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Jonathan Petersen
October 29, 2013

Don’t Wait to Ponder Thanksgiving

It’s that time of year when your calendar seems to gather speed and many social events crowd your already busy schedule. While Thanksgiving, Advent, and Christmas ought to be times of spiritual contemplation and relational reconnection, they can easily become frantic deadlines that produce frazzled emotions.

Bible Gateway will help you reclaim proper perspective with our email devotional, Give Thanks! Biblical Stories About Gratitude, starting November 7. When you subscribe, twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday you’ll receive a brief and refreshing Bible passage about gratitude, as well as a few questions to help you meditate on the topic. It’s a simple reminder to assist you in giving thanks to God. Sign up now and encourage your friends to as well by tweeting, blogging, and Facebooking the link.

Give Thanks! will end Thanksgiving Day. It’ll be followed by Advent and Christmas devotional newsletters to help continue to frame your year-end perspective. We hope you sign up for those, too.

Jonathan Petersen
October 24, 2013

New Bible Gateway Poll Results: Bible Apps & Reading Habits

Six out of every ten people say Bible apps for their mobile devices have caused them to read the Bible more than they did before they downloaded the apps. That’s according to our latest online poll, in which more than 10,000 people voted.

Our poll asked Have Bible reading apps for mobile devices changed your Bible reading habits? Out of a total of 10,072 votes cast in the poll, the majority say they read the Bible much more (37%, 3,749 votes) or somewhat more (23%, 2,350 votes) than they used to before getting Bible apps.

“These results are in keeping with research conducted by others,” says Rachel Barach, general manager of Bible Gateway. “Bible apps make the proximity of the Bible as ever-present as a person’s smartphone or tablet, which means we can now read the Bible on the spur of the moment anywhere we find ourselves. It makes sense that we would be reading it more often.”

Bible Gateway’s critically-acclaimed free Bible app for iPhone, iPad, Android, and Kindle Fire is available at http://m.BibleGateway.com/app. It offers multiple text and audio Bible versions in a variety of languages, Bible reference books, reading plans, reminders, and more.

Seventeen-percent (1,709 votes) of those voting in the Bible Gateway poll say they don’t use an app to read the Bible, 15% (1,505 votes) say they read the Bible less than they used to, and 8% (645 votes) say their Bible reading habits haven’t changed.

Our next Bible Gateway poll asks “Where do you read the Bible most often?” Share your answer below:

Where do you read the Bible most often?

  • A study room in my home. (33%, 1,924 Votes)
  • Everywhere (I use a mobile app). (21%, 1,223 Votes)
  • In bed before going to sleep. (21%, 1,222 Votes)
  • Other. (13%, 780 Votes)
  • At church. (7%, 405 Votes)
  • At the dinner table. (5%, 306 Votes)
  • At the office. (5%, 292 Votes)
  • In a Bible study group. (4%, 225 Votes)
  • During my commute. (2%, 90 Votes)

Total Voters: 5,882

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Andy Rau
October 24, 2013

Link Roundup: Depression and the Church

As I mentioned earlier this week, this year has seen a dramatic increase in the amount of discussion within the Christian church about depression and mental illness. Sparked to a large extent by the tragic death of Rick Warren’s son earlier this year, many Christians are calling for the church to reconsider its understanding of and approach to mental illness, a condition that afflicts countless churchgoers despite the fact that it’s rarely discussed within the church environment.

In response to I’ve hunted down many insightful and thought-provoking essays and blog posts on this topic, and have listed some of the best ones below. (I’ve also included several links from our post on the topic of depression and the church earlier this year, which I encourage you to read as well.)

In our earlier post, we presented several questions you can ask yourself about how your church might improve its ministry to people suffering from depression and mental illness:

  1. Does your own church do a good job of recognizing and helping people in the congregation who suffer from depression?
  2. Have you ever experienced depression? Was your church aware of your struggle, and if so, how did they act? If their reaction was less than ideal, how do you wish they had acted?
  3. Do you know somebody in your community struggling with depression? What can you do this week to help them?

Those are still useful questions, and here are two more to consider: have you seen a shift for the better in your church’s approach to this topic in recent months? What can you do to bring this topic to your church’s attention?

Andy Rau
October 23, 2013

Ann Spangler: Are Attitudes Toward the Bible Changing?

Last month, as part of our 20th anniversary video series, we asked pastor Jim Cymabala if he thought people’s attitudes toward the Bible were changing.

Today’s video clip features author and speaker Ann Spangler answering the same question. Ann has written a number of different devotional books, many of them with a focus on women—and she’s also worked for many years as an editor in the publishing world, all of which has given her an interesting and broad perspective on cultural attitudes toward Scripture. Here’s how she answers the question Have you seen a recent shift in attitudes towards the Bible?

What do you think of Ann’s answer? Does it reflect trends you’ve observed in your community, or in your own life? Stop by our page on Facebook to share your thoughts.

Andy Rau
October 22, 2013

Depression and the Bible: Charting the “Moods” of Scripture

This past Sunday, my church focused its worship service on the topic of mental illness. We listened as a member of our congregation shared their testimony of years spent struggling with crippling depression—a devastating experience that was overcome not by an instantaneous miracle, but by a long journey through prayer, counseling, medication, Scripture reading, and family support.

There’s a sense that in recent years, the church has been slowly but meaningfully awakening to the reality of mental illness within its walls. I’ll delve into this topic at more length later this week, but to get you thinking in the meantime, I thought it would be useful to dig out an interesting chart about the “moods” of Scripture. Click on the image below for a larger version:

A sentiment analysis of the Bible. (Click the chart for a larger view.)

This data was put together several years ago by Stephen Smith on the Bible Gateway team. Here’s how he summarized the chart:

Things start off well with creation, turn negative with Job and the patriarchs, improve again with Moses, dip with the period of the judges, recover with David, and have a mixed record (especially negative when Samaria is around) during the monarchy. The exilic period isn’t as negative as you might expect, nor the return period as positive. In the New Testament, things start off fine with Jesus, then quickly turn negative as opposition to his message grows. The story of the early church, especially in the epistles, is largely positive.

Does this data surprise you, or challenge your understanding of the Bible? Do you generally think of the Bible as an “uplifting” text, or a “downbeat” one? What do you think this means for Christians suffering from depression or other forms of mental illness?

Andy Rau
October 16, 2013

Get More Out of Your Bible Reading: How to Use Bible Commentaries on Bible Gateway

Last week, in talking about ways that Bible Gateway can be useful to students, we mentioned the existence of Bible commentaries on Bible Gateway. For the benefit of those of you who haven’t ever used (or known about) our Bible commentaries, I thought it might be a good idea to review how to access them.

Bible commentaries are meant to aid your Bible reading by explaining difficult Bible passages or highlighting details and background information to help you better understand what you’re reading. They’re not just for pastors or seminarians—they’re written to help everyday Bible readers get more out of their devotional reading.

When you read a Bible verse or passage, Bible Gateway automatically finds Bible commentary material that’s relevant to the passage you’re reading and makes it available in what we call the Resource Drawer.

To access these commentaries, first look up a passage on Bible Gateway—for example, John 3:16. Look to the top right for the Show resources link:

Clicking on Show resources opens a new column and menu next to the Bible passage without taking you away from the current page. The new column lists all of the Bible commentaries that discuss the passage you’re reading, usually organized by verse. It looks like this:

commentaryview

To view a commentary, just click on the title of the one you want and it will open in the same column, so you can read it alongside the Bible passage. To hide the commentary, just click the X in the top right; or to go back to the list of available commentaries, click Back.

That’s it! If you’ve never used a Bible commentary before, you’ll be amazed at how much useful information they contain, and how helpful they can be in understanding a Bible passage. If you’re overwhelmed by the number of available Bible commentaries, try using just one until you get a feel for it—the Reformation Study Bible and The IVP New Testament Commentary Series are good places to start.

We hope you find this useful, whether you’re exploring a Bible passage for your own spiritual benefit, researching a paper on a Bible topic, or preparing a Bible study!

Andy Rau
October 15, 2013

Do Women Face Unique Obstacles to Reading the Bible?

In the course of our 20th anniversary video interview series, we’ve asked several Christian writers and thought leaders about the obstacles that prevent people from reading the Bible as much as they’d like. When we talked to Ann Spangler—known for her books Women of the Bible and The One Year Devotions for Women: Becoming a Women of Peace, we got more specific.

We asked Ann what unique challenges women face in reading the Bible. Here’s her answer:

What do you think of Ann’s answer—and how do you think the answer might differ if you asked the same thing about men? If you’re a women who wants to read the Bible more but doesn’t, what gets in the way of your devotional reading? If you found your way past these obstacles, what advice would you give to somebody else struggling to make Bible reading a regular part of their everyday life?

Andy Rau
October 12, 2013

Jefferson Bethke: What Do You Wish More People Understood About the Bible?

What do you wish somebody had told you about the Bible before you read it?

As part of our Bible Gateway 20th anniversary interview series, We asked Jefferson Bethke (the mastermind behind Why I Hate Religion) what he wishes more people knew about the Bible. Here’s what he had to say:

It’s a much-discussed fact that many people, even Christians, don’t read the Bible as much as they want to (or at all). Why is that? While the reasons will differ from person to person, it’s not too hard to identify a few common misconceptions about Scripture that prevent people from spending more time with it.

For Bethke, the idea that the Bible is just a list of moral rules is a misconception he wants to clear up. What about you—how would you answer this question?

If you’ve come to a point of regular Bible reading after avoiding it for years, what do you wish somebody had told you about the Bible? What misconceptions did you hold about Scripture that made it easy to put off reading it? Think about friends or family members, Christian or otherwise, who don’t read the Bible—what do you wish they understood about God’s Word?

Andy Rau
October 10, 2013

What Makes Up the Bible Canon? A Comparison of Old Testaments

I’ve been reading up on my Bible translation history this week. Nearly 500 years ago this week, the famous and influential Bible translator William Tyndale was executed for heresy, but not before translating the Bible into English—an act that’s had a lasting effect on not just Bible translation history, but on the English langauge itself.

In reading about the history of Bible translation, I’ve come across many references to the history of the Bible canon—that is, the process by which the Christian church has identified which ancient texts belong in the Bible. If you’ve ever opened up an unfamiliar Bible and been startled to find “extra” Bible books listed in the table of contents, you know that different branches of Christian tradition have come to slightly different conclusions about which books make up the Bible canon. (The Biblica website has some nice overviews of the selection of the Bible canon and the apocryphal books found in certain Bibles.)

So what are the different Bible canons, and how do they differ? I dug up this chart, put together by a coworker a few years ago, that compares the Old Testament as it’s understood by three major branches of Judeo-Christian tradition (click to enlarge the image):

Most of the Bibles on Bible Gateway adhere to the Protestant canon, but several include the apocryphal books as well. Here’s how to turn on (or off) the display of apocryphal books for those Bibles that include them.

Andy Rau
October 2, 2013

Janelle Hail: Your Journey Through the Bible Reveals Your Destiny

janellehailJanelle Hail knows firsthand what it means to struggle with fear, doubt, and spiritual uncertainty: diagnosed with breast cancer at age 34, she came face to face with her own mortality. But in turning to the Bible and her faith in Jesus Christ, she found the strength to press on—and she’s gone on to encourage thousands of others facing cancer through the National Breast Cancer Foundation, which she founded.

One of our driving goals at Bible Gateway is to help people see the value and importance of bringing God’s Word into their everyday lives. We asked Janelle to talk about her relationship with the Bible as she faced challenge after challenge. Here is her story, along with the specific Bible passages that she relied upon.

Your Journey Through the Bible Reveals Your Destiny

A guest post by Janelle Hail

Under the semi-smooth layer of her hair was a bleached-blond tangled web trying to support her poufy hairstyle of the 60’s. At a time in fashion when school girls had to dress alike and look alike, there was little left to individuality.

Sarah and I were in several classes together in junior high school. As much as she tried to be identical to the other girls, she seemed to meander away from fashion. The snobbish girls in school made fun of her hair because she could never get the messy mass covered by the straight layer of perfection that the other girls achieved.

When others talked about her behind her back, I struggled to find something positive about her, but always came up with some insignificant comment. It never seemed right to me to gang up on her behind her back because she was different.

On rare occasions I sat at lunch with Sarah to make her feel good about herself. She tried to be acceptable to the others, but her philosophy of life was more tangled than her hair. From the time she was a small child, her parents gave her no training on the values of life. Whatever religious ideas she came up with were fine with her parents. Each to their own was their family motto.

Sarah and I had long conversations, but there were so many roadblocks that held her back from understanding the importance of studying the Bible. My background was engrained with teachings from the Bible, led by my mother, who fought her way through a fractured marriage to train her children in the ways of the Lord. She gave my brother and me understanding of God’s great love by making sure we knew His life-saving truths. “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:26).

As I grew into a young woman, my greatest desire was to please the Lord and follow after Him. After years of marriage and children, I faced the life-threatening disease of breast cancer. At the crossroad of decision of how I would deal with the rest of my life after breast cancer, I leaned heavily on things I had grown to love about the Bible’s teachings. “Shout for joy, you heavens; rejoice, you earth; burst into song, you mountains! For the LORD comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones” (Isaiah 49:13).

A deep yearning of my heart to help those who were needy and cast aside by breast cancer led me to found the National Breast Cancer Foundation in 1991. Today we serve millions of women and families ravaged by breast cancer and provide free mammograms across the nation to those who cannot afford help, as well as educational resources for early detection. “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3).

I am a thirty-three year breast cancer survivor, living a happy and fulfilled life. One of the greatest honors of my life has been to write the foreward for the new NIV Pink Bible, to tell others of God’s love and hope that they can have a life filled with happiness in serving the Lord. “The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped” (Psalm 28:7).

—Janelle Hail

NIVpinkbibleYour story is undoubtedly different than Janelle’s—you’ve faced, and are facing, your own challenges. Is God’s Word a constant companion to you as you make your way through life’s ups and downs? Are there Bible verses that have acquired a special meaning for you when you were struggling? If not, why not consider inviting God’s Word into your daily routine?

Janelle Hail is the Founder & CEO of the National Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc. (NBCF), one of the most highly recognized and respected breast cancer charities in the world. You can hear more about her powerful testimony at the I Am Second project. The NIV Pink Bible—which she mentioned above, and to which she contributed the foreward—is available.

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