I mentioned in my sermon today I’d be posting my notes, and here they are. If you’d like to download the slides you can do so here. Audio from the sermon is embedded below.
[mp3j track=”http://bwchurch.org/sermons/20101128.mp3″]
My manuscript from this sermon is below.
Are you interested in living a safe, comfortable life that looks like the American Dream? If so, don’t read this book.
It’s been a little while since I read a Max Lucado book, but I think Outlive Your Life might go down as one of his greatest works, if not his best. From the very first chapter to the end of the book he consistently looks at stories of the early church in the Book of Acts and how that group of Christians lived lives that were bigger than themselves. They changed the world around them.
Here’s a quick look at the posts that got the most traffic on my blog, along with a few thoughts about each.
Those were my most popular posts according to the stats. Was there a post that you really liked that didn’t make the list? Share in the comments.
Alright, that’s it for this week. Sleep well everyone!
In a week, Brea and I will be in Atlanta with 10,000 of our closest friends for the Catalyst Conference. I went for the first time last year and had a blast and I’m really excited to be able to go again this year. In preparation for the conference, I decided I wanted to have the schedule on my iPhone to keep track of things easier than fumbling with the printed calendar in the booklet.
Thanks to the wonders of technology, it’s fairly easy for you to do this, too. I use Google Calendar as my primary calendar, which makes it easy to create new calendars to share with others. Here’s how you can get the schedule added to your iPhone, too.
Michael Hyatt has a great post on how to do this, so I’m not going into detail here. Check out his post and you’ll be setup in no time.
Look under Other calendars for Add. Click that, then click Add by URL.
Next, copy and paste this link into the box that pops up.
You might need to go through the steps outlined again in Michael Hyatt’s blog to make the Catalyst Atlanta 2010 calendar appear in the list of calendars on your iPhone (I did). Once it’s visible on your iPhone just make sure it’s selected and you should be good to go. If you’re not currently in the Eastern Time Zone the times will probably be listed early. Don’t worry. It should adjust the times when you arrive in Atlanta.
If you use iCal, Outlook, or some other software to manage your calendars you can download the ics file and add it to your device, too.
Any questions or comments? Let me know in the comments.
It was a great day today! Here’s some reflections on Sunday and other thoughts from this past week (in no particular order):
That’s it for this week!
Looking for an easy way to listen to the Bible for free on your terms? Look no further. If you follow the instructions below you’ll be able to listen to the ESV Bible any time, any place. You can easily stream audio of the ESV to your iPhone, iPad, or other smartphone (as long as it can play MP3s). You can quickly listen to the verse(s) you want from Chrome, Firefox, or Internet Explorer. You’ll be able to listen to a daily Bible Reading Plan with just a click!
Sound too good to be true? It’s not. Read on and you’ll be amazed out how quickly and easily you’ll be listening to the Scriptures of your choice.
No matter where you are or from whatever device you’re using (as long as it can play MP3s) you can quickly listen to specific Scriptures using the form below. Try it!
The little search box above should work most of the time, but maybe you’d like search directly from your browser. So, here’s how you can do it from three popular browsers.
One of the most useful features that Google Chrome has built into it is its ability to add custom “search engines” to the address bar. Using this feature you can get to the audio of any passages you want in just a few simple steps.
Once you’ve added the custom search engine you’ll type your keyword, press tab, type your reference(s), and press enter. The next thing you know you’ll be listening the Bible being read to you!
When I started writing this post I thought adding the ability to search for ESV Audio MP3s in Firefox was going to be really difficult for me to explain. Turns out it’s ridiculously easy (now that I did a LOT of trial and error). All you have to do to add the ESV Audio search is:
That’s it. Really. Once you do those two steps (from this page, of course) you’ll have the ESV Audio search added to your Firefox search engines. Now you’ll be able to quickly listen to any Scripture right in your browser. Try it out!
The process for Internet Explorer is about the same as Firefox. One difference is the drop-down arrow to the right of the search box will change colors to let you know there is a search engine available on the page. I’ll update this post with clearer instructions once I’m booted into Windows.
And as an added bonus you can follow a daily reading plan via audio too. There are a few nice plans to choose from. Quickly listen to any of the reading (or I guess listening plans) by clicking below:
Whew. This post became a big undertaking. I’d love to get some feedback from you. Please share your thoughts or questions in the comments below. Also, I’ve had a weird issue with my iPhone cutting off the last few verses of the MP3 that I’m listening to. Let me know if you’re having the same problem.
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Please note. The ESV translation is copyright, so the following applies:
The ESV text may be quoted for audio use (audio cassettes, CDs, audio television) up to two hundred fifty (250) verses without express written permission of the publisher providing that the verses quoted do not amount to a complete book of the Bible nor do the verses quoted account for 50 percent or more of the total text of the work in which they are quoted.
So, basically don’t save an MP3 of a whole book or more than 250 verses. If you’re streaming to your iPhone you should be fine.
Apple can be a bit sensitive at times. Apparently they’ve told Newsday to pull a commercial from their website or else they would pull their app from the app store. The video is embedded below (at least until Apple makes Google pull it from YouTube). I guess they don’t like the idea of people smashing their iPad to pieces. I think the video is really funny and actually doesn’t hurt the iPad brand at all, but I’m not Steve Jobs.
Thanks to Consumerist for the story.
If the ad happens to get pulled before you get a chance to see it contact me and I might be able to help you find it using other means.
See also: my review of the iPad.
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UPDATE [5:34 PM CDT]: Apparently Newsday asked YouTube to pull the original video for copyright infringement, so I updated the video to another one. Let’s see how long this one stays up.
This is my second week of random reflections of my day at church and a look back at the past week. I’ll be doing this every Sunday…or until I get bored with it.
That’s my thoughts from today. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.
Yesterday, I wrote about Judges 11 where Jephthah made a vow to God, which ended up with Jephthah “sacrificing” his only child (a daughter) to God. Today I want to expand on a few things.
First, I think it’s really, really important to remember that in this situation God did not ask Jephthah to sacrifice his daughter. In fact, God’s voice in this section is completely silent. Nowhere does the Bible say that God was pleased with the sacrifice. In fact, I know from other Scriptures that God was no doubt was repulsed by it. There are quite a few Scriptures that strictly forbid human sacrifice (Lev. 18:21; 20:2; Deut. 12:31; 18:10; Jer. 19:5;). The reason this prohibition was needed was the other pagan religions surrounding Israel encouraged child sacrifice in order to appease their gods.
Second, Jephthah had the option of not killing his daughter. Take a look at what Leviticus 5:4-6 has to say on this:
If anyone utters with his lips a rash oath to do evil or to do good, any sort of rash oath that people swear, and it is hidden from him, when he comes to know it, and he realizes his guilt in any of these; when he realizes his guilt in any of these and confesses the sin he has committed, he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation for the sin that he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat, for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin (ESV).
This law makes it completely clear that he could have repented of the sin of making a rash oath to God and there was a means to forgiveness. I get the impression that Jephthah was more interested in his own reputation than doing what would ultimately please the Lord. He made an oath and thought he would appear weak to others if he admitted he was wrong.
Third, I think this passage shows us how terribly wrong things can go when we act out of our own selfish impulses instead of seeking God’s will. When we make rash promises to others we can let them down. When we make life decisions without dedicated times of prayer our lives can be impacted negatively, to say the least.
Overall, I’m both perplexed at this passage and in awe of it at the same time. What makes me respond in awe is that it is included at all in the Bible. The Bible is a raw, uncensored look at humanity in both its purest and most raw forms. We can do terrible things to each other, and yet, somehow, God chooses to love us.
Thank you, Lord, for loving a sinner like me.