Gospel.com Blog

Dale and Jonalyn Fincher of the the Soulation ministry were interviewed recently on the Association of Christian Schools International radio program! During the interview they talk about what drove them to start up an apologetics ministry with a focus on students and young people, and why it’s so critical to engage people intellectually and spiritually with the Christian faith.

You can listen to the radio interview at the Soulation website. Dale and Jonalyn are an extremely eloquent and thoughtful pair; if you have any interest in student ministry or apologetics, it’s well worth giving the short interview a listen.

Over Christmas, we pointed out Back to the Bible’s excellent “Twelve Voices of Christmas,” a 12-part audio drama that tells the Christmas story from the point of view of its original participants.

If you thought that was interesting, you’ll like the Twelve Voices of Easter, which gives the same treatment to the Easter story: twelve characters from the original Easter story all sharing their perspective on the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Twelve Voices drama is particularly interesting in that it gives a voice to some of the lesser-known characters of the story—famous faces like Judas and Pilate are there of course, but also the less-familiar Caiaphas, Cleopas, and the anonymous centurion.

With about six weeks left until Easter, you could listen through the entire Easter story at a rate of two “voices” each week. Tune in and hear a fresh take on the Bible’s most celebrated event!

What does a Christian life look like in the world of academia? Last December, InterVarsity’s Graduate & Faculty Ministries put on the Following Christ conference, where speakers like N.T. Wright and Andy Crouch talked about faith and the academic world. And fortunately for those of us who didn’t attend, they’ve collected audio and video from the conference and put it all online for free at the Following Christ conference website.

The highlight of the site is the archive of conference audio, which contains over seven hours of audio from the conference’s plenary sessions, including a three-part study of Colossians by N.T. Wright and an exhortation to understand science as worship by Francis Collins.

If you’re a grad student or a faculty member in the hallowed halls of academia (or even if you’re not), this is a site worth checking out—it’s living proof that the Christian faith is alive and well in the world of higher education.

Mission Network News reports that Faith Comes By Hearing recently released eight new New Testament audio translations. Faith Comes by Hearing is a global missions organization that offers “the Bible in a format that will connect with the world’s 50% illiterate population.” The organization is partnered with Wycliffe, the American Bible Society and World Vision among others and currently has 400 versions in 336 languages.

Here’s the story from Mission Network News:

The new recordings are in Dan of Cote d’Ivoire; Garhwali, India; Kimochi, Tanzania; Koma, Ghana; Ndau, Mozambique; Quechua, North Bolivia; Mooré, Burkina Faso; and the New American Bible in the United States.

Together, these recorded languages represent more than 222 million people on five continents.

Of these eight language groups represented, FCBH notes that the Koma language is the smallest with only 3,800 people. Experts report that there is absolute illiteracy among this group in Ghana, meaning not one Koma person has the ability to read.

About 70-percent of the world’s population is part of an oral culture and live in poverty. That means access to God’s Word can be out of their reach.

Listen to samples from their audio Bibles using this widget. It’s very cool to hear God’s Word in another language:

Faith Comes By Hearing.com

The Christmas story contains some of the most memorable characters of all time: the virgin Mary, Joseph the carpenter, jealous king Herod, the mysterious wise men, the frightened shepherds, and many others. Bringing each of those characters to life is one of our favorite Christmas features—Back to the Bible’s Twelve Voices of Christmas. It’s a well-produced, twelve-part audio drama (written by Woodrow Kroll) that tells the story of Christmas from the perspective of twelve famous Bible characters.

It’d make a great short Christmas devotional series if you listened to a few parts each week. (You can also read a text transcript for each part, if you prefer.)

Are the teachings of Jesus and Krishna compatible? The teachings of Krishna and Hinduism are often said to be extremely similar to those of Jesus Christ—is that true?

These are among the questions tackled by apologist Ravi Zacharias in an interview about Christianity and Hinduism today on the Iron Sharpens Iron program (link goes to MP3; the interview starts about 4 minutes in. See also an introduction to Ravi on the Iron Sharpens Iron website). The interview is a great exploration of the topic, discussing the differences between Christian and Hindu ideas about sin, reincarnation, the afterlife, and much else. If you’ve ever had questions about how the two religions agree and disagree on the big questions, the hour-long interview is well worth a listen.

If you want to learn more about Ravi’s apologetics ministry, be sure to check out Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, where you can learn more about what he’s doing. The Slice of Infinity daily devotional and the Just Thinking broadcast are good places to start. If the question of Hinduism in particular interests you, you might also want to take a look at Ravi’s new book, New Birth or Rebirth: Jesus Talks with Krishna.

From our friends over at Mission Network News comes a story about an Old Testament Audio recording project in the works for the Hausa language:

There are 24 million Hausa speakers in Nigeria and Niger, along with another 15 million who speak Hausa as a second language. In these areas, many non-readers are coming to Christ through the audio Gospel. However, that is creating a need for more grounding in the Old Testament.

Audio Scripture Ministries’ Chad VandenBosch says they’re addressing this with the help of a partnering group called Theovision. “Church growth is being stifled by illiteracy and the lack of access to the Scriptures and the truths found in those Scriptures. So they asked us, specifically, if we could go in and record the Old Testament, to have that available as well as the New Testament.”

For the many who do not read, an audio copy of the Old Testament will be their only way to hear of God’s work through the ages. VandenBosch says the project will cost $16,000. The team is about halfway there.

According to the Human Development Report, over 30% of Nigeria is illiterate. Niger’s rate is closer to 70 percent.

You can read more about the project over at Mission Network News.

When you read the story of Easter (see yesterday’s post to read it if you’re not familiar with it), what most stands out to you?

The story of Jesus’ betrayal, death, and resurrection is of course packed with interesting and important elements. But what always jumps out at me is the fascinating array of characters who populate this Easter drama. It’s the people of Easter who make the story come alive—and who add to it the ring of authenticity that you wouldn’t get if it were just another moral fable.

Think about the heroes and villains of the Easter story, and you’ll see that this isn’t the black-and-white morality tale you might expect if it were a piece of comforting religious fiction. Instead, we see a cast of very human characters reacting to the presence of Jesus—the story’s only perfectly good character. Some of the “heroes” don’t behave quite as heroically as they should—think of Jesus’ disciples falling asleep in the Garden, or of Peter disowning Christ rather than risk being associated with him. And the villains aren’t exactly brilliant, cackling evil masterminds—think of weak-willed Pilate, guilt-wracked Judas, and the religious leaders terrified that Jesus’ message will erode their own power and influence.

One of the most vivid ways to get to know the characters of Easter is through The Twelve Voices of Easter, an online audio drama from Back to the Bible that lets each of the twelve characters of Easter speak for him or herself. If you’ve read the Easter so many times that it’s started to lose its punch, this is a great way to approach the events of Holy Week from a different angle—with six days left before Easter Sunday, you could listen to two “voices” per day and be done on the big day. Most of the famous Easter characters are present in the drama (Judas, Pilate, Mary Magdalene), but also some of Easter’s less-well-known players, like the centurion and Cleopas.

I fire up the Twelve Voices every year during Holy Week because they shed some extra light on the human hopes, fears, and motivations that run through Easter week. While the Easter story is primarily about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, it’s also the story of ordinary people tainted by sin. They’re everyday sinners like you and me—they’re not diabolically evil; but almost everyone in the Easter story is flawed and broken. Everyone here, hero or villain, needs the salvation Jesus offers. Their presence in the story reminds us that Jesus’ sacrificial death wasn’t carried out just to save humanity on an abstract, cosmic level: Jesus died for the everyday sinners right there around him. The cowardly disciples; the foolish mob; the scheming religious leaders. You and me.

We’ll close off this week’s focus on devotionals with a quick look at some good audio devotionals—daily devotionals that you can listen to via a podcast or online radio stream. Some of us find it easier to listen to Bible verses and devotionals read out loud, rather than reading them. If that describes you, see if one of these devotionals appeals:

• Just Thinking is a daily fifteen-minute message broadcast by Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. If your local radio station plays it, you can tune in there, or you can subscribe to the MP3 podcast feed. The RZIM ministry takes a fairly intellectual approach to faith and Christianity; in their own words, Just Thinking explores “issues such as life’s meaning, the credibility of the Christian message and the Bible, the weakness of modern intellectual movements, and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.”
• If fifteen minutes is a bit too much to fit into your daily schedule, you can go the short, inspirational route with the Bible Minute with Woodrow Kroll. It’s one of many programs by Back to the Bible, and aims to start off your day with a short but meaningful Bible reflection. Here’s a list of the different ways you can tune in.
• We’ve mentioned RBC Ministries’ popular Our Daily Bread devotional already this week. But it’s not the only audio devotional they’ve got—Daily Strength is another excellent choice. Each day you’ll hear a short reflection about issues that confront us in our daily lives. One nice touch is that each message closes with several life-application questions to get you thinking about how the words you’ve heard apply to your situation. As with the other devotionals here, you can get the audio in a variety of ways, but it’s probably easiest to just subscribe to the podcast feed.
• The Words of Hope daily devotional is another good short devotional—each short reflection is based around a particular Bible passage and closes with a prayer you can use to get your day started on the right foot. You can listen at their website or grab the podcast feed.
• Last but not least, if you prefer to spend your devotional time just reading the Bible (without any additional commentary or devotional), the Bible Gateway has several audio Bibles you can listen to. If you stop by the Bible Gateway each day to read a Bible passage (perhaps using one of the reading plans), check at the top of the passage you’re reading for the “audio” button. If there’s audio available for the Bible version you’re reading, you can listen to it right there on the Bible Gateway.

There are plenty more devotionals (in text, audio, and pretty much every format you can imagine) to discover if you explore around the Gospel.com community. Hopefully, at least one of the devotionals we’ve mentioned this week caught your eye. Have fun exploring all these devotionals, and we’ll see you next week as we look ahead to Easter!

There are two new audio sermons online at the Soulation audio library:

• God Is Your Hero by Dale Fincher, which takes a fresh look at the David vs. Goliath story and CS Lewis’ Narnia tales, and talks about what it means to have God as your hero.
• How the World Is In Us by Dale and his wife Jonalyn, which explains why human beings are “spiritual amphibians”—we live in two different worlds, the physical world and the spiritual world. Sound strange? Listen as Dale and Jonalyn talk about the need to understand both aspects of our existence.

If you haven’t listened to one of Dale or Jonalyn’s messages, it’s well worth giving one a try—they have a unique and humorous way of taking seemingly abstract concepts and showing what they mean for your everyday life.