The Good Book

I was given 4 books for christmas this year, they are:

Nigel Slater’s Thirst - we got a juicer off the in-laws

Johnny Cash’s Autobiography - there was something about this bloke that intrigues me

The Loop by Nicholas Evans - Dylan got me this from a charity shop - a boy after my own heart

The Bible - this is the one I want to talk about today

I asked for this bible in particular for 2 reasons

1. I could really do with reading it more. I know there’s a lot in it, I don’t want to  read it cover to cover just dip in now and again.

2.  It is encased in a green metal cover. This makes it practical, my idea was to read it whilst travelling, but more importantly eye catching. I want people to ask me what I am reading when they see me with it. It isn’t obvious what it is, if it said Holy Bible on the front then people will immediately form an opinion of me and either avoid me or make a bee-line for me, and I want neither. My hope is that the cover might intrigue people who will venture to ask what I am reading and then allow a conversation to take place about why I am reading it and what their opinion of the bible and christians in general is.

I read a bit of it last night (today I am going to get some reading glasses as it is very small print indeed) where Peter and John are brought before the council for healing someone. The head of the council says something about them being ordinary untrained men. I like this, here are 2 people who haven’t gone to college to learn how to do this stuff they have just responded to what they have seen and acted accordingly.

You can’t teach people to do that, it comes from somewhere inside them, but I daresay you can train them not to.

Email and the Bible

Using your Bibles and other reference books, discover what the Bible says about Email.

In this article I aim to demonstrate that there are ample references to the use of email contained within the Bible. Obviously, given that email is an invention of the last 20 years, I am unlikely to find a verse in which it is directly referenced, however it takes only a small mental step sideways to see that both testaments are littered with references to its use.

I would like to focus specifically on the letters that Paul wrote to the fledgling churches of Rome, Corinth, Thessalonica and other such places.

I will start with a quick definition of email. If you look here for a definition of email you will find that email is a method of composing, sending, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems. We know that email is a fast, generally efficient way of communicating with people regardless of where they are in the world. This can be 'one-to-one' personal use or 'one-to-many' group interaction.

Looking back at Paul's situation we see that he wants to communicate with the churches just starting up at various points around the world. More specifically various points throughout the Roman empire. This, I believe, is one of the keys to the success of Paul's letters. He needed to get his message across effectively and efficiently so he used the best medium available to him at the time. The Romans were renowned for the efficiency of the the systems they put in place in the countries they occupied. Communication was essential to the smooth runing of their empire and so they had in place a very good postal system. Paul used the efficiency of this mail system to get his messages delivered.

A central tenet of Christianity is the notion of spreading good news, of telling people about their faith and their belief in Christ. If Christians are to follow in Paul's footsteps then in order to do that most effectively then they must use the best tools for the job.

There are currently many electronic modes of communication available to us in the world today. Virtually all these tools offer a near instant means of interacting with other people regardless of where they are in the world. Some, however, such as SMS text messaging are limited in the amount of information one can get across in a meaningful way. Whilst others, such as this web log, might be a little intimidating for the first time user who feels they they aren't technically adept enough to use it. I would suggest that email strikes the best balance between these 2 positions. It is easy to use and you can develop quite complex ideas and arguments within it.

Email allows us to reach almost anyone almost anywhere on the planet and there is no way that Paul, or any of the other notable Biblical correspondents, would not have used it had it been available to them at the time.