Tuesday, March 8, 2011

What's the Greatest Book on Marriage?

Other than the Bible? Several women I trust told me it was Sacred Marriage. My fiancée and I have been reading it and it is indeed good. Really good. I haven't read any others, so don't know about the whole best thing. But God did use it to mend our engagement.

The Book depository is having a special 29% off. They have free world wide shipping. So I think they're actually cheaper than Amazon. And if you buy it there, I also get 5% :-) But you may also just want to go to Amazon to check it out yourself.

PS. This post exists because I just recommended the book to a friend. I thought I'd share it with you too.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Finding Love In The Best Place

What is love? If we look to ourselves, we'll never be able to really answer that question. God answers the question in 1 John 4:10. I studied the verse in my Bible Arc course.

"In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

Here is the passage video:


1 John 4:10 from Bible Arc on Vimeo.

Monday, February 14, 2011

A Great Bible-Study Tool

Quick post before I head to bed. Just finished studying a passage in Proverbs. The Bible study method I used is called "arcing". You can find out more about it at Bible Arc.

In the meanwhile here is the video of the "trainer". Yup, after you finish studying the passage, you can watch the video to see how you did. PS: the website isn't as old as the video makes it out to be. :-)


Proverbs 2:1-6 from Bible Arc on Vimeo.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Should Jesus remain the "Son of God" in Arabic Bibles?

Last week I spent hours enjoying tea and conversation with a muslim friend. He had many questions. Frankly, I often did not know how to answer. For I could sense how differently my north african friend would respond to the standard "evangelical answers". His most pressing question was clearly: "How can the Bible say that Jesus is the Son of God?" For a muslim, "Son of God" implies God had sex with Mary.

Christianity Today has an article by Collin Hansen, on the "Son of God" controversy among arabic world bible translators. I highly recommend the article. You can find it here.

After reading that 7 page article, you'll be interesting to follow the debate on Ed Stetzer's blog. To wrap it all up, you can than read the excellent article by a man named "Rod".

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Tim Keller About The Lord of the Rings

Just read this quote regarding JRR Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, in a recent interview of Timothy Keller.

Tolkien has helped my imagination. He was a devout Catholic—and I am not. However, because he brought his faith to bear into narrative, fiction, and literature, his Christianity—which was pretty ‘mere Christianity’ (understanding of human sin, need for grace, need for redemption)—fleshed out in fiction, has been an inspiration to me.

What I mean by inspiration is this: he gives me a way of grasping glory that would otherwise be hard for me to appreciate. Glory, weightiness, beauty, excellence, brilliance, virtue—he shows them to you in some of his characters.

When people ask: how often have you read Lord of the Rings?, the answer is: I actually never stop. I’m always in it.
(Via)

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Before I pick up my Bible in earnest

C. S. Lewis:

For my own part, I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await others.  I believe that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.

B. B. Warfield:

Sometimes we hear it said that ten minutes on your knees will give you a truer, deeper, more operative knowledge of God than ten hours over your books. What! Than ten hours over your books on your knees?”

HT: JT