Did you get your free audiobook?

Well, as you may have noticed, I have not written anything in almost two weeks. For the most part, that was my intention. I wanted to leave my post about ChristianAudio.com up at the top for as long as I could so that anyone stopping by might go and take advantage of their great offer. Don’t let such a great resource go to waste. Head over to their collection of free audiobooks and get your feet wet.

While I would love to post something new and exciting every day, I don’t see that happening. I am not even sure how easy it will be to post something relatively interesting every few days. Of course, it is the Christmas season, which always seems to bring with it more chaos than should be the case (sounds like a topic right there, eh?). In addition, I am working on some final projects and a test for a class I am taking, attempting to clean out our garage, preparing for a trip to Hawaii, and a handful of other things. Suffice it to say that I am not sure how much posting I will be able to accomplish in the foreseeable future. This does not mean that I don’t have some things planned for the blog.

In addition to my occasionally nonsensical ramblings, I am planning on adding an extensive bibliography spanning a variety of topics within Christian thought and theology. Categories will likely include eschatology, Reformed/Arminian traditions, church history, apologetics, comparative religions/cults, spiritual formation, philosophy and theology, just to name a few. Hopefully, these bibliographies will prove useful and edifying as you grow your libraries and transform your minds. I will probably also include a list of favorite books that do not necessarily fall into those categories, just so I have some place to talk about Terry Pratchett. : )

I am also hoping to include a collection of articles, written by myself and others, on various topics relevant to the Christian life. The topics will likely parallel the ones mentioned above and the articles will generally compliment the bibliographies and encourage further reading and investigation. Of course, this is my intention right now, and I hope it all comes to pass, but “The best-laid plans” and all that. We’ll see.

So, for now let me leave you with this: When was the last time you memorized a Scripture? More in a future post.

ChristianAudio.com

I have been waiting all week to post this one. For those of you not familiar with ChristianAudio.com, now is a great time to get to know them. Read on to find out why.

According to their site, “Christianaudio has created a thriving and growing audiobook publishing business and the largest Christian audiobook website on the Internet.” Furthermore, their vision is “to be one of the most trusted places on the Internet for the refreshment and growth of the soul.” They obviously believe that in order to fulfill their vision they need to offer more than simply what is most popular and what might be on the Top Ten list at your local Christian bookstore. This leads me to one of the things that I appreciate most about ChristianAudio: the quality of their inventory.

When I refer to quality in this case, I mean more than simply the audio, narration, and overall production quality – of which I have no complaints. What I am particularly excited about is the extensive amount of quality Christian works they offer.

A quick perusal of the Best Sellers list at ChristianAudio demonstrates this fact. Contemporary authors include John Piper, N.T. Wright, Dallas Willard, Eugene Peterson, Beth Moore, and Randy Alcorn. Classic works are included from such authors as Jonathon Edwards, A.W. Tozer, Andrew Murray, St. John of the Cross, Thomas a Kempis, C.S. Lewis, and Francis Schaeffer. Of course, this is just a small sampling of what is available at ChristianAudio. You will need to head over there and search for yourself.

That is not to say that everything there is worthy of a listen. There are plenty of books offered that I would steer clear of, but that is what discernment is for, and that is for another post. Also, I am not suggesting that all of the above authors represent the best in Christian scholarship in all areas. I do submit that all of them have been influential in Christian thinking and history in one way or another and are generally worthy of investigation. Of course, if you don’t know Edwards, shame on you.

So why have I been waiting all week to post about this? Let me tell ya. First, ChristianAudio offers a different FREE audiobook each month. Second, if you sign up for their newsletter, they will send you “three valuable emails a month,” which generally means more discounted or FREE products. Finally – and this is why I have been waiting all week – in honor of Thanksgiving, ChristianAudio is giving away any one of ten different audiobooks. Just head over to their promotional page between the 17th and 24th of November, choose from any of the books offered, and use the Coupon Code: THANKS2007 and enjoy another FREE audiobook.

So check out ChristianAudio.com and load up that iPod or MP3 player with some edifying, spiritually enriching books that will nourish your soul and change your life.

InstaVerse

I love it when I find a program that proves to be truly useful, and it’s even better when it’s FREE (or at least pretty cheap). This time it’s a simple little tool called InstaVerse. In a nut shell, InstaVerse will pop-up a Bible verse when you hover your cursor over a Scripture reference. I use it daily, whether reading, writing or researching online or off.

InstaVerse is free with the King James version of the Bible. If you would like additional translations, they start as low as $9.95. As I use it regularly, I splurged and bought the English Standard Version (ESV). Including some foreign and original language translations, I counted about 33 available versions, most of which were $9.95 with a few others being $19.95. Personally, I would recommend buying your favorite translation for InstaVerse and then downloading e-Sword to make use of the other versions, if you are not already using another Bible study program.

InstaVerse says that it will work in Internet Explorer, Outlook, Outlook Express, Firefox (v1.5+), Microsoft Word, Yahoo Messenger and PalTalk. Of those, I have used IE, Firefox and Word without any problems, but do not use the other programs. The software has successfully recognized Scripture references in a variety of formats (1Jo 3.16, First John 3:16, etc.). It once caught me off guard by pulling up a reference for a verse where the chapter and verse numbers were at the end of a paragraph and the book reference was at the beginning. I had to read back through the paragraph to verify that it found a true reference. That was impressive.

Another cool feature of InstaVerse is that you can insert Scripture into some documents at the touch of a hot-key. Simply type something like, Gen 1:1 and press alt-f8 (or whatever hot-key you choose) and there ya go. A fairly comprehensive options menu allows you to specify verse formats, citation options, Bibles used, colors, hot-keys and more.

The only problem I have had is an occasional error message which I have not taken the time to understand since it has not kept the software from doing what I want it to do. I just hit the OK button and get on with things. Also, there may be times when you will want to disable the program, which you can do form the taskbar. I will sometimes do this when I am reading something with many references in it that I am not interested in looking up just then. It can get annoying if the thing keeps popping up right on top of what you are reading.

Unfortunately, for some of you, this particular program is for Windows only (98 and above). It is not Mac compatible. Of course, that doesn’t mean there is not a comparable Mac program out there, only that I have not found it yet. If you know of one, please tell me about it so I can post it here as well.

Give InstaVerse a try. I think you will find it as useful as I have.

Opt Out Now!

It is so frustrating to open your mail box and find that 90% of what is there is junk mail. Unsolicited credit card offers, seasonal catalogs, and random ads are more than annoying. In addition to being a drain on the environment, if they are not properly disposed of you may be at risk of identity theft. Finally, if you are cursed with a ridiculously small mailbox like the Morrows are, then if you forget to grab your mail for a couple of days, the box fills up and you end up having to drive down to the post office just to pick up the junk mail!

Well, I came across a few resources that might help. We can only hope!

First, check out OptOutPreScreen.com which claims to be “the official Consumer Credit Reporting Industry website to accept and process requests from consumers to Opt-In or Opt-Out of firm offers of credit or insurance.” Basically, what that means is, if you chose to Opt-Out, the major consumer credit reporting companies (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, etc.) will stop giving your name to creditors and insurers and maybe one day you will see a decrease in the number of envelopes with “PRE-APPROVED” stamped across them. Isn’t that nice of them?

Second, head over to Catalog Choice. Catalog Choice “is a free service that lets you decline paper catalogs you no longer wish to receive. Reduce the amount of unsolicited mail in your mailbox, while helping to preserve the environment.” Of course, some people struggle with unsolicited catalogs more than others (you know who you are). But I would still suggest that we all keep an eye out, especially during the holiday season, when new catalogs seem to appear everyday.

Remember, even if you’ve never made a purchase from a particular company, they may have received (purchased) your address from another company that you have done business with in the past. So make a list of all the catalogs you get and head over to Catalog Choice to Opt-Out. If the catalog you received is not listed on their site, email them and let them know. They will try to add it to their list and take care of you.

Also consider 41Pounds.org. “The average adult receives 41 pounds of junk mail each year. Our service eliminates 80-95% of these unsolicited mailings for you. We’ll contact dozens of direct marketers on your behalf to STOP YOUR JUNK MAIL.” Like Catalog Choice, these folks are prepared to help you save the environment and your sanity by lessening the impact of unsolicited junk mail.

Finally, visit DMA Choice to learn more ways you can protect your privacy, cut back on junk mail, stop getting phone solicitations, safely surf the Web, and more.

These are just a handful of the resources out there. A quick google search will undoubtedly uncover more, but these should get you started. I have no idea which ones are better than others, so do a little research and figure out your best plan of attack. But whatever you do, do something. It can only help.

Bella

I wanted to take a moment to shed light on a new film that deserves your attention. Receiving rave reviews from all sides, Bella appears to be an excellent example of a quality film that beautifully conveys an edifying message that the world needs to hear.

I say, “appears” because I have not yet seen the film. However, having read a number of reviews from sources I trust, I decided to go out on a limb and promote it here. Because I have not yet seen the film, I won’t offer a synopsis or review, but I will send you over to American Vision where Eric Raugh has provided just enough information to whet your appetite without spoiling the movie.

Check it out and encourage others to support this film. Bella is an excellent example of the kind of movie our culture needs.

Drive Thru History

Anyone who knows me knows that I love history. Whatever I am studying, I want to know the “big picture” before I dig too deep. Whether I am studying great personalities, epic battles or legendary prose, I want to immerse myself in the relevant context so that I can faithfully arrive at my destination.

This is even more important when I am studying the Bible. Unfortunately, too much preaching and teaching in the church these days seems to lack such attention to detail. Too often God’s Word is taken out of context in order to either make a particular point that the text was not intended to make, or worse, to teach some new doctrine that is all together foreign to the Scriptures.

Drive Thru History is a tool you can use to enrich your study of history and the Scriptures by taking you on a journey through the land of the Bible. Informative and occasionally irreverent, host Dave Stotts “makes exploring the history of Western Civilization meaningful and totally entertaining at the same time.” These films have made Scripture come alive in new ways for me since I started watching them.

In addition to being informative and entertaining, these films are very well made. The host is talented, the footage is excellent and the production quality is tremendous. Drive Thru History is a Christian product you can be proud of. While Drive Thru History would be an excellent resource for students (study guides are included) I would recommend them for all ages (though some of the humor may be obviously directed toward a younger generation). Don’t deprive yourself by thinking these are below you.

Picking up where these films leave off, Drive Thru History America continues the journey to the New World. From the ColdWater Web site, “The values-based course explores the lives of individuals who founded our nation in faith, through a commitment to God and Country. It’s time to remember our foundation of faith and values…and teach it to our children before it’s forgotten.” These also come with study guides and would be excellent resources for homeschooling or family studies.

Here comes the son?

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you…” Jeremiah 1.5

While these words were directed specifically toward Jeremiah, Scripture testifies that it is God alone who forms us in the womb and knows us from all eternity, and therefore this passage applies to all of us. Moreover, it reminds us that we are all consecrated - set apart for the Lord. I am so amazed when I stop to imagine what this small child might be consecrated for. What have you been set apart for?

This is an early picture of who Ali and I think will be Abby’s little brother. Alison is due in March and so far, everything looks good. Well, I should qualify that. The tech doing the ultrasound did notice one possible irregularity: an enlarged kidney. I say “possible” because the size of the kidney is actually in the upper-normal range, but to be safe, Alison will likely be heading back for another ultrasound in about a month to see if anything has changed. Fortunately, this is apparently quite common and hardly ever becomes a problem, so we are grateful for that.

About the post title: No, we did not find out the sex. We waited with Abby and it was a wonderful experience and we will wait for this one as well. So why do we think it will be a boy? Honestly, it is just one of those gut feelings that parents (and family and friends, for that matter) get. Abby has stolen our hearts and for a long time now we have talked about having another girl. However, for whatever reason, we have recently come to expect a boy. We’ll see. I’ll keep you posted.