There’s plenty of things to do in church if the Sunday Sermon just isnt cutting it.  Especially these days if you’re using a digital Bible where you can access other books, Bible versions, Reading Plans or dare I say email, Twitter, Facebook……

But I dont want to promote not listening to what you’re being told, I want to share what you can do when you want teaching “extra” to what you might be getting from attending your local church.

Here are some sources to Bible teaching that might be helpful:

iTunes Podcasts

Many well-known Bible teachers and church pastors now distribute free teaching material using Podcasts.  A Podcast is a subscription to an audio or video  recording.  These recordings may be that speakers sermon, radio broadcast or conference  presentation and could be in video or audio format.

You subscribe to their Podcast using software such as iTunes and whenever a new recording is added it will show in iTunes and you can simply click “Get” to download it.

Some well known speakers offering free Podcasts through iTunes include - John Piper, Louie Giglio, Tim Keller, John Macarthur, Chuck Missler, Mark Driscoll, Hillsong Church, Charles Stanley.

To subscribe to any of these Podcasts install iTunes then subscribe to your selected podcast after following the links.  Podcasts are usually also available in audio format if they are in video format so depending on how much you want to download and what format you want it in, you can make the choice.  Podcasts can be copied to iPods, MP3 players or burned to CD for listening to on the run, in the car, at the gym…..

OnePlace.com

Oneplace.com is owned by the Salem Corporation which owns over 100 Christian radio stations in the USA.  These radio stations distribute a lot of teaching material from many Christian Bible teachers, speakers and pastors and the same radio broadcasts are being made available through the Oneplace.com website. They have a large range of ministries and speakers available – view the list here.  At Oneplace.com you can listen free to the sermons but they do charge a fee if you want to download it.  If you download them you can put onto a CD or media player just like a Podcast recording.

SermonAudio

SermonAudio.com is another source of audio teaching material that you can Podcast or listen/download from the website.  They have nearly 500,000 free audio messages available to download free.  Browseable by speaker, topic, Bible, date all ministries represented must adhere to Sermonaudio’s Articles of Faith.

ChristianAudio.com

Christianaudio.com is one of the largest Christian audiobook publishers and the largest Christian audiobook website on the Internet. They digitally distribute more than four hundred audiobooks and thousands of additional audiobooks from publishers like Tyndale, Oasis Audio, Baker, Regent, Blackstone Audiobooks, Naxos Audiobooks, Recorded Books, Treasure Publishing, and Crossway Publishers.

Each month they offer a free audiobook download to members (membership is free) and authors have included – Tim Challies, Corrie Ten Boom, Jerry Bridges, John Piper, Gary Chapman, J.O Sanders.

Christianaudio.com also distributes audio for ministries such as John Piper’s Desiring God Ministry, John Eldridge’s Ransomed Heart Ministry, Richard Foster and Dallas Willard’s Renovare Ministry, R. C. Sproul’s Ligonier Ministries, and many others.

Faith Comes By Hearing

Want just God’s Word without any exposition? Faithcomesbyhearing.com has a great selection of audio Bibles free to download in a mix of languages, dramatised or not, for adults, children and even in Australian!

Once downloaded you can listen on your computer or like other files, transfer to a portable player or CD.

What other sources for resources do you use?  Do you have a preference for video or audio?

A bunch of us have started looking at various Bible passages and are using a Bible Study format put out by the Navigators and other groups.

I thought I’d create it as an Evernote note file so that anyone using Evernote and a mobile Bible reader could import it and use it.

Download the Evernote Template from here
(Downloading to Dropbox makes it easier to access from various devices running Evernote.)

Once saved to your computer here’s instructions for various operating systems I use:

Windows

• Open Evernote
• Select File>Import>Evernote Export Files…
• Browse to and select the downloaded Evernote file “Bible Study.enex”
• Evernote will create a new notebook called “Imported Notes” and place the file there
• Relocate the Bible Study note to wherever you want

Mac OS X Lion

• Browse to and double click the downloaded Evernote file “Bible Study.enex”
• Evernote will open and ask if you want to import the file and the tags. make your choice and click Continue
• Evernote creates a new Notebook called “Import Bible Study” and places the Bible Study note there
• Relocate the Bible Study note to wherever you want

Android

• Its not possible ot import into the Android version of Evernote – so you will need to import into a Windows/Mac version then let the Android Evernote app sync to add the file

iPad

• havent tested if I can import yet, but itll sync like Android otherwise

TIP: When your familiar with the template structure just delete the question prompts to shorten the note length.

This is Discipling from The Foursquare Church on Vimeo.

What would it look like if, as leaders, we focused less on the things that make our churches entertaining and more on making disciples? As shown by Kelly Tshibaka at Foursquare Connection 2011.

Kelly and Niki Tshibaka own all the rights to the video and are happy to distribute it free of charge. For more information or questions about it, please contact Kelly Tshibaka at kellytshibaka@hotmail.com.

In the movie “The Castle” (1997) Darryl Kerrigan gets a letter from the local council telling him his house is about to be “compulsorily acquired”……he explains to the family that that means the house is about to be “acquired compulsorily”.

In a later scene Darryl’s lawyer Denis Denuto tells the court that it’s the “vibe” of the law that’s important, not necessarily the actual words.

How should we interpret the Bible?  Should we read the scriptures and consider the audience of the text, their culture and the times they were written in or do we assume that “the vibe” of what is written has a superior meaning.  Or should it be both? Does it depend on the literary style of the text?

2 Timothy 3:16 – “All scripture is God breathed……” (NIV)

If we take a historical – cultural approach to interpreting Bible verses we then observe the text and ask questions such as:

• who was this written to? an individual? a nation?
• where were they living? what was their culture like?
• what point in history were they living? what else was happening in the world?
• what rules and traditions did they live under?
• what style is this written in? historical? poetical? instructional? is it a dream?
• what were their values?
• what purpose was the writer writing?

In doing so we learn to be observant and and read the text carefully in it’s completeness.  We probe issues, things which don’t make sense at first can usually become incredibly complex.

Next, we should ask – “what are the differences between the Biblical audience and me/us?”.  Reflecting on this question will help us see the theological principle in the text.  Understanding and living these theological principles will reveal more of Christ to us and through us.

Our goal as believers in Christ is to find the meaning of Bible text not create it for ourselves.

The big problem I have with a strictly allegorical approach to interpreting scripture is the potential for meanings to be brought out of a text by someone in a “fast and loose manner” (described by Klein et al, 2004). If a Bible chapter is read out word for word, then the preacher goes on to talk for 30 minutes about “the vibe”, with no relevant connections to any of the basic theological principles of the passage, people miss out on the richness of God’s intent.

I’m sorry, but in that case “the vibe” just does’t cut it….

It can be hard to discuss Bible verse interpretations with someone who is saying ” I read this verse and God told me that…….”, but we need to be gentle and gracious and faithful to God’s word and help explain the meaning if their interpretation is clearly in error.

Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart’s desires. Psalm 37.4 (NLT) Someone I know once quoted that verse as if it was a promise from God that He would make something possible based on the fact that it was a personal desire of theirs – despite the sinful fulfillment of that desire being described in many other places in the Bible.

Again, sometimes the vibe isn’t right…..

We must be observant when reading scripture.  All those involved and understand that God inspired the actual writers of those words and the editors over the years who have translated and published etc etc, inspired them all by the power of the Holy Spirit – a power which we can still have difficulty fully comprehending.

Darryl’s mate, lawyer Mr Hammill summed it up at the end of the court session when he asked the judges to consider the original intent of the people who wrote the law and what they had in mind when writing it.  We should do the same.

We should read the Bible knowing it comes from God.  It contains words written to many people over hundreds of years, but with the knowledge and intention that you and I are reading it now, in our culture and in our time, and in our own situation -  and we can have our hearts and minds opened to His very voice, through the Holy Spirit and have the fullness of Jesus Christ revealed to us through those words.

After many months BFO has a means of raising funds for the specific needs of individual children. This can be done by sponsoring a child and paying via paypal through a website. Dave Scheier in America, friend and supporter of BFO has put together a website called OrphanList.org.

Your monthly sponsorship of a child at BFO will cover their monthly living expenses including food and school fees. 100% of all sponsorships donated goes straight to the Orphanage. Please check out OrphanList.org and prayerfully consider sponsoring an Orphan.

Giving them a future in life through Bible Faith Orphanage.

The February 2011 newsletter from Bible Faith Orphanage is available to view or download from here. Please take a look at what God is doing there.

Praise God…

• A website has been created for BFO.
• The older children are beginning to understand the importance of cleanliness and to help wash the younger children.
• The boys’ choir is established and doing well.
• School feels are being provided for.

Please pray for…

• Funds to keep widows and deserted wives busy helping with the BFO children.
• Musical instruments for the children to learn to play.
• Provision for the remainder of the school fees.
• Volunteers to assist the kindergarten aged children.
• Provision of funds to purchase food.
• Aunty Rosa and helpers that God will continue to enable them in the face of many hardships.
• Funds and property to purchase a ‘home’ for the BFO children.

Proverbs 3:27-28