31 March 2013

Easter Day, Sunday — Day 8

Resurrection Day!
Resurrection, appearance to the women and the disciples, road to Emmaus.
  • Matthew 28:1–13
  • Mark 16:1–14
  • Luke 24:1–49
  • John 20:1–23
Also, see my post from last year: What Happened on Sunday of Holy Week?

This is a portion of the larger Creation to Christ video series that talks about the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus — Creation to Christ 5 - Jesus' Death & Resurrection
For the Kingdom,
Bob A

30 March 2013

Easter Week, Saturday — Day 7

In the tomb.
  • Matthew 27:62–66
  • Mark 16:1
  • Luke 23:56
  • John 19:40
For the Kingdom,
Bob A

29 March 2013

Easter Week, Friday — Day 6

Trial continues, crucifixion, death, burial.
  • Matthew 27:1–62
  • Mark 15:1–47
  • Luke 22:63–23:56
  • John 18:28–19:37
Also, see the post from 2012 — What Happened on Friday Evening and Saturday of Holy Week?
For the Kingdom,
Bob A

28 March 2013

Easter Week, Thursday — Day 5

Passover meal, Garden of Gethsemane, arrest, trial, Peter's denial.
  • Matthew 26:17–75
  • Mark 14:12–72
  • Luke 22:7–62
  • John 13:1–38
For the Kingdom,
Bob A

27 March 2013

Easter Week, Wednesday — Day 4

The Bible is silent about this day. It's likely that Jesus rested, perhaps at the home of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. Based on other times when Jesus was facing a difficult time, he likely spent a good part of the day in prayer and teaching his disciples.

For the Kingdom,
Bob A

26 March 2013

Easter Week, Tuesday — Day 3

Jesus returns to Jerusalem, calls the Jewish religious leaders blind guides and whitewashed tombs. Jesus prophecies the destruction of Jerusalem to his disciples on the Mount of Olives.
  • Matthew 21:23–24:51
  • Mark 11:20–13:37
  • Luke 20:1–21:36
  • John 12:20–38
For the Kingdom,
Bob A

25 March 2013

Easter Week, Monday — Day 2

Jesus Clears the Temple
  • Matthew 21:12–22
  • Mark 11:15–19
  • Luke 19:45–48
  • John 2:13-17
For the Kingdom,
Bob A

24 March 2013

Easter Week, Sunday, Day 1 — Palm Sunday

My plan had been to write out the events of the week prior to Jesus' resurrection. However, it's more complicated that I anticipated. So, perhaps I'll have it ready for 2014. For this year, though, I'm just going to list the Bible passages. I pray that reading these will fill you with gratitude for what God did for you in sending Jesus to pay the penalty for your sin.

Jesus' Triumphal Entry Into Jerusalem
  • Matthew 21:1–11
  • Mark 11:1–11
  • Luke 19:28–44
  • John 12:12–19
For the Kingdom,
Bob A

23 March 2013

G.O.S.P.E.L. — by Propaganda

Here's another take on the gospel. Excellent urban video.

For the Kingdom,
Bob A

22 March 2013

Bible Study and Research Online Resources


Recently, a friend sent me some information that another friend had sent him. These resources are available worldwide and are free, so I thought I would pass on the information.

I wanted to bring to your attention a few free online tools. Feel free to pass this information on to others. They seem great not just for company folks but for the local believers who might want to use these free online tools. (Bob A: I found a few African language Bibles available for the SWORD project. It appears that the other programs are able to use SWORD modules. Here are the African languages I recognized: Afrikaans, Malagasy, Ndebele, Shona, Swahili NT. For Trekkies, there's even a Klingon translation.)

They take some tinkering with, but they're fairly straight forward. (Bob A: This is according to the person who sent this out — I haven't tried any of these.) These resources are open sources and free. They're not only good for people like us who want to study the local-language Bible, they've got all kinds of Bible languages resources (commentaries, GK-Heb tools, etc). They can also be handy tools that a local believer with a computer can use (without all of the pirating that typically goes on with printed resources). And, it's all free (good news for people inclined to use poverty as an excuse for pirating).

While these are good supplements for paid-for programs like Logos or Quick Verse, they won't interface with those tools.

In each of these four programs (BibleTime, SWORD Project, Eloquent/MacSword, BPBible), you can add almost any language Bible along with other books.

Here's a brief overview of each program:
  • BibleTime. (Can use parallel Bibles including English) — Available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux
  • SWORD Project. (Can use parallel Bibles including English) — Available for Windows only
  • Eloquent Bible Study a.k.a. MacSword (Can use parallel Bibles including English) — Mac OS X implementation of the SWORD Project
    • http://www.macsword.com
    • Multiple foreign language Bibles
    • Other English biblical resources and some foreign language Bible commentaries
  • BPBible. (Interfaces with sources from SWORD Project) — Available for Windows. For Mac OS X implementation, see the FAQ page but this requires compiling the source code, not something for the faint of heart.
    • http://bpbible.com
    • Multiple foreign language Bibles also.
    • Many other English biblical resources (including some foreign language Bible commentaries).
  • Zotero: (not Bible related; bibliographic collector, organizer, and citation tool) – Plugin for Firefox, Word, LibreOffice or standalone application for Mac OS X that works in conjunction with Safari, Chrome, Firefox
    • http://www.zotero.org
    • Zotero is for researchers and writers.
    • It “lives” in your Web browser (Firefox, etc).
    • Collect bibliographic information quickly from the Internet.
    • Organize bibliography.
    • Cite bibliographic information in paper (footnotes, or endnotes, or insert a bibliography quickly).
    • It’s free and easy to use.
  • Are there other resources that you have found free and helpful?

For the Kingdom,
Bob A

21 March 2013

Are You Skeptical About the Resurrection?

Christianity makes some pretty audacious claims. We celebrate one of those on 31 March — Jesus' resurrection. If you're a skeptic looking for truth or even a believer who wants to strengthen your belief, this may be a good book to read, "Raised? Doubting the Resurrection" by Jonathan Dodson and Brad Watson. It's free and available for Kindle (.mobi), Nook/iBooks/Sony (.epub), or as the generic PDF. The authors and publishers are encouraging people and churches to give it away. (I haven't, yet, read the book but read and liked another book by Dodson, "Unbelievable Gospel", so feel good about recommending this.)

15 March 2013

What is the Gospel?

Sometime on Tuesday, the US President, Barack Obama, was interviewed on a wide range of topics by ABC's George Stephanopoulos. I saw a report of the interview on a news/blog site, God Reports, and then read the transcript from ABC News. The thing that caught my attention was at the very end of the interview, almost like an afterthought. Stephanopoulos asked President Obama some concerns that had been expressed about the possibility of an American being selected as the new Pope:
...a lot of eyes on Rome as the cardinals prepare to pick a new pope. And for the first time, some American cardinals on the list. Well, what I wanted to ask you about, there seems to be some concern, and you hear this a lot, that– among Catholics, there shouldn’t be an American pope because that pope would be too tied to the U.S. government. Kinda the mirror image of John F. Kennedy’s problem back in 1960. What do you think of that?
Frankly, I haven't kept up with Catholic news. Sure, I knew that the previous Pope had retired — that hadn't happened in something like 600 years. And, yes, I knew that the College of Cardinals were meeting to select a new Pope (that engendered a lot of teasing with some friends who are fans of an American baseball team, the St. Louis Cardinals). But, quite honestly, that does not impact my life in any way at all. No disrespect intended, it just doesn't.

President Obama gave a witty response, I don’t know if you’ve checked lately, but the conference of Catholic bishops here in the United States don’t seem to be takin’ orders from me, but what caught my attention was President Obama's next statement:
I– my hope is– based on what I know about the Catholic Church and– the terrific work that they’ve done around the world.
And certainly in this country, and, you know– helping those who are less fortunate– is that– you have– a pope who sustains and maintains– what I consider the central message of the gospel. And that is– that we– we treat everybody– as children of God and that– we love them– the way Jesus Christ taught us to love ‘em.
Look at that again, ...the central message of the gospel ... is that we treat everybody as children of God and that we love them the way Jesus Christ taught us to love 'em. That got me thinking, "I don't think that is the gospel message, but how would I define the gospel?" [Disclaimer: This is neither a political statement, nor criticism of President Obama — his statement just got me thinking.] So, I worked on it for a bit. I wasn't starting from scratch; I had heard other people define gospel, but I had never tried to do that for myself. If you want a single New Testament passage that gives a definition, a good place to start is Colossians 1:13-23. But, I wanted to see how I would define gospel. This is what I came up with:
We were once alienated from God and were enemies of God because of our sin, our evil behaviour (Col. 1:21). Jesus came to earth as a human descendant of Israel's King David (Rom. 1:3). However, Jesus was not just a good man. Jesus is God's Son (Rom. 1:3), he is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15), he is one with God the Father (John 10:30), he is fully God (Col. 1:19). He was powerfully proved to be God's Son by his resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1:4). He reconciled us with God through his death on the cross (Col. 1:22), forgave our sins (Col 1:14), and made us citizens of his Kingdom (Col. 1:13). This reconciliation to God becomes reality when we believe this good news (Eph. 1:13) by faith (Eph 2:8). The guarantee, the seal, of our reconciliation and our ultimate salvation is the presence of God's Spirit in us (Eph. 1:13). Our good works (love, justice, service, etc.) are not the cause of our salvation, but are the result of our salvation by faith (Eph. 2:10) and the evidence that God's Spirit is in us (Gal. 5:22-26).
  •  How would you define gospel?
For the Kingdom,
Bob A