One of the “Picks of the Week” choices back in October, 2019 (see here) was the “5 Minutes in Church History” podcast with Dr. Stephen J. Nichols. Over 300 episodes of this podcast have been produced, and the podcast has just completed its sixth year of production.
As part of celebrating six years of podcasting, a special episode was produced where Dr. Nichols and a key member of his broadcasting team are interviewed in the Renewing Your Mind broadcast studios. Listen to this special episode by using or downloading a podcast app on your tablet or phone and searching for “5 Minutes in Church History,” then download the episode “6 Years of 5 Minutes.” If you are using a computer, you should be able to access the podcast through Spotify, iTunes or Google Play Music as well.Continue Reading
The hero of our story is David, youngest son of Jesse, whose family lived in Bethlehem. This section will seek to answer the who, what, when, where, why, how and how much questions; these are key to any serious exegesis of Scripture.Continue Reading
On January 24, 2020 I had the opportunity to present the following material to the Satellite School Administrator’s Workshop at the 2020 Sunset Vision Workshop in Lubbock, Texas. It is an updated 2nd Edition of what I presented at the same workshop in 2019 and which I posted here:“Catching Fish!”
“It’s a small town on the banks of a river. Once a week the townsfolk gather at the community center to enjoy a fine meal of freshly fried fish – caught from the local river by the town fisherman.
“The food is excellent, though sometimes limited by the amount the official angler is able to catch that week. Many of the diners would love to enjoy fish more often, but only the town fisherman knows how to fish. Everyone else is dependent on his work for their fish.Continue Reading
In 2012 I preached a 14-lesson series called The Dark Kingdom examining what the Scriptures say about Satan and his work from Creation until the end of time. This was very well received by the Tanglewood congregation in Odessa, and inspired me to organize my material better and do even more study to teach a similar 12-lesson series, Satan and His Dark Kingdom, at the Sunset Church of Christ in 2014. This latter series and accompanying study guide is available in my Store if you wish to have a copy of that study.
One of the resources I discovered and used in the above study was a pair of books written by Dennis McCallum. I want to recommend the smaller of his two books entitled, Unlocking the Mysteries of Satan. It is only available as a Kindle ebook (not in print or on Apple Books). The price varies over time between $1.99 to $2.99, but it is a bargain at either price! Different than many other books, it is not written as sensational, light and fluffy approach to the subject, but is a serious and scriptural study of a key Bible doctrine.Continue Reading
Today (01/19/2020) I taught the Bible class I attend at the Sunset Church of Christ. We are studying from a study guide by Scott Franks called, Practical Proverbs. My assigned topic was “Gossip.” Below I have reproduced the handout I provided to the class, but will first give a few guiding principles on why I developed the class topic as I did.Continue Reading
For years I kept in my file cabinet two lists given to me by two older ministers during the first few years of my ministry. Each was a list of the 10-20 books they considered essential for me to have in my religious library. About half the books were identical, the rest different on each list.
I believe that I eventually added every one of those books to my library. Most are still in my library after 40+ years, numerous moves, and regular “weeding out” of books that have proven unused or not useful. Here I don’t intend to provide such a list for any readers of this article (maybe in a later article I will). Instead, I want to begin with this article to more or less regularly list books I have recently added to my library, and in some cases give the reasons why. Do not consider these lists as an automatic recommendation or seal of approval for these titles or their contents. Rather, this is to let you know that my studies and personal spiritual interests have led me to add these books to my library.Continue Reading
The favorite video series in my personal library is the series produced by Ray Vander Laan entitled, That the World May Know. The series now consists of 16 volumes plus two special videos.
Mr. Vander Laan is a Christian educator as well as minister in the Christian Reformed Church. Since about 1992 he has taken over 10,000 people on tours of Israel, Turkey and Egypt. These videos are shot on location during some of these tours. Not simply a tourist video of the locations, Vander Laan takes the time to explain what is being viewed and what are some of the Biblical lessons to be gained.Continue Reading
Maybe because of my age (born in 1948) and the habits of a ministry covering some 50 years, I still cherish printed books. Don’t get me wrong, I have most of the latest digital Bible software with some 2,000+ volumes of resources. I also regularly buy digital versions of books for my Kindle app or Apple Books app, and have about 450-500 titles between them. But printed books are still my passion.
So when I am looking for a new reference book, commentary, or book on a special topic, I go for print most of the time. But this doesn’t mean I want to pay full retail for a new copy if a good used volume is available!Continue Reading
One of the many great benefits of living in the Information Age is the accessibility of materials from others who have sought to preach the Gospel of Christ. By this I mean there are many books available of the sermons and writings of men of earlier generations who were effective proclaimers of the Biblical message. Of course, for those who lived more recently or are contemporaneous with us, we also may also have audio or video recordings.
Being a teacher of Christian history, I always value reading after the Apostolic and Early Church Fathers. This is no endorsement of some of their teachings, but there is still much to be gained by listening to those who lived much closer in both time and culture to the New Testament period. Men such as Ignatius, Origin, Justin the Martyr, and others still speak today through writings which have survived for 1700+ years.Continue Reading
Looking back at earlier posts on this website demonstrates my fascination with photos and images that might be used in presentations or even printed materials to help illustrate Biblical subjects or events. (In fact, see here for recent articles on www.bibleplaces.com and www.freebibleimages.com.) I know many of my hearers are visual learners so they understand and retain knowledge better when it is accompanied or illustrated by photos, drawings, maps, charts, etc.
One often overlooked source of useful photos and images is Wikimedia Commons, which is part of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Going directly to the Wikimedia Commons site allows searching directly by subject for what images are available. Alternately, I usually go to Wikipedia itself for the subject (place, event, person, etc.) I am searching for. Any images on Wikipedia are also part of the Wikimedia Commons collection. It is important to notice the requirement to give credit for the source of any image you use; the appropriate credit statement is usually available just below the image when you click on the image to open it in a full window. The Wikimedia Commons currently lists almost 58,000,000 available images!Continue Reading
One of the “Picks of the Week” choices back in October, 2019 (see here) was the “5 Minutes in Church History” podcast with Dr. Stephen J. Nichols. Over 300 episodes of this podcast have been produced, and the podcast has just completed its sixth year of production.
On January 24, 2020 I had the opportunity to present the following material to the Satellite School Administrator’s Workshop at the 2020 Sunset Vision Workshop in Lubbock, Texas. It is an updated 2nd Edition of what I presented at the same workshop in 2019 and which I posted here: 
In 2012 I preached a 14-lesson series called The Dark Kingdom examining what the Scriptures say about Satan and his work from Creation until the end of time. This was very well received by the 
Maybe because of my age (born in 1948) and the habits of a ministry covering some 50 years, I still cherish printed books. Don’t get me wrong, I have most of the latest digital Bible software with some 2,000+ volumes of resources. I also regularly buy digital versions of books for my Kindle app or Apple Books app, and have about 450-500 titles between them. But printed books are still my passion.
Looking back at earlier posts on this website demonstrates my fascination with photos and images that might be used in presentations or even printed materials to help illustrate Biblical subjects or events. (In fact, see here for recent articles on