I have already told you how much I love books. Every book needs a Christian owner who will cherish it, care for it, place it lovingly on a bookshelf, and, ideally, even read it! But the truth is, with so many great books on the market today, most of us simply don't have time to read every book from cover to cover. Of course, it's good to sit with a book and just read it. But there are also times when we want to dip into books. Times when perhaps we are studying a certain passage in Scripture. This is when Bible software comes into its own. The ability to search a book or a collection of books for a subject or specific Bible reference is invaluable.

There are several different types of Bible software available. They each provide a different tool that is designed to do a different job. Comparing them is a bit like comparing a screwdriver and a chisel. Sure, you can use a screwdriver to do some jobs for which a chisel would be more appropriate, but if you tried it the other way around, you'd notice the difference! There is overlap in the design, but they are very different. I'm only going to talk today about two Bible software programs. Both of these are serious programs that, most importantly to me, make it possible to search through a remarkably large number of books. These two programs are Accordance and Logos Bible Software.

I should declare at the outset a significant bias. I have used Logos for a number of years and have a relationship with them whereby purchasers from this blog get a significant discount, and I obtain a referral payment. I have no such arrangement with Accordance.

Because I have been using it for so long, Logos has enough of a hold on me that it delayed by years my inevitable final switch from a PC to a Mac. "What would be the point of a computer without it?" I would have said. Parallels, a virtual PC program for Macs, means that I can run Logos alongside all my other Mac programs. Of course, it still doesn't look as elegant as the Mac programs, but it works better and faster than it did on my reasonably high spec PC. Macs just don't crash very much. There is no other way of saying it—Logos on a parallels virtual PC is fantastic. It is faster to open, and runs most searches more quickly than it ever did on my reasonably specked PC!

It is probably unfair for me to compare the interfaces of the two programs as I have only recently begun using Accordance and I am already very familiar with Logos. I can say that Logos is a fairly typical Windows program, using Internet Explorer as its base. Accordance, on the other hand, is a native Apple Mac program. Users who are passionate about one platform or the other will tend to like one or the other of the programs' interfaces.

The fact is, the two interfaces are not at all alike. If you are used to one of them, the other will seem quite strange, since the interface philosophies between the two applications are very different. The Accordance team has focused their attention on what they call the "work flow" in studying and getting information on the Bible or a specific Bible tool in depth. Some people I know who are more familiar with it than I am definitely love it.

By spending a bit of time learning the ropes it is possible to do many of the same searches. I find, however, that I still like the simplicity of Logos' passage guide, although you have to do some work identifying groups of books and adding them to the search to actually mine the depths of your library. Being able to simply enter a passage, hit the search button, and watch Logos search for that verse through the immense library of books I have amassed over the years is a major bonus.

Accordance, although its historical focus has centered less on a 'library' motif and more on searching individual books, does, in fact, have a similar feature with its "search all" function (available from "File - New" for some reason, rather than "Search"). The results are similar, although they are presented in a different manner. Until recently I thought that one thing which neither software program appeared to do well was to focus that search to a specific Bible verse rather than an entire passage, especially in theology journals. A search for Ephesians 1:3 would often return results on the whole of Ephesians 1, or worse yet, on the entire epistle. In Accordance, however, a new search in the "all tools" section provides a format which can say "Ephesians 1:3 <NOT> Ephesians 1:2." This will do what I described by excluding references to that verse, and it will also exclude references to the chapter as a whole. A recent improvement to the Logos search engine allows a very similar function. You need to call up a basic search and type something like Bible="Ephesians 1:3."

Please do not complain about the speed of either program in performing this mammoth task. Just think how long it would take you to do this from a manual approach! Get up, walk downstairs, put the kettle on, and it will probably be done before the kettle even has a chance to boil. If you have a Mac, it may finish before you even leave the room! The only drawback with a big library is that you can return too many results to sift through. But when studying an obscure verse and wanting to know what thousands of writers have had to say about it, having this information at your fingertips is invaluable. You simply couldn't do it at all without Bible software, so to complain about the interfaces seems a bit churlish.

On the other hand, I did like the ability of Accordance to select a few verses and generate a report on the relative importance, frequency, and uses elsewhere in the Bible of the words found in it. Logos has a similar feature which is more graphical and is apparently based on CIA technology for analyzing the importance of large volumes of data. There are some search features for specific books that Accordance has which are very different to those which Logos has implemented.

To be quite honest, neither program really excites me in its user interface. The truth is, both Logos and Accordance are not quite as easy and intuitive to use (especially for the more complex searches) as someone who hates to read manuals or watch video training would like! Logos intends to port their software to the world's best operating environment. But don't hold your breath waiting for the much delayed end result, and certainly don't delay buying a Mac for that reason!

For me, the key reason to purchase Bible software is because of the number of books you can get with it. In that regard, Logos wins hands down. The range and breadth of materials available is simply stunning, and massively outweighs the list available for Accordance. Some of the most important ones (such as the Word Biblical Commentary series and the Theological Journal Library) are available for both programs. (I am told that in the latter on Accordance it is possible to search by author, something which I haven't yet figured out in Logos.) But there are a number of helpful scholarly resources not available for Logos that are available for Accordance. These include (most importantly) Zondervan materials such as the Essential, Personal Growth, and Scholarly Bible Study Suites, and two standard lexicons, NIDNTT and NIDOTTE, as well as some other scholarly resources.

Few pastors or serious students of the Bible would be anything less than ecstatic to receive a gift like this, provided they are not so computer-phobic that they simply use it as a very expensive tea coaster! Perhaps you could club together with members of your church to gather sufficient funds to invest in a copy of one of these programs for your leader.

If you can afford it, and already own a Mac, you should seriously consider buying both programs. It is worth buying Parallels and Win XP just so you can use Logos! If you don't have a Mac, the choice is simple—buy the biggest Logos Bible Software package you can possibly afford, since you can always bring it with you if you do ever make a jump to the Apple platform.

Adrian is away on business for a couple of days, and he has asked me to stand in, so apologies in advance if this is not up to the usual high standard!

We had an engineer round to our house today to investigate why our Internet connection has been so erratic. In this day and age many of us have become dependent on technology of this sort to help us organize our lives. We may have all our phone numbers, addresses, photos, accounts, records, recipes, correspondence, assignments, and other documents stored on this wondrous piece of technology. We can come to depend on computers, Internet, etc. in a big way. Yet, we realize, of course, that from time-to-time equipment and services of this kind can break down. And we all know how frustrating that can be!

While the engineer was round this morning, I got to thinking about how we tend to put our trust in fallible technology, and how much more we can put our trust in God. He never fails, he always listens to us, he does not break down (is everlasting), we can always come to him with confidence. The communication lines are always open. He does not forget his promises to us, but fulfills them all. He keeps his covenant (or contract) with us. We do not need to switch to another provider, for he is the ultimate provider!

Mrs. W.

So, although Josh Harris has kissed Facebook goodbye, he has this to say to the rest of us, especially singles:

Enjoy Facebook. And if you're a godly single man, receive it as a gift from God to assist you in nonchalantly building a friendship with a godly Christian woman. I'm serious, men! If you're mature enough to pursue marriage, Facebook should be "Courtbook" for you. Don't just sit there, get on the ball and go "poke" a godly girl.

Observant readers of my blog will have noticed that I didn't post any larger photos of Rob Rufus when I spoke about Together On A Mission and interviewed Rob Rufus. One reason for this was that the snapshots I took while we were together were ruined in my hurry as I had the camera on the wrong setting. As a result the color was all wrong and I thought they were beyond salvation.

Well, my MacBook and the wonderful iPhoto software came to the rescue. I have never been able to understand photography software (although Picasa from google was reasonably easy) and so was thrilled to see Tamasin and Henry master it in no time. They took one of the following two photos each and were able to repair them admirably. At moments like this a father is proud of his kids and a relatively new MacBook owner is proud of his laptop!

The second installment in my Mac videos, in which I mention Logos Bible software, parallels and also some of the other things that make the jump tricky for a PC user.

In this video I share my first reactions to the Mac

I got the following in an email from Logos. If you are interested in obtaining a copy of this work and ensuring it is passed down to future generations who will increasingly use only electronic books, now is your chance. It could be a good investment of $200.

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures is one of the most passionately requested titles we have had in a long time. Unfortunately with 24 oversized volumes coming in at almost 14,000 pages of commentary — its size makes it very costly for us to produce a Logos edition.

We already have a lot of interest, and hundreds of orders, yet we are still trying to break even on production costs alone just to push this title into production.

"The volumes greatly differ in excellence, yet none could be spared. We have nothing equal to them as a series." — C. H. Spurgeon

This 19th century commentary has served as a standard reference for more than a century. The original work was edited by Peter Lange in Germany (1864-1880). Phillip Schaff supervised the English translation and contributed substantially to the American edition, which runs to some 13,600 pages. Many early reviewers regarded Schaff’s edition with his additional material as superior to the original.

"It promises to be a complete and useful Commentary and will prove especially valuable to ministers. It contains critical annotations of the text and its translation, and a threefold commentary, exegetical, doctrinal, and homiletical. Under these three heads the text is viewed under every aspect. It forms almost an exegetical library by itself." — The New Englander, Volume 23, 1864, p. 543.

This commentary series appears on recommended book lists to this day (e.g., the Master's Seminary 850 Books for Biblical Expositors) but is out of print and quite difficult to find as a complete set. The Logos edition will offer all the benefits of searching, copy-and-pasting, linked Bible references, and synchronous scrolling with whatever Bible you may own.

"... we unhesitatingly commend the Commentary of Dr. Lange, which is, in brief, a vast reservoir in which is collected an immense amount of material for the use of students and all intelligent, educated Christians." — Putnam's Magazine

Used, print copies of Lange's commentary average around $20 per volume, which means you could piece together a full 24-volume set for approximately $450.00. The Logos edition will give you the set — complete, tagged and searchable — for less than half what you'd expect to pay for these 24 volumes in print!

ADDITIONAL DETAILS

Complete Title: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical, with special references to Ministers and Students. By John Peter Lange, D.D., in connection with a number of eminent European Divines. Translated from the German, and edited with additions, original and selected, by Philip Schaff, D.D., in connection with American scholars of various Evangelical Denominations.

The commentary's subtitle — "Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical"— aptly describes the author's three-pronged approach to the biblical text. Each biblical book receives a lengthy introduction, often between 30-50 pages in length with some books receiving much more (the introduction to Revelation is upward of 80 pages). The book's primary divisions are then laid out, and for each section the author provides the KJV text (with brief textual notes), exegetical and critical comments, doctrinal and ethical interpretation, followed by homiletical and practical suggestions for application. Authors frequently quote from the writings of other commentators (e.g., Myer, Heubner, Alford, Starke, Quesnel), especially in the homiletical comments section.

Lange's Commentary includes a number of unique features that add a great deal of value beyond the text-level commentary. Examples of this are theological and homiletical introductions to the Old Testament (157 pages) and New Testament (37 pages), general introductions for groups of biblical books (e.g., Three Middle Books of the Law, Poetical Books of the Old Testament, Pastoral Letters), and metrical/rhythmical versions of Job and Ecclesiastes.

PLEASE NOTE

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures appeared as a pre-pub several years ago. At the time, it generated fewer sales than necessary to put it into production. A few years later, after many more earnest requests, the decision was made to give it one more try, this time on Community Pricing to see how it fared there. As a Community Pricing title it received little interest, generating less than fifty percent of the commitments needed. Nonetheless, there has been quite a number of vocal customers imploring us to produce this title. For that reason we are, once again, offering Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures on the pre-pub page.

THIS WILL BE YOUR LAST OPPORTUNITY TO PRE-ORDER THIS TITLE AND SEND IT INTO PRODUCTION.

If this series does not swiftly generate enough sales, we will remove it from our list of potential products. Given the history of this work on our site, and our desire to produce it in a timely fashion, the price of the title will be adjusted according to customer interest and production cost. In other words, be warned: the price will go up quickly. Lock in the lowest price while you can. Don’t miss out on the chance to add this renowned work to your commentary library!

Pre-order your copy today!

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (24 Volumes)
Suggested Retail Price: $450.00 Logos Sale Price: $299.95

Pre-Publication Special: $199.95

For all the details, please visit the website at:

http://www.logos.com/products/prepub/details/2594

Bill Gates beware! Phil Johnson has bought a Mac! I wasn't going to tell you this quite yet, but this same week I too have taken the plunge and ordered a MacBook. I didn't go for the pro, not just because of the cost but because I think that I will prefer a small screen for many purposes. When I want a big screen I can plug it into a monitor at home - and even create a multi-screen system where your desktop is spread between both.

I did however upgrade the RAM to 2GB to optimise performance - which I understand is important especially if you need to run two operating systems at once. Why do I need two operating systems I hear you ask? Well, the big challenge for me is going to be getting logos bible software to work. I decided I can't hold off my purchase of a new laptop any longer for them to release the mac version. So, it looks like I will need to run parallels and XP for now. Anyone with any experience of that combination, or any pitfalls to avoid do let me know!

Anyone else out there tempted to begin to fall away from the PC?

Note: I originally wrote this article for www.sermoncentral.com where it appeared on February 26, 2007.

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Technology helps me in both my sermon preparation and in my personal devotional life. By technology, I’m referring specifically to the Internet and Bible software. I love it and have no apology for using it to discover insights from God’s Word and to improve the quality of my preaching.

People have three different reactions when I talk to them about using technology to help us understand God's Word. Some respond enthusiastically. Others—well, their eyes just glaze over. The third group starts talking about plagiarism of sermons and how terrible it is that pastors are no better than children who buy essays online to submit as coursework. Perhaps you have had similar responses when you talk about SermonCentral.com. Maybe you don't even like to talk about it for fear of these responses. I hope that by the time you have finished reading this article you will be able to hold your head high about your use of SermonCentral.com and other forms of technology to help you preach.

What about the fear of abuses of technology, particularly Internet sermon access? I’ll simply put my cards on the table here: I think there is a lot of unnecessary concern about it. I do not think that there are many men of God who are lifting whole sermons from elsewhere and simply re-preaching them. Sure it happens. But for those of us who are conscientiously and diligently putting our hearts into our sermon preparation, it’s not worth wasting our time on those who aren’t. Let’s just preach the Word!

On Judgment Day I would not want to be in the shoes of anyone who made a habit of the loathsome practice of simply passing off other people’s sermons as their own. As preachers, we should never forget the following very serious words of warning:

"Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness" (James 3:1, ESV).

Those words should haunt you as a preacher. They do me as I sit here writing this article having preached just a few hours ago.

Most preachers understand why even a great preacher like Martyn Lloyd-Jones could say of his own preaching,

"I can say quite honestly that I would not cross the road to listen to myself preaching." This wasn't because of any lack of commitment to preaching on his part since he also said, "Preaching has been my life's work … to me the work of preaching is the highest and the greatest and the most glorious calling to which anyone can ever be called."

(Preface to D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1971)

The joyful, yet awesome, responsibility of preaching should have an effect on us. Of course, we would not simply copy another person's sermon—how could we dare? But how can we go into the pulpit and deliver our own untested insights to the people God has entrusted to our preaching? It is precisely because of the weight of this responsibility that far from being embarrassed about my reading of other people's material, I consider it imperative to do so. After all, I will stand before God to give account for every word I preach.

There are sometimes double standards in people's minds on this issue of plagiarism. Surely reading sermons from SermonCentral is no different from reading a commentary or theological work, or a book of sermons. Technology doesn't alter at all the basic fact—we are reading the work of others who have studied the Bible before us. The truth is that for thousands of years preachers have studied what other students of the Bible have written. How is reading published sermons so very different from reading a commentary? Do people who feel we should not use any technology in our sermon preparation seriously believe that we should not read anything other than the Bible to help us?

Centuries before anyone thought of making sermons available on the web, Charles Simeon produced his Horae Homileticae, which was essentially a set of sermon outlines which covered the whole of Scripture. Over on Wikipedia, the accusation is made that this publication was an "invitation to plagiarism", which seems crazy to me. All SermonCentral.com enthusiasts should rejoice to hear that the people at Logos Bible Software are publishing an electronic edition of this amazing work.

The truth is, the advice I was given by a wise man when I was just beginning to preach as a teenager is as applicable to the age of the Internet and Bible software as it was when these things hadn't been conceived. My mentor encouraged me to work on a passage myself, trying to understand it as best as I could, and then check my conclusions and expand my understanding by reading others. Such advice has been repeated by every preacher who I respect and have spoken to about this issue. Another of my mentors told me that he didn't think he had ever preached a sermon without first checking what Charles Spurgeon had to say on the relevant passage.

There is no such thing as a copyright on ideas. Plagiarism is not an issue when we begin to extract ideas, reword them, and combine them with other ideas we have found elsewhere or thought of ourselves. Actually, I have learned over the years that if I come up with an interpretation of Scripture that seems new and fresh to me, the majority of the time I will discover, if I read enough commentaries or sermons, an almost identical idea has been expressed before by someone else. It is when I don't find my thoughts reflected previously that I worry, since I suspect that at least half of such truly original ideas are probably heretical! It is technology that allows me to check myself against the collective thought of others, and incorporate some of the ideas of others as appropriate.

It can be amusing to see how unknowingly dependent on others we sometimes find ourselves. I remember a few years ago preparing a sermon on a subject and then turning to one of Spurgeon's sermons to see what he had written on the passage at hand. I was shocked when I realized that I had come up with a set of headings that were so similar to his and in such a similar order that someone would have thought I had copied them. I never decided whether I should be pleased that I had spontaneously come to the same conclusions as the prince of preachers, or conclude that I had obviously read that sermon at some point in the past and had somehow regurgitated the headings. I am fairly certain that the second conclusion was, in fact, the case.

Both my early mentors and my fear of getting it wrong gave me a desire to check my conclusions before I preached. When I was first learning to prepare sermons, I traveled into London to the Evangelical Library, which was also much loved by one of my other heroes—Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. I would find the largest table I could and gradually fill it with commentaries and sermon collections open to the relevant passage I was studying. I quickly realized this was not a very efficient way to study since I only needed a few pages at most of the large volumes I was lugging around the library—indeed, often I was only really interested in a sentence or two which encapsulated a thought that I had not yet considered.

It was around that time that I decided I needed to have the Spurgeon volumes at home. When I saw the cost and size of the paper collection, I knew it wasn't possible for me. I found instead an electronic edition at a much cheaper price, and my electronic book collection began.

I mentioned earlier that I had preached a sermon today. Let me tell you a bit about the different forms of technology I used to help me in this talk, and how I use them generally. Firstly, I am an avid believer in the power of this new form of communication known as the Internet. Historians are unequivocal that the Reformation was only possible because of the invention of the printing press. This enabled Luther to communicate with large numbers of people at once through printed tracts. Luther was able to transform Europe theologically, unlike men like the martyr Huss, who had prophesied 100 years previously that the Reformers were coming. Today we are living through a revolution in communication that is at least as significant. Christians need to grab the opportunities this presents. Technology is a gift to be received—and seized!

The Internet has enabled me to connect with many people and benefit from their wisdom. My blog in particular has led me to form good relationships with people I would never have otherwise met. At all stages of the composition of my sermon notes, I made heavy use of e-mail and chat programs to share my ideas and ask for help from a few people—some of whom live on another continent to me. It seems I am in good company as Josh Harris recently blogged that he e-mails his manuscript for comments to C.J. Mahaney and others every Saturday night wherever they may be in the world.

Also, on the Internet I found SermonCentral to be particularly useful in finding cross-references for the theme of my passage. This was more difficult than is sometimes the case since this was one of those biblical subjects which is frequently described using different words. Thus, I decided to search for other sermons with a particular key word in their title. As well as giving me material to read, this helped me to identify some key passages in the Bible I had not considered. I love being able to read the product of the labors of other preachers around the world.

I was also able to discover material from a collection of over 100 handpicked Christian websites and blogs by using a search box I include on my blog's homepage. Utilizing the Google search engine, this simple, but helpful, tool enables me to limit my search to the specific Christian sites I want to study. These include desiringgod.org, spurgeon.org, ccel.org, bible.org, sermoncentral.com, and many others. Within a split-second, everything my favorite Christian sites have to say on a Bible verse or subject appears on my screen.

I also used the ESV.org website to help me quickly copy and paste passages into my notes, as well as to listen to the text. (The same can be done for other Bible versions with the Search-the-Bible feature on SermonCentral.com.) I even downloaded some mp3 sermons on my theme. I wrote a set of long notes, then decided to convert them into a PowerPoint show, and then changed my mind about having slides, so needed to export it back to the word processor for yet another edit. As you can see, the preparation of my notes is heavily technology-dependent. If I had to go back to a pen and paper to produce the notes from which I will preach, it would certainly feel very odd!

But for me, the most helpful source of assistance of all in my sermon preparation is my Bible software. The reason why I like it the most is that it is a direct connect with the Bible itself—the sole infallible source of preaching material. Most software packages will allow you to easily compare different English translations and explore the Bible in its original languages. My favorite is Logos Bible Software, which does all this and much more. It’s great to see the former Microsoft employees who founded Logos now using their talents to strengthen my study of Scripture.

For many years now, if I want to check out the meaning of a Bible passage, do a word study in the original Greek, or, indeed, check out the latest theological thinking on a certain subject—I almost always turn to my Bible software application—which now feels to me like my own full-time personal digital assistant.

I also sometimes call my growing collection of electronic commentaries, lexicons, Bibles, interlinear Bibles, commentaries, reference books, and theological journals my personal “Theological Seminary in a Box.” Logos has served up a feast of resources in a one-stop platform. For me, at least, this software goes some way towards covering up my lack of any theological degrees. For sure, I've needed to learn from others in real life, and have done some theological training courses, but with Logos Bible Software I can instantly benefit from the pooled expertise of thousands of scholars.

The sheer volume of what is available electronically still amazes me. Just as an example, it is possible to obtain the majority of John MacArthur's life works on a single disk! “What will I use as a doorstop now without those piles of books?" you ask. There are, in fact, literally thousands of books and products that can be stored on your hard drive.

Over the years I've found my Bible software to be an invaluable resource in sermon preparation. I simply enter a passage on the home screen, press “go,” and watch as my whole electronic library is searched for information about that Bible reference. I hope you can grasp how having all these resources available electronically saves me countless hours of time. It would simply not be possible to search that many books and journal articles manually each week without an army of research assistants.

Are there any drawbacks to all of this technology? In a way, the very strength of this software is its weakness. A thorough use of technology and the Logos Bible Software in particular—especially if you have an extensive library—will greatly increase your confidence in preparing sermons. This could lead to an increase in pride and to a desire to over-display that knowledge whilst preaching. After spending hours chasing rabbit trails and wrestling with the text, we sometimes want others to see the fruits of our labors. In fact, we have to bury most of it. A good sermon, however, is like an iceberg. The mountain of ice—which represents the message itself—is dwarfed by the vast amount of preparation underpinning it beneath the surface.

I have sometimes spent hours studying a particular issue merely to come across with greater conviction as I preach a single sentence. It reminds me of something a manager at Apple said about preparation for Steve Job’s keynote presentations, "The team and I spent hundreds of hours preparing for a segment that lasted about five minutes."

The good news for those of us with a large electronic library is that the reference materials represent the results of millions of hours of study by some of the sharpest theological minds among current and previous church scholars. I can simply open my software, type a Bible passage into the passage guide, and set my own personal team of thousands of scholars to work. Imagine being able to simultaneously e-mail the authors of 500 years’ worth of theological journal articles, asking if they had ever written on that obscure Bible verse you are struggling with—and getting an answer in seconds!

If we take our preaching seriously, I don't see any alternative resource that can do everything that my Bible software library does – packages from other companies do exist, but none I have found have as many resources available as Logos. I am so grateful for it, along with the sermons that are available online at places like SermonCentral. (These days the two even work together seamlessly as SermonCentral results are incorporated into Logos Bible Software’s passage guide.)

With all this knowledge at our fingertips—how do we prevent the pride referred to in the statement "knowledge puffs up, but love builds up" (1 Corinthians 8:1)? I think that access to all of that knowledge can be turned—if our hearts are right—to stimulate humility. We ought to realize very quickly that wiser scholars than us have much to teach us and still disagree with each other on points we thought were "obvious". This should make us humble. We can even imagine ourselves in a dialogue with the authors of all this material, and who knows, they might even persuade us of a new opinion. We must be more committed to the Bible than we are to the theological system to which we hold. This conviction was a major trait of Charles Simeon, who I mentioned at the beginning of this article.

Another possible drawback of the overuse of technology is this: When preparing to preach, we might feel that our task is complete when we have studied well. Rather, we must also build a bridge from this world to the world of the Bible. Only part of that bridge-building is done by studying the Bible and what others have said concerning it. A good sermon will also have a foot in this world. Thus, we must know something about this world so we can apply the Scriptures.

This is one reason why I like reading and hearing other people's sermons; hopefully, at least some of them will have considered the applications and illustrations that connect with their congregations. Spurgeon was a master at this. We cannot merely copy his work, however, as we live in a very different context to him. We must learn to apply God’s unchanging Word to our changing culture. The importance of fresh, personal illustrations cannot be overemphasized.

But producing a connection is not merely an intellectual task. We need God’s help. I realize that an over-reliance on technology and the resources I utilize can detract and take away from spending time in prayer over the message. We should not presume that God will bless our laziness, nor should we forget to ask Him to bless the messages we have prepared with all that technology.

I do pray in front of my PC as I study and read, but just as at the beginning of my preparation it should be me, my God, and my Bible, at the end of my preparation, I need to switch off the computer, put aside the notes, get away from all distractions, and simply pray. I am ashamed to admit how often I have to remind myself to do this. For it is really only as I connect with God personally—because of or in spite of technology—that I will find He takes my preparation and turns it into an anointed sermon that will impact the lives of my hearers—and that, after all, is why we all preach. There is no better advice ever given to preachers than to follow the advice of the early Apostles who said:

“We will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
(Acts 6:4.)

Regular readers of my blog will be aware of my love for Doctor Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Back in August I did a summary post listing my regular posts from the Doctor. I thought that today I would link to the posts I have written and then speak about an exciting way that you can easily get your hands on a wealth of material from the Doctor. (If you want to cut to the chase see the following two links: Selected Works of Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Exposition of Ephesians.)

It is important that I stress that the Doctor is not merely someone of interest to one section of the church or another. During his life and subsequently, he was almost unique in his time for his appeal to people from all different denominational backgrounds. He truly was a gift of God to the whole church, and if you have never read or listened to the Doctor you need to right away! So to whet your appetite, here are some posts since August 2006 in which I mention him:

• The Effects of Preaching and Religious Experience
• Blogging the Gifts - Tongues and Interpretation
• Something Worth Fighting For, Part 4
• Car-jacking, Missional Swim Trunks, and the Holy Spirit
• So What Did We Miss?
• DG06 - Session 3 - Tim Keller
• Something Worth Fighting For, Part 3
• Something Worth Fighting For, Part 2
• Something Worth Fighting For, Part 1
• A Love Letter to Bethan
• Preaching to Yourself
• What is the Gift of Tongues?
• The Doctor Changes His Mind

The Doctor was a great believer in the need for us to think carefully and study carefully God's Word. There is no doubt that the books of his sermons and talks are some of the most perceptive, well-argued, and yet passionate materials ever written. As an example of his love for the truth of the Bible here is a quote taken from Authentic Christianity (1st U.S. ed., page 53, Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books.)

"So the first effect of Christianity is to make people stop and think. They are not simply overawed by some great occasion. They say, “No, I must face this. I must think.” That is the work of the Spirit. The people in Acts thought again. They repented—the Greek word is metanoia—they changed their mind completely. The Spirit always leads people to think, and, as I have been showing you, the greatest trouble is that men and women go through life without thinking. Or they think for a moment but find it painful, so they stop and turn to a bottle of whiskey or television or something else—anything to forget.

Is it not obvious that the world, speaking spiritually and intellectually, is in a doped condition? In all sorts of ways men and women evade the facts. They can do this with great energy, they can be very intellectual, but ultimately they end up with nothing.

What does the Spirit make us think about? Well, not first and foremost about ourselves. I must emphasize that Christianity does not start with us. It does not say, “Do you want to get rid of that sin that is getting you down? Do you want happiness? Do you want peace? Do you want guidance?” That is not Christianity. That, again, is the approach of the cults. No, these people in Jerusalem were made to think about Jesus Christ! They were given the objective, historical facts about this person . . .

The next point is that the . . . Spirit now makes us go on to realize the relevance of Jesus Christ, and everything concerning Him, to ourselves personally . . .

You can sit in a chair and read a book about Jesus Christ, you can read about Him in your Bible, and you can read books of theology. Very interesting. To an intelligent person there is no study more entrancing. It has been the occupation of some of the greatest minds of the centuries. But you can do all that and still not be a Christian. It is the Holy Spirit who makes each of us see the relevance of Jesus to ourselves, so that we are no longer spectators, no longer critics, no longer people taking a wonderful, objective view. No, no, I am under criticism myself. The relevance of this has come to me. I see that I am involved in all this, and I had not realized it."

Now, it may well be that having read so many quotes from the Doctor here, you are eager to get a hold of his books. They can, of course, be purchased from Amazon.com, and many of his audio sermons can be downloaded from the Martyn Lloyd-Jones Recording Trust. There is no doubt in my mind that reading his material will do you good and help you to, as he puts it, "think".

In the rest of this post, I want to introduce you to another way that you can get a hold of some of the amazing books that have been produced from his sermons. This is, of course, to purchase electronic copies of two fantastic resources from Logos. Logos has two Lloyd-Jones CDs available. The first of these is Selected Works of Martyn Lloyd-Jones and is a collection of no fewer than ten separate books by the Doctor, including more than 3,300 pages of Lloyd-Jones' highly relevant and well-loved works. Imagine being able to easily search all the following books at once for either a Bible verse key word, or a specific subject that you are interested in. These are some of the Doctor's most well-known and well-loved works.

• Revival - this book is based on a series of talks given on the 100th anniversary of the Great Revival which started in Wales and swept across England, throughout the United States, and to the far corners of the world. It is a critical book for us to read if we want to understand the biblical view of revival - "I do not think that our age has seen any more powerful or profound treatmentof revival than this book."—Dr. J. I. Packer
• The Assurance of Our Salvation - Based on John 17, this book explores how we as Christians can be sure of our salvation. The book is practical, pastoral, and inspiring.
• Great Doctrines of the Bible (3 vols.) - This is a complete systematic theology written by the Doctor and it will help you grasp the theological and emotional impact of the message of the Bible.
• Studies in the Book of Acts (4 vols.) - These sermons will inspire you as you consider afresh the birth of the church, the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the advance of the early church.
• Seeking the Face of God - The Doctor brings his scapel to nine passages from the Psalms. You will discover just why the book of Psalms is so precious to many of God's saints.

The second, Exposition of Ephesians series, is about 3,000 pages worth of in-depth analysis of the book of Ephesians and is one of the most thorough commentaries available on this vital New Testament book. Based on years of careful preaching verse after relentless verse. One of the Doctor's most well-known sermons is contained in this series. He managed to preach an entire sermon on the phrase "But God" from Ephesians 2!

"With these two words we come to the introduction to the Christian message, the peculiar, specific message which the Christian faith has to offer to us. These two words, in and of themselves, in a sense contain the whole of the gospel. The gospel tells of what God has done, God’s intervention; it is something that comes entirely from outside us and displays to us that wondrous and amazing and astonishing work of God which the apostle goes on to describe and to define in the following verses." (Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (1972). God's Way of Reconciliation chapter 2, page 59) Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.)

Lloyd-Jones shows how the book of Ephesians gives us a unique overview of Pauls's teaching. Many critical subjects are covered, including our salvation, predestination, the work of the Spirit, the Church, spiritual warfare, and many other aspects.

All these books mentioned above are a treasure trove, but their size makes them somewhat unwieldy - particularly if you want to use them in a 21st century manner. I am sure that for many of my readers going through a big book sequentially is just not something that they are going to do. As helpful as a paper book is for reading from beginning to end, increasingly many of us want instead to dip in and out of a book when we are interested in a particular subject. Locating that passage that you know is in one of your books that you have read is hard enough. Imagine being able to find a highly relevant passage in a book you haven't even read yet!

You can search the entire series of Lloyd-Jones books by word, passage, or topic, so you’ll never have to hunt through countless pages looking for that certain quote. What's more, all Bible references function as hotspots, immediately presenting the cited verse whenever the mouse cursor rolls over them. And by clicking on the citation, your favorite Bible translation will immediately open to the chapter and verse. This transforms your electronic library into a searchable index of amazing passages and chapters that are at your fingertips when you most need them.

Of course, these books work hardest when they are included on the same system as one of the core libraries. Then, you can quite literally type a Bible verse into the passage guide, click "go," and within seconds results will be flooding you from Lloyd-Jones and all your other books! This is not to encourage plagarism which everybody knows is when you copy one person. When you are inspired by and integrate ideas from many people into your own work it is not plagarism, it is scholarly research!

For some reason when I installed these items a collection was not automatically formed - but fortunately it is a simple matter to create one yourself (tools-define collections) and then to include that collection in the resources that are searched on a home page when you click passage guide (preferences on the homepage).

If you love Lloyd-Jones material, these works will stand on their own, but will be so much more useful as an add-on to a fuller Logos library system. At very least, you need a Bible to work with them. Even without what they call a "core library" - a critical mass of Bibles, commentaries, and lexicons - these two resources will still allow you to browse the books, search, annotate, Copy/Paste with Footnotes, Visual Mark-up, Topic Browser, Reference Browser, History, Favorites, Bookmarks, Define Collections, Zoom, and Auto-Lookup. From the right-click menu, standard functions like Copy, Print, Speed Search This Resource, etc. will work.

It really is the search that will wow you - you can search an individual book, the MLJ collection, or your entire library by word, phrase, topic, and Bible verse. Where relevant, there will be hot-linking within and between texts, footnote pop-ups, and Bible reference pop-ups (if you own at least one Bible). For example, simply enter a search like topic (Trinity) and it will find all the places MLJ talks about the topic of the Trinity - some of which may not be where you expect! If such a search doesn't return enough hits, simply search for the keyword "Trinity" instead, perhaps adding an "OR 'Father Son and Holy Spirit'" or something similar!

Navigation within and between the books is a breeze, and the convenience of not needing yet more shelving should mean your spouse's vote is with digital over paper every time! These resources are on sale at Logos and are not part of the 25% reduction given to readers of my blog on core libraries.

To Purchase materials from Logos Bible Software visit

Selected Works of Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Exposition of Ephesians.

25% off Logos Core Libraries

More information about Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones is availabe from Wikkipedia.

At the current rate of growth I guess everyone on the planet will eventually have a facebook account! I have had one for a while, and a number of you my lovely readers have been kind enough to make me your friends. I know that during my "light month of blogging" in August I shouldn't get too sucked into the world of facebook. But it has been fun. And resistance is futile - we will all be assimilated.

So, for the one or two of my readers who are not already in facebook get yourself an account pop over to my facebook profile page and ask me to be your friend. Then, download the "Compare People" application and do something quick to stop Bret and Alex Harris carrying away ALL the awards between them. So far, among my friends Alex is most powerful, most famous, prettiest, sexiest, most likely to succeed whilst Bret is hardest worker, most cuddly, most attractive, most kiss-able,most dateable! This cannot be right and should not be allowed to continue!

UPDATE -  Well done furious "compare people" users.  Alex at least has already been bumped from the awards section.  Poor guy though, as his brother is still there!

Today is a day for good news! Freedom for Chinese people is of course tied up with freedom for Chinese bloggers, and microsoft have made a potentially costly decision which I applaud.

Microsoft amends blog shutdown policies "The Redmond software company, operator of a popular blogging technology called MSN Spaces, said Tuesday that it will endeavor to make blogs available to users elsewhere even if Microsoft decides it is legally obliged to block them in a particular country.

The company also pledged to provide users with a clear notice that it has shut down a Web site when the decision to do so stemmed from a legal mandate. Previously, it has simply said the content was unavailable."

Where we'll see whether the policy is meaningful or not is the first time the state comes to Microsoft ... and says, "So you're publishing to the world the subversive political statements of somebody online. Who is it?'" he said. "Does Microsoft fold or stand pat?"

The all new Blogger for word should revolutionise my blogging experience.  No more excuse for those typos.  No more posts lost at the last second during the publishing process.  No more weird formatting errors.  This has got to be a massive advance for everyone who uses the Blogger software! Pop over and download it now!

I have just implemented Y!Q which allows you to find more information about subjects I post on right from the post. It should be possible to implement it in whatever blog system that you use so that the "context" it searches is always your blog post title!

Its all part of the value added service!

Managing the Blogdom of God which continues to grow becomes a headache after a while!

What I am wondering is if anyone out there would either know of a technical solution that would already do the following, or has the savvy to create one.

I would love a computer to be able to do this-
1. Read the Blogdom of God Blogroll as served by the Truth Laid Bear and obtain a list of URLs on a regular basis
2. Visit these URLs and autodiscover their RSS feeds
3. Aggregate those feeds automatically into a webpage (truncating any that are set for full posts in the feed)
4. Provide a shortened list of blogs in a blogroll feed for those who want to have less than the full list on their blogs (say the top 30?)

In this age of modern technology that should definitely be possible. Any takers anyone?

So what is the point of church? Why is it important? Why does it exist and what can it do for me? Should I actually be asking the question 'What can I do for the church?'

Like the Romans, there is much that has been purely practical that the church has accomplished. Great social movements, charitable care, justice campaigns that have led to changes in the law have all come from church. Not to mention institutions like schools and hospitals many of which were started by churches.

Actually, for a Christian there are some purposes that the church embodies. Things that we cannot do alone. I believe that these purposes are actually best embodied in the people given to the church listed in Ephesians 4.

These people exist to