Gospel.com Blog

There are a lot of blogs within the Gospel.com community—and they’re posting a lot of great content each week. We thought it might be useful to do a short roundup at the end of each week pointing to the best and most interesting posts that have cropped up around the community. So without further ado, here’s what the bloggers in our community are talking about this week:

• David at the Internet Ministry Conference blog wants to know: how do you do ministry online? Do you have a web site? Do you interact with people in chat rooms or within Second Life? Whatever it is that you do, head over and share on the IMC blog.
• The recent ruling in California on same-sex marriage has a lot of people talking. James Watkins shares some thoughts on the topic. And GetReligion has a typically thorough analysis of the issue and the media coverage it’s generated.
• The ESV Bible Blog points out a nifty way to turn the Bible references on your website into Bible Gateway links. They also mention a Wordpress plugin that does something similar with the ESV version of the Bible.
• At Strangely Dim, Lisa Rieck talks about the challenge of keeping in touch with the world.
• It’s annual performance review time at Behind the Books.
• Do you take the Bible literally? Addenda & Errata talks about that touchy question, and offers a nice illustration that explains the difficulty many Christians have answering with a straight “yes” or “no.”
• The ThinkChristian gang has been talking about the recently-released “Evangelical Manifesto,” and is running a poll asking you what you think of the Manifesto.
• The Outflow shares some musings on the will of God.

That’s it for today—and that should be plenty of weekend reading for you. If any of these posts catches your interest, be sure to explore further. There’s a lot more where these posts came from!

Each week, Past the Popcorn offers a thorough look at the latest round of films opening on big screens.

This time of year, the big summer blockbusters take over thousands of screens each week, pushing the struggling smaller films out the door… and who wants to compete with Iron Man or Prince Caspian? So the field is left almost entirely to the Big Boys.

So when you’re looking to see what’s new on the marquee, and you only find one title, you’re likely to think, “Well, this had better be good!” (more…)

As you may recall, earlier this month we discontinued the old Gospelcom.net website and welcomed Gospelcom.net users to Gospel.com. We also invited you to send us your comments and questions about Gospel.com—and you have done so!

Two user requests in particular have been showing up most frequently in our email inboxes. And we’ve listened! We’ve made two new adjustments to Gospel.com based on your feedback:

1. You can now search the Bible Gateway from the Gospel.com homepage. Many of you told us that you missed the Bible Gateway search form on the old site, so we’ve added one to the top right of the Gospel.com homepage. Just check the “Search BibleGateway.com” option, type in a Bible passage or search term, and you can search the Bible!

2. The Verse of the Day is more prominent on the Gospel.com homepage. The Verse of the Day has been on the Gospel.com homepage since we launched, but it wasn’t obvious where it was. So we’ve bumped it higher on the page so you can see it right away when you visit Gospel.com.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to email us with your requests and feedback! We’re always looking to make Gospel.com more useful to you. We hope you like these additions, and don’t hesitate to send us your thoughts at info@gospel.com.

So often we feel like we need to go somewhere else to do God’s work, but so often God is already working where we are. Spanish World Ministries is a ministry who ministers to their native lands. Their main way to do so is through a radio program called El Camino de la Vida (The way of life).

For more information on their philosophy, check out this excerpt from The National Missionary Connection page:

Who is a national missionary? A national missionary is a person who is serving Christ while living in the country in which he or she was born or has become a permanent resident through the means of immigration or marriage. National missionaries have the same culture, language, economic status, and physical features as those to whom they minister. They eat like they eat. They talk like they talk. They think like they think. They live like they live. They are educated like they are educated. They look like they look. A national missionary understands and intimately identifies materially, emotionally and intellectually with the people he or she is trying to reach for Christ.

Here’s a great summary of what their mission:

Our confidence is that every day, somewhere in Latin America, many people are hearing that Jesus is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the World.

I’ve been using my navy blue, leather-bound Bible for years. Flipping through it shows the marks of my relationship with it: the frayed bookmark, the pocket I added to the back and the scuffed cover that make it mine.

If you were to browse through Matthew, you would see where as a senior in high school I underlined my way valiantly through the wisdom of Jesus’ words. You can achieve a similar look to your copy of Matthew by taking a black pen willy-nilly to the bottom of every fifth verse.

Thing was, at that time, I could have cared less about the translation. I was full of the vitality that comes along with a renewed interest in one’s faith. You could have given me the Precious Moments Bible, and I would have loved it.

Which raises an interesting question to me now: What would I be doing if I didn’t speak English?

Well, your options become severely limited, or you don’t have any options to begin with. If one speaks English they have a myriad of choices to read the Holy Bible (most of which you can find on a little site we call BibleGateway.com).

If you’ve ever wondered if a country does have the Bible, let me point you towards WorldMap.org. They’re a ministry that publishes evangelistic statistics, including whether or not the country has the Bible in their language.

Take Angola for example. There’s still a large chunk of that country that needs a translation of the Bible, which was news to me.

There are a few ministries in the Gospel.com community that are devoted to the gargantuan task of Bible translations like IBS and the Lutheran Bible Translators (check out their list of translations).

If you’re interested at all in this part of spreading the Word of God, you might want to check them out so you can know how better to pray for them and support them. You can also read some of their efforts in other langauges via the BibleGateway.

The massive cyclone destruction in Myanmar has occupied world attention in recent weeks—but the earthquake that struck central China has wreaked havoc and left a horrifying body count as well. Mission Network News has a story up about Christian ministry efforts to bring aid to the quake victims:

Baptist Global Response’s Jeff Palmer says they’re partnering with the Southern Baptists in an emergency response. A needs assessment is ongoing. “The first thing we’re going to do is get water, food and shelter to those who are in need. That in and of itself, people coming from halfway across the world, is a testimony to the people who are there. It’s the love of Christ that compels us, and we are commanded to help those who are in need.”

Even as Christian relief teams are being assembled, Palmer says, “Prayer is the strategy that we want to mobilize, first and foremost–praying for those who are in suffering, those who’ve lost family members, those already responding to the effort, [and] also pray for wisdom and knowledge of how to respond.”

Another story includes quotes by an International Aid representative who says that they’re standing by to help as well. If and when we learn of other Gospel.com ministries working in the area, we’ll post an update here on the blog. In the meantime, the ongoing relief efforts are certainly something to add to your prayers this week.

So you’re interested in reading the Bible… where do you start? The Bible’s not like a novel, or a history book, or most any other book—it’s a collection of many different stories, in many different literary genres written by a wide variety of authors, each with a unique background and motive for writing.

In other words, while it’s certainly possible to start reading on page 1 of the Bible all the way through to the end, that’s a pretty challenging undertaking even for a dedicated reader.

This question “how do I go about reading the Bible?” is one we’ve talked about here in the past. Here are a few highlights to help you get started actually reading the Good Book:

• Scripture Union has a nice series of articles about how to read the Bible. They start with the basics and move on to more in-depth Bible reading.
• The Navigators has an essay that suggests the best way to read the Bible is in very small chunks, rather than trying to dive through numerous chapters and books all at once. They recommend spending seven minutes (no more, no less) of time in the Bible each day—you can increase the time later if you want, but if you’re just starting out, the most important thing is to make it a daily habit.
• Dr. Jim Samra of Calvary Church has a four-part series of audio messages about how to study the Bible. You can listen to them for free in MP3 format.
• Many people find it helpful to follow a Bible reading plan as they make their way through the Bible. Such plans usually spread the task of reading the entire Bible across a year, so that after 365 days you’ve made it all the way through. One nice thing about many Bible reading plans is that they organize your reading according to a set theme (chronological, topical, historical, etc.) rather than telling you to just start with Genesis 1 and read straight through. We’ve collected a lot of links to free online Bible reading plans from around the Gospel.com community; there’s almost certainly one that matches your reading preferences.

Once you take a look through some of these resources and get started reading the Bible for yourself, you might find yourself surprised at how easy and enjoyable it is to read the Bible—far from being a laborious literary task, it can be a refreshing and inspiring way to start (or end) each day on the right spiritual note. So don’t be scared away by the Bible’s page count—dust off that old family Bible and try fitting some Scripture reading into your daily routine.

Two Testaments. Over sixty books. Hundreds of chapters. Tens of thousands of verses. Hundreds of thousands of words. It’s a book full of wisdom and full of truth.

Christians have been trying to sort through the myriad claims made about it, and from it, in order to discern how to live for thousands of years. It’s a book that changes you.

From an outside observer, the Bible might just be a collection of stories. But, of course, we at Gospel.com think it’s far more than that. The Bible is the history of God’s people. It’s the way in which we know about Jesus Christ. And it has been consistently backed up by history and practice. It’s a book that is scrutinized with both critically focused and franticly searching eyes.

Personally, I’ve spent more time writing, talking and thinking about this book than anything on this earth. It’s simply a fascinating book. And ever so challenging. But most importantly, it shows me how God has worked and is working on this earth.

Pretty much every resource and page in the gospel.com community has something to do with the Bible, but this week we’re focusing on the Bible itself. There are plenty of links to resources to get started with in the header above. You can also check out more at our Bible topic page.

And of course you can always read the full text of the bible in more translations than anywhere else on the internet at The BibleGateway.

Ravi Zacharias International Ministries has a new website! It’s definitely worth visiting, especially if you are not familiar with Ravi’s apologetics ministry. Ravi has put up a short welcome video that introduces the site and describes his ministry, followed by a list of links to popular content like the A Slice of Infinity daily devotional and the Just Thinking audio broadcast.

While you’re there, be sure to take a look at a sample chapter and discussion guide from Ravi’s latest book, The End of Reason, a response to prominent atheist Sam Harris’ recent critiques of Christianity.

Do you know what today is? Most of you know probably know that it’s Mother’s Day. But while it’s always a good idea to celebrate mom, today has a special theological significance for Christians—it’s Pentecost, seven weeks after Easter. It marks the time two thousand years ago when the Holy Spirit came down (in fulfillment of a promise by Jesus) to live within Christ-followers. Here’s the account as it’s told in the Bible:

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

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