It's Late, Or Early So I Probably Shouldn't Write This

But just for the record...

I don't really want to find 10,000,000 Christians on Facebook.

/rant off

Hulk Mad!

I received an email tonight.

This email though, was a forward that the sender thought might be helpful to local pastors. The email proceeded to list several artists, musicians, and personalities that had "died before their time" and link their deaths with the "wrath of God." It used texts from all over the Scriptures to point to the tragic deaths of these people created in God's image and basically revel in what the writer saw as the certainty that they now burn in the unquenchable fires of hell.

I just don't get it.

No, I guess I do, and it makes me mad, because that's not the way Jesus would have reflected on the lives and deaths of these people or any other person who died outside the Kingdom of God. Jesus was headed to His death at the hands of sinful people, but as he looked over the city, He said this:

34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killer of prophets,
abuser of the messengers of God!
How often I've longed to gather your children,
gather your children like a hen,
Her brood safe under her wings—
but you refused and turned away!

Luke 13:34 (MSG)

Why would Jesus long to gather killers and abusers?

16 "This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. 17 God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.
John 3:16-17 (MSG)

He loves them.

I can remember reading once about D.L. Moody's conversation with a person who was thrilled to preach on hell and excited to see the wicked get their just reward. Moody looked at the man and said, "Never ever preach about hell, unless your eyes are filled with tears over those who willfully go there."

Why rejoice? Why boast? If we got what we deserve, we'd split hell wide open.

Such emails and the motives behind them are far, far from God's grace. And the person far from God reads them and sees what are supposed to be people of grace rejoicing over their fall. No wonder people turn away.

/rant off

tears...

How Far Is Too Far?

We're participating with a group (Faith Comes By Hearing)that's trying to get the Bible into places where even written languages haven't come yet. They use technology to take the spoken word to people groups that haven't yet been reached by the worthwhile efforts of Wycliffe or SIL translators.

Their September 12th press release said that:

Faith Comes By Hearing is releasing Audio Bibles in seven additional languages, bringing the total number of languages with Bible recordings to 260. Faith Comes By Hearing and its partners are working to offer Audio New Testaments in 2,000 of the world’s 6,809 languages by the year 2016.

I'm convinced those folks are like the offensive linemen of evangelism, getting the Bile into the "heart language" of people so they can hear of God's love for them. It costs $948 to translate one book of the Bible and get it into MP3.

This morning, I get an email from Thomas Nelson publishers touting their newest offering...... drum roll please!

The Nelson Designer Series Giant Print Bible

Now there is a Giant Print Bible that is a perfect gift for the women in your life. This Designer Series New King James Bible has center-column references, self-pronouncing text, topical running heads, messianic prophecies with stars, 8 pages of maps, and a concordance.

And it's only $39.95 in the Thomas Nelson exclusive New King James Version.

While I have nothing against Thomas Nelson, the NKJV, or even "women's versions", at what point will we realize that getting the Bible to people who don't have it is far more important than another design on the cover?

The marketing of Bibles in this way is approaching the gagging point.