Category Archives: Books & blogs

B&B Friday: Kingdom Living

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Kingdom LivingMatt Dabbs is, according to the About page on his blog, “associate minister at the Northwest Church of Christ in St. Petersburg where I work with adult education, involvement, young professionals, and LIFE groups.” He writes a blog called Kingdom Living that averages about one post a day. Matt describes the blog as follows: “Kingdom Living is a Christ-centered blog that addresses relevant topics from Bible and theology to humor and culture. Feel free to comment on whatever you like. Your input is always welcome here.”

Matt does a good job of providing a little bit of everything: light posts, serious posts, polls, videos… a nice mix. I must admit to really liking one of his latest posts: Big Buts in the Bible. If you haven’t been reading Kingdom Living, let me suggest that you add it to your regular reading list. Just go to: http://mattdabbs.wordpress.com/

B&B Friday: Ryken’s Bible Handbook

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978-0-8423-8401-8I do a radio program in Spanish called Lea La Biblia (Read the Bible). In that five-day-a-week program, among other things, I offer a 3-4 minute tip on Bible study. After doing several dozen programs, I realized that I needed some sources for new ideas about what to present. One of the sources I found was Ryken’s Bible Handbook (I know, I should provide you a link to somewhere where you can buy it and I get some money, but the book is pretty widely available, and I’m guessing you can find it on your own.) [I first found this book from a review by the Internet Monk. You might look at that to gain further perspective on what this book is like.]

The book was written by Dr. Leland Ryken, Philip Ryken, and Dr. James Wilhoit. In this handbook, they try to focus on the different literary genres present within the Bible, the idea being that you don’t read poetry the same way you read prose, and you don’t read a letter the same way you read legal code.

The handbook offers a fact sheet on each book, maps and charts, a discussion of the form of each book, key places and characters, key doctrines, tips for reading or teaching each book, and a discussion of the main themes in each book. One section that I found interesting was the discussion of how each book contributes to the Bible’s story of salvation in Christ. There are also additional articles that aren’t book specific, like “The Covenant” and “Apocalyptic Writing.”

If you’re looking for a book that can give you a fresh perspective on Bible study, I think that Ryken’s Bible Handbook could be a welcome addition to your library.

(Google Books has the book here, including a limited preview. If you’re not familiar with limited previews, they are a wonderful way to actually be able to read several pages of a book to see what it’s like.)

[Disclaimer: I didn’t get any money nor free books nor even a free Dr. Pepper for writing this review.]

B&B Friday: OneinJesus.info

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oneinjesusAs I said last Friday, I’m going to use Fridays for talking about books and blogs. I’m considering slowing down my blogging schedule, but even if I do, I plan to stick to that topic on Fridays. For a while, anyway.

But I don’t have any books ready to review, so I’ll stick to a blog today. To make up for it, I’ll steer you to one that is almost booklike. Jay Guin is an extremely proficient writer, posting extensive posts at least once a day, often more than that. He is also participating in the debate over at graceconversation.com

Jay covers a wide range of topics, though, like me, he mainly touches on topics of interest to members of the Churches of Christ. The purpose statement at oneinjesus.info reads: “This site is dedicated to members of the Churches of Christ searching for a deeper understanding of God’s grace, the Holy Spirit, and more. Ultimately, the mission of this site is to set forth an understanding of the Bible that will allow for a reunification of the Churches of Christ.”

I don’t always agree with Jay, but he always makes me think. His articles tend to be well researched and well documented. A visit to his blog will be with your time: www.oneinjesus.info

Casual Friday

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jeansFridays are just not like other days. For a lot of people, the work week is winding down and the freedom of the weekend looms large. For those that work in local ministry, it’s Friday and Sunday’s coming… which means there’s lots of details to be taken care of.

I’ve decided to try something different on Fridays. For one thing, I’ve been asked to do some book reviews and would like to do just that. I don’t know that I’ll offer a review every Friday, but Friday seems like a good day for that. (Of course that means I’m actually going to have to read some books… or color them, as the case may be)

I also like it when people point me to other blogs that are interesting reads, so I’d like to return the favor. Sometime I need to update the list I have in the sidebar. There are a number of blogs that I read that aren’t listed there, and some of those listed have fallen dormant. Feel free to point out to me blogs that fall into either category.

Let me kick things off by pointing out a new blogger: Mark Edge. Mark and I were roommates for six, count them, six years in college. (All right, stop laughing… we both got multiple degrees. He’s now Dr. Edge, by the way) He and Judy got married exactly one week before my sweet wife made the mistake of her life and married me. Then the four of us worked in Argentina together for six years. Somehow Mark survived all of that. He now preaches for the Shiloh Road Church of Christ in Tyler, Texas. Mark recently started a rather unique blog. He blogs once a week, but what he writes is broken into multiple sections. He writes as much or more in that one post than I do in a week. I suggest you take a look at his blog. You can find it here: http://markedgeremarks.blogspot.com/

Have a great weekend!