I am not sure if you have all seen this great book series that Mark Driscoll has written and is being published by Re:Lit. But in case you haven’t here is a promo for the first book of the series…
… I plan on buying this book today. It is supposed to be able to be read in about an hour, so I am anxious to order all four from the entire series, but I am sure I don’t have the funds for that right now, but I want to encourage you all to take the time and read through the series as well. As Christians it is good to know what we believe in and why we believe in it.
As you read in a couple posts back I just finished reading the NIV Study Bible. I wanted to write a post about how great it is, and here it is.
This Bible was great. I could understand it, and it doesn’t take the text and make it say something it isn’t supposed to. The commentary is awesome, and it does a good job at answering the questions you come up with as you are reading. Plus there is almost a scripture reference in every study note.
All in all, I would highly recomend that anyone who takes reading the Word seriously. It is a great tool, and quite frankly it cannot be exauhsted.
I hope that by sharing this with you guys, that some of you who have a hard time picking up and reading your Bible will find this as a strating point to accomplish reading the whole thing.
I have officially finsihed reading the entire Bible. I know that some of you are thinking, well I have done that before, or maybe your thinking cool, why are you telling us? Well I am telling you because from what I have learned since I have become a Christian is that most young Christians don’t really read their Bibles. So, you know what that means? I am a better Christian than them all!!!!! NO, I am just joking, but it does mean that I have taken a step to know God which to so many seems so difficult.
I will be honest, it took me more than a year, in fact it took me a year and a half. There were quite a bit of days where I just didn’t pick up the Bible. But I made it a priority of mine to actually finish it. So now I am off to begin reading it all over again. But now since I have read it in it’s entirety I am going to begin studying it more thouroughly. Before, I found myself afraid to study it because I wasn’t to sure what the rest of it had to say. Now I can atleast study it with an entirely better understanding.
How to do it…
Maybe you want to know how I actually did read the whole thing. This is how: I took the time to read through one book at a time. I found it disctracting to read two books at a time. So for instance, when I start up again tonight, I am going to start in Genesis. So read as much as you can take in. If you really honestly feel burnt out after one chapter close it and pick it up the next day. But for those of you who are willing to push yourselves, try and read at least five chapters. This way it won’t take you two months to get through books like Isaiah or Ezekiel. And then when you get Psalms read a lot. Most of the chapters are only about twenty verses, so you can easily read eight to ten of them a night. But don’t just go through it from cover to cover. Read Genesis, then Matthew, then Exodus, then Mark. You get my drift?
One additional thing I do which I find to be one of the best times of the day is reading a chapter of Proverbs everyday. There are thirty-one chapters in Proverbs so if it is December 18th read Proverbs 18, or if it is June 24th read Proverbs 24. If you miss a day don’t go back and read it over, you’ll get it the next month.
The Bible of choice…
This time through I read the NIV translation. The NIV is really a great translation. It is simple to read, it makes sense, the translation is accurate, and it isn’t written in gibberish. I also used the NIV Study Bible published by Zodervan. The study notes, and the commentary are a huge help when you get stuck on something you are reading and need an answer.
This time through though, I am going to read the ESV translation. It isn’t because I dislike the NIV but it is because I want to read the whole Bible in this commonly used translation as well. I understand that the ESV is supposed to be the most accurate translation available today, so I say, “Why not be accurate?”
Take the challenge…
I want to encourage all of you to take the time to do this. Read the whole thing! It is a great experience to realize that you have just finished reading what the creator of the heavens and the earth gave us to reveal himself to us. So stop making excuses and just do it!
Just in case you don’t know, the REsuregence has opened up a new website called Re:lit. It is a display of all the books which the REsurgence is publishing in part with Crossway. I would highly recommend it to any of you who have enjoyed any of Mark Driscoll’s books. He is coming out with a series this June 30th about the the Bible and who God is. I hope you all take the time to read these books.
Sex, Sushi, and Salvation is written by Christian George. I first heard about this book when I read an online review of it. The review was well written, but that isn’t why I read it. I read it because the name was so abnormal. This Christian book has a very interesting title, and I couldn’t help myself, I had to read it just to see what it talked about.
When I began reading it I quickly appreciated the way George penned his thoughts. He takes a collaboration of stories and ties them into real Biblical concepts. Most of all I really appreciate the realness of what he talks about. He is not fake, and he is straight up. This book isn’t a rant, but it isn’t without a few convicting sentences.
I have to say. When I got to the end of the book, I wished there were still several hundred more pages to read. This may very well be the best book, which is not written to discuss theology, in a long time. I appreciated it very much, and I think that you would to. If you want to get a clear perspective of where Christianity is going, and you want to do it in a way that won’t make your mind explode with words you won’t ever understand, then you should definitely pick up this book and go on a journey.
I started reading a new book a few days ago, and it seemed like a great book; but eventually it seemed like all it was doing was talking about money. The whole reason this bugs me is because I don’t think that our ministries need to revolve around getting more money. I mean maybe for a particular ministry you will need to raise a certain amount of money, but I don’t think that your ministry should thrive off of donations from people who have just briefly heard about it.
It dissapointed me to see the book turn in this direction, but it did. I didn’t quite no what to do. I don’t like not finishing books, so I tried to continue reading it, but it felt like it was just building me up to respond to the donation card about a hundred pages away from where I was. I will most likely end up finishing the book sometime, but it just makes me sad to see that money is so important to some ministries.
This book most likely isn’t as bad as I’m making it out to be, in fact I really enjoyed the parts I read that didn’t feel like a plea. It is the televangelists that have ruined it for other ministries though. I can’t stand to hear people ask for money, because there are those ministries out there that have to ask you for a donation after every podcast, and they will even give you a “free” gift with the donation. You know what I mean? “We will give you this free set of magnets with a minimum donation of fifty dollars!” Or how about this, I really can’t stand the way you will send an e-mail to one of these ministries, because the message they presented was really great and then all of a sudden you are recieving daily emails with about two sentences of devotion, and about two paragraphs expaining why you should become a partner with them.
These make me so upset. I am sorry, but I think it shouldn’t be our responsibility to support these huge ministries. I feel it is the local church’s responsibility. Obviously there are certain exceptions like when people just want to donate or give, but I am really tired of people classifying Christians as people who just want some extra money, and even more I am tired of these ministries that make that perception a reality.
When you read a book about God, do you look to it for a good story? Or, do you look further understand Christianity, and the Bible?
When I read, unless it is a fictional book, I read it to learn. I don’t read the book to be entertained. There is a lot of stuff in this world that can entertain you, and I don’t think that things relating to Christianity need to be judged by the amount they entertain.
The reason I am thinking about this is because a colleague of mine was talking about how he wished that a book about evangelism he is reading right now had more stories in it. When I heard this I didn’t quite understand why there needed to be more stories. The point of the book is to teach the relationship of the Gospel and evangelization; it is not to tell stories that make you feel good.
Don’t get me wrong; I do enjoy good stories. I just don’t see how when something so powerful and true, that doesn’t have pretty, fluffy stories in it, is less enjoyable than if it did. It is the meat and potatoes that will fill you, not the parsley and salt!
What do you think? Is it wrong to approach a book just looking to satisfy your flesh? Or is there more of a reason to read than that?
Today is Memorial day. I am really very thankful for the sacrifice that many soldiers have made by giving their lives freely for the freedom of this country that we live in. The more I read books and the more I seek God in my everyday life, I am coming to realize that the freedom we have in this country is too often being used to simply satisfy the worst parts of ourselves.
I don’t think that we should take our freedom and waste it on big screen televisions, extremely expensive cars, and ten bedroom mansions. A book I am reading right now tells us this:
Economist Robert Heilbroner describes the luxuries a typical American family would have to surrender if they lived among the 1 billion hungry people in the Two-Thirds World:
We begin by invading the house of our imaginary American
family to strip it of its furniture. Everything goes: beds, chairs,
tables, television sets, lamps. We will leave the family with a few
old blankets, a kitchen table, a wooden chair. Along with the
bureaus go the clothes. Each member of the family may keep in
his wardrobe his oldest suit or dress, a shirt or blouse. We will
permit a pair of shoes for the head of the family, but none for
the wife or children.
We move to the kitchen. The appliances have already been
taken out, so we turn to the cupboards. . . . The box of matches
may stay, a small bag of flour, some sugar and salt. A few moldy
potatoes, already in the garbage can, must be rescued, for they
will provide much of tonight’s meal. We will leave a handful of
onions and a dish of dried beans. All the rest we take away: the
meat, the fresh vegetables, the canned goods, the crackers, the
candy.
Now we have stripped the house: the bathroom has been dismantled,
the running water shut off, the electric wires taken out.
Next we take away the house. The family can move to the tool
shed. . . . Communications must go next. No more newspapers,
magazines, books—not that they are missed, since we must take
away our family’s literacy as well. Instead, in our shantytown we
will allow one radio. . . .
Now government services must go next. No more postmen,
no more firemen. There is a school, but it is three miles away and
consists of two classrooms. . . . There are, of course, no hospitals
or doctors nearby. The nearest clinic is ten miles away and is
tended by a midwife. It can be reached by bicycle, provided the
family has a bicycle, which is unlikely. . . .
Finally, money. We will allow our family a cash hoard of
five dollars. This will prevent our breadwinner from experiencing
the tragedy of an Iranian peasant who went blind because
he could not raise the $3.94 which he mistakenly thought he
needed to receive admission to a hospital where he could have
been cured.
You see. I love our freedom. But isn’t there a way that we can take what we have been given to help those who are so extremely less fortunate than we are? I think there has go to be a way; only one question remains: How do we do this, without ruining the freedom which we are so fortunate to have?
I hope this didn’t come off as condemning, but I do hope that it got you to realize that we are blessed to be free, but we may be taking advantage of it.
(Quote from above is taken from Revolution in World Missions, written by K.P. Yohannan.)
Hey everyone, I am just reminding you that I pretty much always have a book that I am reading, and I post the book(s) that I am reading in the sidebar. So if you want to stay up to date with some good books you should check them out!
The Fire of New Desire was started by me, Joey Francis, about one year ago. It is my passion to be able to voice a clear perspective on Christianity. As a young man I am tired of fake "Christians". I believe that we are to be in this world but not of this world. I hope that as you read my posts you too will become inspired to live to your fullest potential glorifying Christ in all that you do.
God Bless,
Joey Francis
Sex, Sushi, and Salvation
