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Mel Lawrenz
August 28, 2019

How to Live the Bible — The Best Community

howtostudythebible

This is the seventieth lesson in author and pastor Mel Lawrenz’ How to Live the Bible series. If you know someone or a group who would like to follow along on this journey through Scripture, they can get more info and sign up to receive these essays via email here.

See Mel Lawrenz’s book, How to Study the Bible: A Practical Guide.

“I will put my law in their minds.” Jeremiah 31:33

The idea of a perfect society is called utopia, a term coined by Sir Thomas More in his fictional book Utopia (1516), which described an island where a community lived with perfect law, justice, and politics. In the late 1700s, a religious group known as the Shakers attempted to form a utopia. They held to common ownership of all property, pacifism, celibacy, and confession of sins. Communism aimed for a utopia. North Korea claims to be a utopia—though living there is more like living in hell.

Confused man illustrating doubt

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Jonathan Petersen
August 27, 2019

Mark Your Calendar for This Friday!

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This Friday, Bible Gateway will begin the 3-part video series Bible Word Study Made Easy with biblical Greek scholar (and all-around nice guy) Dr. Bill Mounce (@billmounce). Join us—and invite your family, friends, and followers—right here on the Bible Gateway Blog (BibleGateway.com/blog) to learn how to study the Bible in a new way while enjoying our brief conversations with Bill Friday 8/30, Wednesday 9/4, and Monday 9/9.

In the meantime, here’s a 40-second video of Bill telling of the importance of Bible translations:

[Read the Mounce Reverse-Interlinear New Testament on Bible Gateway]

Buy your copy of Greek for the Rest of Us: The Essentials of Biblical Greek in the Bible Gateway Store where you'll enjoy low prices every day                    Buy your copy of Interlinear for the Rest of Us: The Reverse Interlinear for New Testament Word Studies in the Bible Gateway Store where you'll enjoy low prices every day

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Jonathan Petersen
August 27, 2019

Devotional Insights from Little House on the Prairie: An Interview with Wendi Lou Lee

Wendi Lou LeeWhat are the devotional lessons about loyalty, hard work, faith, family, and love of God, neighbor, and country that can be drawn from the popular TV series Little House on the Prairie?

Bible Gateway interviewed Wendi Lou Lee (@wendiloulee), the child actor who played Baby Grace on Little House on the Prairie, about her book, A Prairie Devotional: Inspired by the Beloved TV Series (Thomas Nelson, 2019).

Wendi Lou Lee as Baby Grace

For those who aren’t aware, please describe the popularity of Little House on the Prairie, both the book and TV program. Why do you think it has such a broad following?

Wendi Lou Lee: The nine-book series written by Laura Ingalls Wilder has been in print since 1935, selling more than 60 million copies in more than 100 countries. The television show, based loosely on the fourth book, On The Banks of Plum Creek, first captivated the nation in the early 1970s and continues to this day—45 years later. I believe the popularity of Little House on the Prairie expresses people’s desire for stories that reflect faith in God and the importance of family.

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Jonathan Petersen
August 26, 2019

NIV Quest Study Bible: How Do We Know the Bible Is True?

Buy your copy of the NIV Quest Study Bible in the Bible Gateway Store where you'll enjoy low prices every day

This is the first post in the NIV Quest Study Bible (Zondervan, 2019) series in which a popular question about the Bible is asked and answered.

[Get immediate access to the insightful NIV Quest Study Bible and more than 40 other valuable Bible study resources when you become a member of Bible Gateway Plus. Try it right now!]

The NIV Quest Study Bible (website) is the result of two publishing companies, Zondervan and Christianity Today International, working together to enhance the Bible text with answers to challenging questions people have as they read Scripture.

[Sign up to receive the 2-week free email devotional Biblical Answers to Tough Questions, based on the NIV Quest Study Bible]

More than 1,000 average Bible readers helped determine questions the notes explain, creating a resource featuring more than 7,000 notes written in question-and-answer format that provide insight into the common, uncommon, and sometimes perplexing passages from the Bible, such as “What prevents God from hearing our prayers?” and “Why does God test us?”

Question One: How do we know the Bible is true? (Hebrews 4:12)

According to the Bible, all Scripture is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16). Peter confirmed this when he said that those who wrote the Bible were not speaking on their own but spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). Many parts of Scripture are directly attributed to God through use of phrases like This is what the Lord says (e.g., Exodus 4:22). Finally, Jesus often quoted from the Old Testament and affirmed it as being God’s Word.

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Jonathan Petersen
August 25, 2019

Bible News Roundup – Week of August 25, 2019

Read this week’s Bible Gateway Weekly Brief newsletter
⇨ Bible Gateway Weekly Brief
⇨ Newsletter signupSee the Bible News Roundup archive on Bible Gateway
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Support Bible Gateway—Browse the Bible Gateway Store
⇨ BibleGatewayStore.com
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Realtor Sues Real Estate Board Over Investigation Into Bible Verses on Webpage
⇨ The Christian Post
▼

Department of Veterans Affairs Lifts Ban on Bibles in Move to Support Religious Freedom
⇨ The Daily Signal
▼

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Guest Post
August 20, 2019

What’s in a Name?

Bianca OlthoffBy Bianca Juarez Olthoff

Unless you’ve legally changed your name, you’ve probably had no choice in the name people call you. I always think it’s fun to sit with a pregnant woman and discuss possible names for her baby. Whether the names are inspired by a story or a family member, we intuitively know there is power in declaring and speaking destiny through the naming of a person.

I love discovering the meaning of my friends’ names, but sometimes I’m stuck when I discover a friend’s name is poorly chosen, sad, or, in some cases, downright offensive. Imagine my shock when I discovered my friend Kennedy’s name means “deformed head,” and Cameron’s name means “crooked nose.” My favorite character from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice was named Portia, and I loved it until I discovered it means “pig.”

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Guest Post
August 19, 2019

Trusting the Vinegrower

Tom LinBy Tom Lin, president, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship

While my wife Nancy and I had a wonderful ministry and community in Boston when we got married, we sensed that for our own spiritual growth and for our own long-term fruitfulness as a couple, we should uproot ourselves. The morning after our wedding, we packed up our Honda Civic with everything we owned and moved to California.

[Read the Bible Gateway Blog post, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship: An Interview with Tom Lin]

In those first few months of adjusting to marriage, we also adjusted to a new job, new boss and work teams, new church, new weather, and new ways of doing things. We had no friends, no community, no familiar church worship, and no weekly small group fellowship.

It was painful and exhausting. But we dug in, trusting that God had brought us these changes for our growth, and recognizing that to grow, new roots were needed.

In John 15, we see a similar vision for long-term fruitfulness. Jesus was preparing the disciples for a major transition. He had just washed their feet, led them through the Last Supper, and now was walking with them to the Garden of Gethsemane. Perhaps they were walking past a Jerusalem vineyard. Jesus said to them:

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Jonathan Petersen
August 18, 2019

Bible News Roundup – Week of August 18, 2019

Read this week’s Bible Gateway Weekly Brief newsletter
⇨ Bible Gateway Weekly Brief
⇨ Newsletter signupSee the Bible News Roundup archive on Bible Gateway
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Support Bible Gateway—Browse the Bible Gateway Store
⇨ BibleGatewayStore.com
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Most Churchgoers Say They Spend Their Day Seeking God
⇨ LifeWay Research
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⇨ See other Bible News Roundup weekly posts

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Guest Post
August 15, 2019

Devotional Insights on Risk by Bear Grylls

Bear Grylls

By Bear Grylls

Life is so inherently full of risk that if we never train to deal with it we become woefully ill-prepared to deal with life. There is risk in relationships, business, hobbies, and in all our aspirations and hopes. There is risk in living a life of faith. We might face ridicule, persecution, and worse. But risk always has a converse positive side: it is called reward. And the game of life is to balance the two and seek the rewards.

But first will always come the risk.

Risk is like a muscle. The more we use it, the stronger our ability becomes to deal with the fear, judge the dangers, and trust our instinct. The more risks we take, the bigger risks we can manage. We know what we can and can’t do.

If we never want to have an impact on anything or anyone, then we should stay at home, be “safe,” and accept the fact that there will be no ripples emanating from our lives. But if we want to live the fullest version of life possible, we need to become a ninja at dealing with risk.

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Drew Reichard
August 15, 2019

A Recent Bible Gateway Plus Update Makes This Bible Dictionary a Joy To Use

Can’t read ancient Greek? 

Neither can I.

Which is why we made a recent update to one of the most detailed dictionaries on Bible Gateway Plus.

We wanted the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology to be far more accessible for those who don’t have biblical Greek language training. Or even for those who do!

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    The Bible Gateway Blog features the latest news, announcements, and reflections from Bible Gateway. We hope what you find here will add to your understanding of and appreciation for the Bible.