Good Bible Software - For Free

Please share links friends to what you think is the best free Bible study software. I find that using the online study tools is often limiting (namely to wi-fi hot spots.) I have been using 'the Word,' lately. It is limited though to KJV and ASV. Would love one in RSV or ESV.

Biblical Interpretation

Reposted from my submission to Episcopal Cafe, which ran yesterday and today:

Episcopalians share a common "book" of prayer, worship and wisdom with Christians of every age and place. This common book is not the Prayer book. It's not the English language. It's not even the Western literary canon. No, of course it's the Bible - which forms the common sacred library of all who follow Christ. But, in a Christianity so global and diverse, we Episcopalians need to be able to understand for ourselves, and explain to others who inquire, "What do we think the Bible is, and how do we engage it?"

I believe that most Episcopalians would agree with the notion that just as God has called forth the Church to exist as the Body of Christ, inextricably bound with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the Scriptures are likewise inextricably bound to the Church. We do not understand what the Bible is apart from its being woven up from and into the fabric of the Church, nor can we interpret it apart from a location within the life and activity of the Church. That being said, what guidelines can be found to clarify things a bit? Well, I think the Diocese of New York teaching document Let the Reader Understand is excellent, and from it, I think the following seven points should be taught across the whole Episcopal Church.

7 Principles of Biblical Interpretation

1. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are "the Word of God" and "contain all things necessary to salvation." They are called the Word of God by the household of faith, not because God dictated the biblical text, but because the Church believes that God inspired its human authors through the Holy Spirit and because by means of the inspired text, read within the sacramental communion of the Church, the Spirit of God continues the timely enlightenment and instruction of the faithful.

2. The Holy Scriptures are the primary constitutional text of the Church. They provide the basis and guiding principles for our common life with God, and they do so through narrative, law, prophecy, poetry, and other forms of expression. Indeed, the Scriptures are themselves an instrument of the Church's shared communion with Jesus Christ, the living Word of God, who uses them to constitute the Church as a Body of many diverse members, participating together in his own word, wisdom, and life.

3. The Scriptures, as "God's Word Written," bear witness to, and their proper interpretation depends upon, the paschal mystery of God's Word incarnate, crucified and risen. Although the Scriptures are a manifestly diverse collection of documents representing a variety of authors, times, aims, and forms, the Church received and collected them, and from the beginning has interpreted them for their witness to an underlying and unifying theme: the unfolding economy of salvation, as brought to fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

4. The Scriptures both document and narrate not only God's saving acts but also the manifold human responses to them, revealing that God's unchanging purpose to redeem is fulfilled, not by means of a coercive, deterministic system, but through a divine plan compassionately respectful of human freedom, adapted to changing historical circumstances, cultural situations, and individual experience and need. In reading the diverse texts of Holy Scripture, the Church seeks an ever-growing comprehension of this plan and of the precepts and practices whereby believers may respond more faithfully to it, walking in the way of Christ.

5. The New Testament itself interprets and applies the texts of the Old Testament as pointing to and revealing the Christ. Thus, the revelation of God in Christ is the key to the Church's understanding of the Scriptures as a whole.

6. Individual texts must not, therefore, be isolated and made to mean something at odds with the tenor or trajectory of the divine plan underlying the whole of Scripture.

7. Faithful interpretation requires the Church to use the gifts of "memory, reason, and skill" to find the sense of the scriptural text and to locate it in its time and place. The Church must then seek the text's present significance in light of the whole economy of salvation. Chief among the guiding principles by which the Church interprets the sacred texts is the congruence of its interpretation with Christ's Summary of the Law and the New Commandment, and the creeds.

Interesting from Executive Council

From Mark Harris:

At Executive Council, meeting this last week in Helena, Montana, a resolution was passed concerning possible work on reconciliation with people and organizations in the Common Cause Partnership. The resolution reads as follows:

"Resolved, the Executive Council, on behalf of The Episcopal Church, expresses the heartfelt desire to seek the reconciliation we are promised in Christ our Savior, and the unity of disciples for which he prayed, through conversation with the members of the Common Cause Partnership either individually or collectively and without precondition on our part; and

Resolved, the Presiding Officers are requested to appoint a Task Force on Reconciliation for this purpose; and

Resolved, the Task Force on Reconciliation is encouraged to seek a person acceptable to all parties to facilitate such conversations in consultation with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council."

Episcopal News Service and The Living Church have commented on this resolution as have bloggers. Many of the bloggers wonder if this is all just show. Some wonder if such talks will lead to a diminution of commitment to the full participation of gay and lesbian members in the Church. Well, if it really is about reconciliation we ought none of us have any fear. If it is not, it will become dust.

Reconciliation is always possible, and in the very very long run the surety that gives us hope. Anglicans live always in such hope: The stones shout out for it, even those we sit on; the compass is always set on a path towards the vision of it; the memories of our failings fade in its light. Reconciliation stands at the far side of repentance and just actions both. In the end we are reconciled by the blood of the Lamb. Finding reconciliation is a little like seeking the Holy Grail - perhaps only a legend, but perhaps a seeking for the healing of the nations as well.

The Bible

A nice piece found on Episcopal Cafe:

The word healing comes from a word meaning “entire” or “complete,” and signifies a restoration to wholeness. For that reason it is a more “holistic” word than therapy. While many people are helped by psychotherapy, I suspect that there are also many like me who have benefited from occasional counseling but have received more help from spiritual practices such as prayer and lectio divina, or holy reading. Perhaps the most radical aspect of the psychology of the desert monastics is the extent to which they believed that Scripture itself had the power to heal. In The Word in the Desert, his study of how thoroughly the early monks integrated Scripture into their lives, Douglas Burton-Christie notes that they regarded these “sacred texts [as] inherently powerful, a source of holiness, with a capacity to transform their lives.”

Appreciating this monastic perspective on the Bible means abandoning the modern tendency to regard it as primarily an object of intellectual study, or as a handy adjunct to our ideology, be it conservative or liberal. The desert father who expounds on the inherent value of meditating on Scripture by observing, “Even if we do not understand the meaning of the words we are saying, when the demons hear them, they take fright and go away,” insults our intelligence. What is left to us, if we relinquish our intellectual comprehension? Isn’t it necessary to retain more control than that? Maybe not, if we want to experience the Word of God as these monks did, as “a living force within them.”

From Acedia & me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life by Kathleen Norris (Riverhead Books, 2008).

A Bit of Satire at the Expense of Stand Firm, et. al.

My friend Doug Le Blanc has posted this wicked bit of satire on Covenant. He is mocking the self-awareness (i.e. pride) of the Stand Fermented ones.

Doug writes:

I am just back from a run with my dog, Brewster, who is 63 pounds of raw animal power. As we ran these five miles, dew glinted on the grass. We heard the occasional bullfrog croak. We ran past a large steer and bade him top of the morning. Well, Brewster barked in his friendliest possible tone.

Then, naturally, my mind turned to the ideological, spiritual, theological, and sexual revolution rolling through the Episcopal Church.

At our humble blog we stand athwart this multifaceted revolution, yelling, “Stop!” For this selfless service to the Lord we are rewarded with regular mockery by other blogs, catty remarks from the apparatchiks at 815, and treacherous betrayals by those who call themselves conservatives but who are, on their best days, more like the sweaty, shifty-eyed collaborationists of Vichy France.

And no, thank you for asking, none of my fellow contributors to this blog consider this language over the top. We’ve talked this over and all four of us agree that, Godwin’s law notwithstanding, allusions to the Third Reich are entirely within the spirit of Christ and his clarity. Did our Lord not call the Pharisees whitewashed sepulchers?

My fellow bloggers and I have reached some basic conclusions — about ourselves and about the work we do as unto the Lord.

We matter immensely. We realize that thousands of you await our daily reports of the latest outrages by the church we all love so very much. We work hard to provide those reports, even when the outrages are the standard fare of life in any mainline Protestant denomination, or have no clear relation to Anglicanism. We know that outrage prompts action — action that untold previous generations of Episcopalians lacked the backbone to take.

We are the new media. We do not report so much as loudly type near-transcripts during press conferences and upload PDFs of documents leaked by courageous bishops. We also offer our brilliantly snarky commentary whenever church leaders gather to make decisions. Our crucial importance as the new media is reaffirmed every time a bishop all but threatens disciplinary action against anyone who dares to read our blog.

We are courageous. While other self-styled conservatives think only of ways to preserve their positions of comfort, we show the fortitude to speak the truth in love. If we think you’re a heretic, we will not mince words. We are in your face, and the Lord Jesus would have it no other way.

We make people mad. This is one way we know we’re serving God faithfully. Our harsh critics may protest that we lack Christian charity, or that we presume too much about what motivates other people, but we know that’s because they lack adequate experience with hearing the truth spoken in love.

We love The Lord of the Rings, in case you hadn’t noticed, because it helps us make sense of our valorous resistance to the Episcopal Church and the Archbishop of Canterbury. We think that if J.R.R. Tolkien were aware of how much his work inspires us, he would take the longest drag off his pipe, smile like a contented hobbit, and then nod sagely and create interlocking smoke rings.

We remain Episcopalians, for the most part, but we consider it a scandal that other people will not discuss the moral imperative of leaving the Episcopal Church. They may call it ecclesiology, but we call it wimpishness. We know how very much has been accomplished over so many decades by people threatening to leave.

We see things more clearly than most other Episcopalians. We have, after all, been in this conflict for five long years. With such concentrated perseverance comes a wisdom that sees past the timid misgivings of those who have worked for Episcopal renewal for decades...

Deirdre Good on Bill Maher's 'Religulous' Movie

Dr. Good was my New Testament professor, and contributed the afterword to my book Beyond Da Vinci (Seabury 2004). While she has contributed significantly to new and even challenging interpretations of the traditional Christian faith, she also has a strong sense of 'what is fact' and 'what is fancy.'

She writes:

I went to see Bill Maher's "Religulous" with friends last night. It was a strange experience. I've seen and enjoyed Bill Maher as a stand-up comic and as a TV host on his HBO talk show interviewing guests and commenting on politics. But what is "Religulous"? Neither stand-up comedy nor talk show. True, the film has elements of comedy in the way that it caricatures religious practitioners for what they say and how they look. We don't just meet ordinary Christians; we meet Christians like the Jesus actor in the Jesus world theme park in Orlando, Florida and a minister José Luis de Jesús Miranda who thinks he is a biological descendant of Jesus, actually Jesus incarnate. We don't meet ordinary Jews; we meet Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, an anti-Zionist Jew who shook the hand of Iranian President Ahmadinejad. And while Bill Maher provides humorous commentary on the interviews he conducts with religious people around the world, he can leave an interviewee, in this case, Rabbi Weiss in mid-sentence. So he doesn't come across as someone who actually wants to hear what religious people say.

"Religulous" isn't a documentary film either. A documentary film is a movie that documents reality by describing it through interviews and commentary. Michael Moore's films would be examples of documentaries shown in movie theaters. Several have proven to be very popular. But a documentary tells a story by starting out with a description of the topic and ending with a new understanding as a result of the investigation. More often than not, things seen and heard along the way have informed the one doing the documentation. This isn't true of "Religulous." Maher starts at Megiddo where he says many people who read Revelations (sic) think the world will end and he ends in the same spot at Megiddo by saying that religious people may well blow up the world. In 90 minutes we haven't actually gone anywhere. Along the way, religion is reduced to the point of distortion and caricature. Eastern religions are never considered. Religious people are shown in interviews and film clips only as gullible and fanatic, as fraudulent and nutty. There's one exception that proves the rule, a Catholic astronomer priest who shows that a scientific worldview can only be post-enlightenment and that therefore the biblical view of creation cannot be seen as scientific. Alas, he gets two minutes.

It would have been more intriguing if Maher had included conversations with theologians who after all have been part of most religious traditions and who have rather interesting takes on reading the creation accounts of the Bible or on miracles. Now and again interviewees say things along these lines but Maher quickly dismisses such observations as quirky or dishonest without following them up. It would be even more interesting to find out why Maher is obsessed with religion. In a charming interview with his sister and his mother before she died this summer, he notes that never once when he was growing up did he question why his (Jewish) mother didn't go to Catholic Church with them each Sunday. Maher professes to be agnostic about religious certainties and critical of those in public office who want to pray to God (an "imaginary friend," Maher says) when confronted with crises. But he falls too easily into caricature rather than the challenge of uncertainty. By the end of the movie we've only gone in a circle and I don't mean a hermeneutical one.

Dr. Deirdre Good is professor of New Testament at The General Theological Seminary, specializing in the Synoptic Gospels, Christian Origins, Noncanonical writings and biblical languages. Her blog is called On Not Being a Sausage.

I Want to Know Christ and the Power of His Resurrection

Amen, amen. This sermon was preached last Sunday by the Rev. Dr. Bruce Robison, Rector of St. Andrew's in the Highland Park neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Father Robison did not elect to leave the Episcopal Church, and his parish is among the 19 holding fast. I am struck by the faithfulness and true diversity of these parishes - ranging from intentionally 'progressive' theologically to staunchly traditionalist. My prayers continue with them.

Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Bruce Robison, St. Andrew's, Pittsburgh
Friends, Grace to you, and Peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. This first Sunday of October and the 21st Sunday in this season of Ordinary Time after Pentecost most years might seem pretty much just in the midst of things in the pages of our calendar and the rhythms of life, but as we gather this morning I think we would all be aware that at least in the life of our wider church, the times are anything but “ordinary,” and the customary rhythms of the fall season have an aspect of unpredictability and turbulence to them as well.

Just read the morning paper. Our mothers might have said that good Episcopalians would expect to find their names in the newspaper in birth announcements and on the weddings page, perhaps occasionally on a published guest list for a charitable fundraiser, and then finally with the obituaries. But clearly we haven’t been paying attention to our mothers for a while--and in the context of our diocesan convention yesterday and news stories and of course much continuing controversy all around, perhaps we come to church this morning with a sense of instability, even anxiety, and certainly uncertainty about the future. Which is natural, given what has gone on—but which at the same time we need to find a way to understand and then offer up in the spiritual offering that we bring as we lift up our hearts and come to the Lord’s Table this morning.

A friend of mine once said, “nobody wants to go to a church in trouble.” And certainly I don’t know too many folks who wake up on Sunday mornings and say, “You know, my life is so calm, so serene, that I think what I need now is a good dose of conflict, stress, and disorder.” Most of us get enough of that the other six days of the week, thank you very much. And so, this morning, not “Welcome to Stress Central,” but: Grace to you, and Peace. The good message we have for the world: Grace and Peace. The good and generous gift of our Lord’s presence this morning, and it is all good, all the time. That’s where we need to be, first in our lives and at the center of our lives.

The Old Testament and Gospel lessons read this morning are rich in many ways--and especially as we have been walking with Moses and the Israelites across the Sinai and come now to this critical moment of covenant at the Holy Mountain. But as this past week I and so many of us have been in prayer over the events of the wider church, it is the reading from St. Paul that has called to me and fed me, and that I would highlight today, as we might ask what word there is for us, to guide us and keep us and sustain us as we now move into what I guess will be a new chapter of the story of our life in the church. And most of all, just this one phrase, which I have come to again and again, the very first part of the 10th verse of the 3rd chapter of Philippians: “I want to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection.”

In this I think most tender and beautiful of Paul’s letters, as he writes from prison as friend and pastor to this most beloved of his congregations, near the end of his life, but in the midst of theirs, and at the very beginning of the life and mission of the church, pouring out his heart in a testimony of personal faith, this phrase then as a kind of mission statement, which is for them as well to adopt and incorporate into their lives. Just to let those words surround us, enter into our thoughts, our hearts. “I want to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection.”

So yesterday our diocesan family fractured. News all over the media. Good and faithful people, on all sides, broken people, on all sides, struggling in an ocean of differences and disagreements, conflicting loyalties and misunderstandings, pushing apart. Tragically. Those for whom Christ died, on all sides. With lots of complications to come, perhaps like the untangling of a messy divorce, with many layers of expectation and woundedness and perception and misperception. Someone said, “at last, it’s over.” But that of course is not the case, by a long shot.

Both groups now needing to find a way to move forward, but still profoundly enmeshed, emotionally, spiritually, and with all kinds of continuing entangled relationship—healthful and destructive. Reminding us of the famous line from William Faulkner. “The past isn’t dead and buried. It isn’t even past.” Our past is also our present, and it will be our future as well, and it seems to me a dangerous thing to pretend otherwise. It is a mess, it has been a mess, and it’s going to be a mess for a good long while. But this again, to say this first--Philippians 3:10: “I want to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection.”

A lot of people have asked me about our future, here in the parish, in our diocesan life, in the wider church—and frankly up to this point I don’t think I’ve done all that well in the crystal ball department, so I’m not going to get into much of it now. I do know with the commitment of our Vestry, which I share, and which we understand to be the general desire of our wider parish, that we will continue in our life and ministry in this parish as a part of the family of the Episcopal Church-- and I know that I and many of us will have roles to play as we now begin the long process of rebuilding a common diocesan life.

Somebody said the other day, “it’s like trying to rebuild the engine on a 737—at 30,000 feet!” But a process that good people are working on, and that I know over time will work itself out in good ways. There is already an outline of the diocesan process, and there are copies on the Welcome Table and lots more information on what is now the new diocesan website, which is also referenced on those copies.

In any case, what we might have reason to restate this morning as our first point of focus, our over-riding goal now, for sure: that St. Andrew’s will continue to be St. Andrew’s. A place of where we dedicate ourselves to knowing Christ, and to serving in his name. Here today, receiving gifts and contributions for the United Thank Offering, which has for generations now been one of the mission and ministry highlights of the Episcopal Church, sponsored by the Episcopal Church Women. And here today as well, as over in Brooks Hall Wes Rohrer of our Outreach Committee and our Youth Group seek our support as they will walk next week in the annual CROP Walk, to address concerns of hunger both locally and around the world. Honoring the God who let manna fall like rain in the desert, honoring the One who fed the multitudes with five loaves and two fish at the Sea of Galilee.

St. Andrew’s: people growing in him, growing in hospitality and grace and generosity, thoughtfulness, creativity, and care, meaningful and heartfelt worship, as in this service this morning—and with this gift of the Mass setting being sung by our Choir today. Wow—just so very beautiful. Here we are: an extended Christian family, with all kinds of differences and eccentricities, of course, and sometimes conflicting concerns, but also with a sense of deeper affection, good humor, and friendship.

There is a lot of strange language being used about the Episcopal Church these days, and what our decision to continue in that church might actually mean. Following the media and listening to the comments that have been in the air could be confusing. Drives me crazy, actually. But for a certain simple clarity I would quote from the letter my colleague and friend Jim Simons, the Rector of St. Michael’s in Ligonier and one of our key figures now in our reorganizing diocese, wrote to the Post Gazette the other day, as some of you may have seen this already, in response to a previous article making a number of claims, some true and some not true, about the Episcopal Church. Jim wrote, “We proclaim Jesus as Lord and we recite the creeds, without reservation, and with full knowledge and acceptance of what they mean. Our Book of Common Prayer reflects these beliefs. We believe the Episcopal Church continues to minister to the poor and needy, worship in spirit and truth and proclaim the saving power of Jesus Christ. We wish to stay and be a part of that faithful witness.”

We would be clear about that, even as we would honor the integrity and good and faithful intentions of those, some dear friends, who have chosen a different way forward at this time. My prayer is that they also will find that way to be one that will “proclaim the saving power of Jesus Christ,” not just in words, but in the fullness of their lives.

“I want to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection.” Know him not only as an affirmation of doctrine, or as a symbol of generic spirituality, but as a living and personal presence in my life and our lives. Know him, as his death on the Cross accomplishes in us so deeply a renewal of life, with forgiveness, the healing of our brokenness. The Medicine of the World.

Know him, as from his Empty Tomb he is raised above all to accomplish the reconciliation and restoration of all God’s creation. Know him, as he works through us day by day, in the experience of prayer, in gifts of charity and compassion and in a deeper sense of his loving heart, and as by the gifts of the Holy Spirit we become his Body, his hands and his heart in the places of our lives.

“I want to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection.” An old saying I think from the 12-Step movement: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” Not to lose sight of it, not to lose sight of him, which might be easy to do in the confluence of institutional and political excitement. Instead: a daily process of growth. To learn, and to learn again.

What does it mean to be a member here, to be living in this corner of his church? To be fed on the Word, as the grace of that Word governs and shapes and blesses us. To be fed by the broken Bread and in the Cup with his Body, and so to become his Body. A daily process, and a great mystery: lifting up the offering of our hearts as we approach him again this morning. With so much broken, so much misdirected, to have this hunger and this yearning in our hearts. “I want to know Christ,” again today, more, and more, and more. Keeping the main thing the main thing: “I want to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection.”

Bruce Robison