MP3 player. No bells and whistles, but works fine, and can hold most all of the spoken Bible. I've seen it around $15-20 online. It comes with ear buds, but if you don't like those you can pick up a cheap headset at Walmart for $5.

Next step, get a FREE download of the audio Bible. There are a number of translations available online free. I'm partial to the ESV translation as I believe it's a sound translation of the Greek and straight-forward English. You can download it free from here: http://www.esvaudiobible.com. For those who like the KJV translation, here's a site to download the MP3's: http://www.harvesttimechurchoftyler.org/freemp3bible.htm

There are many other resources, and if you prefer to skip the download, you could go to a place like LifeWay and buy the MP3s of the Bible and transfer them to the MP3 player from your computer that way too.

Finally, download a Bible reading checklist and print this up, to mark off what you've listened to. There are plenty of these online, but here's a simple example: http://www.marshillchurch.org/files/misc/Bible_Reading_Checklist.pdf

Now, when you're working around the house, cooking, gardening, riding your bike, etc, just put on the MP3 player and you're ready to go. If you prefer to listen to the player while driving, you can get a mini-jack port at the Walmart electronics department and hook this to your car stereo aux port.

Also, as you study the Bible, if you find passages that you want to understand better or that could use elaboration, there are many good commentaries. I would recommend Matthew Henry's Commentary. He was a puritan who wrote a concise commentary overview of the entire Bible. You can use the commentary for free here to look up passages: http://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/matthew-henry-complete/

Keep yourself in the Word, and be blessed with growing in an understanding of God's inspired word.

Rap-Con Rapture Meter?

Although I think that the Bible says that "no man knows the time" of the end times, I think this site has some interesting news presentations that are, if anything, curious indicators that we could very well be living at the end of the age. I've never seen a rapture-meter before, but it's a clever idea (if debatable in it's accuracy.)

More thoughts on the Message

I've finished the Old Testament translation of the Message, and now I'm into Matthew's gospel, and while some of the translation has been engaging through the Old Testament text, once we get into the gospels, the narrative seems to get a bit strange. Having recently studied Matt. 7 at church, I'm pretty sure that the translator is taking some liberties with some of the text, as if he's writing what he THINKS the text is stating, but which it actually isn't. Still, I'm going to see it through even though I would NOT recommend this translation to others.

Also, if anyone else, like me, transferred the Message MP3's from the disks to MP3 player and did not want to hear the frothy and mostly irrelevant mini-sermons between each book, here's the easy way to get rid of these fast from a CMD prompt...

Matt. 7:7-14

Some notes on Voddie's message about Matt. 7:7-14. Up to this point, the messages of the Beatitudes have focused on our role as Kingdom citizens, followed by the six antithesis ("you've hear it said... I say..."), and then Jesus addressed practical issues (prayer, fasting, giving, etc.). In Ch. 7, the sermon on the mount comes to a close. One of the things that pastor pointed out was that this message wasn't just aimed at "heathens and pagans", but rather it's about believers looking at the Pharisee's, the most righteous folks there were, and being directed to EXCEED their righteousness. And it's impossible to exceed that righteousness outside of the work of Christ alone.

v. 13-14 speak of the straight and narrow paths (Jer. 21:8 - "The way of life, the way of death"). Voddie spoke about the Christian life, and how it must be entered into intentionally. He addressed the more nominal approach to Christianity, that when asked "are you a Christian?", tend to reply with "I go to church", "I was raised a Christian", or "I've been a Christian all my life" (the later of which goes against the viewpoint of entering the Christian life intentionally, but rather makes it sound like an accidental pursuit.) Christianity is not an accidental endeavor, but instead is founded on repentance and faith (Mark 1 - "repent and believe"). To state that "I've been a believer all my life" is a theological impossibility.

Voddie pointed out that we all, by default, find the "wide gate" (the doctrine of original sin). We need to find the narrow gate. We seek it and petition God, with faith and repentance. So many churches this day teach an easy salvation, with belief without repentance, or acknowledgement of the burden of sin. The world wants to believe in Jesus "meek and mild", not the final judge who will convict us based upon our sins. We all deserve the death on the cross.

The expectation, as well, as that we will experience persecution as part of our walk. Modern teaching ("Best Life Yet" stuff) teaches that you should believe to escape persecution (in other words, they have the system backwards.) We learn from the Word that the one who endures to the end will be saved, not the one who just says "the sinner's prayer". We are encouraged to endure patiently.

Pastor also taught that our sin nature makes it difficult to find the narrow gate, as it's surrounded by the wide path. But our companions are few on this road. Language on the broad road, about the narrow road, is that the narrow-road travelers are "over committed", or "they're taking it too far." Responses like "Do you think we're wrong when there are THOUSANDS at our church, or because God is blessing our church?" This was a really good point, as I've struggled with how the local UM church can be so enormous, while being so shallow in it's teaching. The broad road is convenient, easy Christianity. Church on Sunday then go home and live as you like for a week.

We are exhorted to watch ourselves, and test ourselves. Jesus is the author and finished of our faith, and we should never adopt an attitude of, as Pastor said, "Thanks for dying, Jesus, but I did the rest myself." Endurance is evidence of our salvation - it's not a result of sheer credit to our own efforts. Salvation is about more than a "sinners prayer" on a specific date and time written in a Bible somewhere. It's about repentance, because you fully know and understand that you are a sinner deserving eternal wrath (and not just repentance in thinking that we are comparably less-wicked than the "Hitlers" of the world). Repentance and faith in the person and work of Christ alone.

The Message Bible on MP3 and unnecessary intermission segments

I've listened to several books of the Bible in the Message translation on MP3, and aside from some silly translations in the Psalms it's not bad. It does have me hungry, though, to hear the Word again but in a more mature translation, such as the NKJV or NASB.

One thing completely unnecessary, though, are these sappy intermission segments between books read (and written by?) Carol Nix. There's nothing to glean from these whatsoever, and as I've been transferring the books of the Message translation, I've been deleting these. Ironically, they are by Carol Nix, and I've been nixing these from my MP3 player...

How to read the Bible easily in a year

One of my resolutions for the year was to read the entirety of the Bible this year, and I just recently finished it. This is how.

1) Find a cheap MP3 player. You don't need to get a top of the line iPod thing, but you can easily pick up a half-decent MP3 player at Walmart for around $30. I've got an old Coby MP3 player that I've been using for a long, long time (I've had to purchase more memory, as one of my cards died recently, but memory isn't expensive.) The player will likely have a couple of gig built into it. I think the ESV required about 4 GIG, so I only loaded up about half of it, and then once finished, deleted it and loaded the second half.

2) Pick up a copy of the Bible on ESV. You can get a relatively inexpensive copy of this from Christian Book Distributors for about $11.

3) Start doing dishes and cleanup and laundry at night, and put on the MP3 and headset and listen away. I've found that, while doing chores, my brain just recycles nonsense, news, politics, or old television theme songs if I don't feed it with something, so having a steady stream of the Word has been a wonderful blessing. There is such a richness to listening to the Bible, and since chores take up part of every day, why not multi-task and include the Word with it?

This system has worked for me, and I was able to finish the entirety of the ESV from Jan-June, and now I'm listening to the Message tranlation on MP3 (it's a little cheesy at times, but the translation actually did an excellent job with how it described the reign of Josiah and his destruction of the false gods from the land.)

MP3 player + the Bible + chores = a good way to multi-task and grow in the Word.

The Message - Initial Thoughts

I generally listen to portions of the Bible daily on my older-than-time Coby MP3 player, and currently I have a copy of the Message translation that I've been hearing. My initial thoughts are that, as far as translations go, it tends to be childish and a little silly, yet by "toning down" some of the language it does make books like Leviticus a little more easy going. However, after listening to some of the Psalms yesterday, I can't help but notice that some of these translations tend to be a little off the wall. For instance:

Psalm 1: "You don't hang out at sin saloon" (?)

Psalm 37: "A banana peel lands them on their face" (??)

Psalm 53: "Treating people like a fast food meal over which they're too busy to pray"

It seems like Eugene Peterson is going just a little easy with some of these interpretations and maybe taking a little too much liberty. But all the same, I'm going to listen to the entire translation before I make my final verdict (I'm actually curious to see how "modern-sounding" he can be with a book like II Chronicles... :)

John Macarthur sermons free online (tons of them)

I've greatly enjoyed and benefited from the teaching ministry of John Macarthur, from messages heard both online and that I catch on the radio, and I'm glad that there is an extensive (exhaustive) collection of his messages online, free for downloading.  Macarthur offers clear, engaging Biblical teaching and it's a genuine blessing that so many of his messages can be accessed online freely.

http://www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons/Title

Matt. 5:38-42

Pastor Paul spoke this week on the next section of the Beatitudes, ch. 5:38-42, and what Christ really taught with the message of "turning the other cheek" and the related text.  He pointed out the trend of moral laxity found throughout pulpits in the last two generations, including a negation of Biblical divine law in light of a "God who loves everyone", and the ultimately negative effect this has had in the church globally.

In regards to "turning the other cheek", this message isn't speaking about being a pacifist and letting yourself be stomped on with no resistance, nor is it an endorsement of the pacifist, anti-war standpoint.  Rather what these passages are getting at being able to receive insults and persecution for your faith, and being willing to "turn the other cheek" and receive the insults without retaliation.  It's about receiving attacks on our dignity, and isn't about just laying down and dying, or martyrdom carried to the extreme.  The believer has moral obligations to care for an protect his family.  But having "thick skin", and being able to receive mockery and insults for your faith, which is one of the key components of being a follower of Christ.