Blue Letter Bible

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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Welcome to The Wrap Report with Andrew Rapoport, where we provide Biblical interpretations and applications.

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This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity. For more content, or to request a speaker or seminar for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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All right, well, welcome to The Wrap Report, and today we're recording, well, we're out here in California, and I am in the headquarters, actually, specifically in the library of Blue Letter Bible, which means, from the looks of around here,

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I may not be leaving any time soon because there's a lot of cool old books here.

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But I'm joined, and I'm going to have to let you pronounce your last name, but I'm joined with someone who has an absolutely great first name, and from the looks of him, he lives up to it.

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If you know what the Greek word, Andrew, means, it means manly, but Andy, if you want to introduce yourself.

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Sure, sure. My name is Andy Guastafaro, good Italian last name, and my middle name is

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Joseph, which is man of God, so I am a manly man of God. Couldn't be much better than that, huh?

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That's great. So he knows the meaning of his first and middle name, that's great. What's the last name mean?

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Do you know? It's something to do with iron scraps of some sort, like Pharaoh or something.

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For folks here, let's first start off with, now Blue Letter Bible, son, I recommend when we do our,

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I have a seminar I do in churches, I come into churches and do our Bible Interpretation Made Easy seminar, where we go through the different tools people can use to help in interpreting scriptures.

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Blue Letter Bible is one that I've always recommended to folks for a lot of reasons, and I think hopefully by the end of this podcast, everyone's going to understand those reasons.

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One being Jewish. It's mostly free. You know, I get to use it and not pay for it, and my

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Jewish blood just loves that. You know, if it's free, it's for me. But go over, explain to folks what

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Blue Letter Bible is specifically, and then we'll talk about what your role is. Sure. Blue Letter Bible is a not -for -profit, we are a ministry, and we're driven by the mission to deliver

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God's Word and an in -depth study of God's Word to the world. And simply put, that's what we do.

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We deliver the Word of God and these study tools primarily through our website, and I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about what those tools are.

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We also have free apps for Android and for Apple users as well.

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We have an institute called Blue Letter Bible Institute that we've developed over the years with,

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I think we're at 13 courses for free to the users, and we have a huge partnership coming up and a number of more courses being added to that.

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And we just came out with a new study tool called Scripture Mark, which is an inductive style, a digital inductive style

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Bible study. So you can put your text on your computer or on your tablet, and then you can mark it up, you can highlight it, you can underline it, you can take your notes.

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You can block diagram it and do some interesting things, which you're probably not familiar with.

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I'll enjoy showing you after this. Well, yeah, I'm not familiar with that. I am familiar with block diagram, because when

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I do the Bible interpretation made easy, I actually teach people how to do a block diagram, which they go, why do this? Because it gets you to slow down and study the scriptures.

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So yeah, I didn't know you guys were working on that, and I know of it because of the tools.

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And there's a lot of free resources. You could go there, get commentaries and different things.

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It became like a, I always refer to it as like a one -stop shop for getting everything you could use for Bible study, but you can get it for free.

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I have it on my phone, but I know that there's also the website version that folks can use, which

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I had said to someone today, I'm switching, I think, on my phone to be using the

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Blue Layer Bible for the app that I use to search, because when I go, especially if I'm doing on the street, doing evangelism,

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I want something I can pull a Bible up as quick as possible. I keep switching apps for whichever one pulls it up faster.

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And I was like, oh, wait, Blue Layer Bible I just noticed today is pulling up faster than the other one I was using. So I think that's going to become the new one that I'm going to, for quick research, for pulling up an app.

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So for folks who want to study the scriptures, give a good reason why

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Blue Layer Bible, why should people come here? That's a very common question that we get.

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Because there's other apps, there's other resources that people can use, and we feel strongly about the resources that we provide in particular.

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Number one, you said it, it's free to the user. It's not free to us, but it's free to the user.

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And we're blessed that God has provided for us to be able to provide that to the users. And so number one reason it's free.

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Number two is that the resources we provide are very advanced. And this separates us from some of the other resources that are out there.

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You do have some others that are advanced as well. But ours are in -depth in terms of commentaries, encyclopedias, and dictionaries, charts, and translation comparisons, and the

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Greek tools, and the Hebrew tools. And as well, our search mechanisms are very fast and comprehensive.

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And so from a resource standpoint, that's another reason for us.

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And thirdly, I want to highlight who we are as a ministry. We're conservative.

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Theologically, there's a range that we have. Within that range, though, it's conservative. We have a high view of Scripture.

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We have a high view of the inerrancy of Scripture. And really, when

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I look at Striving for Eternity's statement of faith, and I see your statement on the Holy Scriptures, I mean, you guys have really laid that out very well.

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And we would very much be in line with that, that not only is all

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Scripture God -breathed, as we know, and profitable, but it's really important that the authorial intent, and that we present tools that help people to get down to what is the truth that God has given to us through His Word, and how can we help people arrive at that truth?

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And so the tools that we present are really grounded in that ministry and theological perspective.

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So you bring up the verse in 2

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Timothy 3 .16, and I want to go there because there's an interesting thing that people don't always realize there.

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But this is what 2 Timothy 3 .16 and 17 say. And this is one of the things with, like you're saying, inductive

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Bible study, right? One of the things we want to do is look at what are, we're talking block diagramming.

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The real advantage of block diagramming is recognizing what is the main thing, and keeping the main thing the main thing, what is a supporting text.

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So 2 Timothy 3 .16, 17 says, All Scripture is God -breathed, or is breathed out by God, and profitable for teaching, for proof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work.

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And a lot of people will say about the profitability, well it's profitable for these four things, right? Teaching, reproof, correction, instruction, or training in righteousness.

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You can see I memorized it in a different translation. But you know, each of those four are actually supporting verses.

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They're paraphrases, or prepositional phrases. And therefore they support the main thing.

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They aren't the main thing. So we actually see the main thing when we eliminate those and look at what the main thing is.

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All Scripture is breathed out, that the man of God may be complete and equipped. That's the main thing.

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And really, I think that's what Blue Letter Bible does for folks, is to provide the tools to equip people.

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I mean, my listeners know I'm a very big Logos user. I've been using it since the early 90s, so I actually have more volumes in Logos than anyone outside the company,

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I've been told. But it's super expensive. I mean, basically you take out a second mortgage.

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I knew I was in trouble when I've had one sales rep for like 20 plus years. He sent me a picture of a

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Porsche Carrera. And I said, what is this? He goes, that's your Logos library. I calculated what you spent over 30 years, and I went, ow, ow, that hurts, don't tell my wife that.

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Like, you know, he's like, that really is a painful thing to think about. But like much of those tools you get in Blue Letter Bible at no cost.

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Because of your donor base, we'll get to that, because it's a very different structure on how you guys have it, versus some of these other companies.

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And yet, what it seems, with some of the things you're telling me I didn't even know about, it seems like you're trying to add some of the scholarship that they have.

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I know like Logos, they actually have paid scholars that they have, and with the course work that you're doing, it sounds like you're doing a similar thing, bringing it in.

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Similar in concept of making sure that the tools are there, the research is there, all of that.

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The difference is, one is free, and one you need a mortgage. Yeah, and you know, for us, like you said, it's a different model for us.

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You know, Logos, they have a business model that enables them to invest in some of these things in different ways than us.

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For us, we are dependent on ministry relationships, and partnerships, and teachers, and Bible colleges that are willing to give us resources, and who want to share those resources.

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And so it looks different for us, but you know what, though? It's a joy.

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You get to partner with all these other ministries who are just so gracious, and they want to get their materials out there and be a help, as you guys are, to so many people.

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And so it's been a privilege and surely a joy to see the body of Christ working together in that way.

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Yeah, I mean, one of the things I often say, I think one of the biggest struggles in the church is that people don't know how to interpret

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God's Word. They don't know how to handle it. I think the reason we have all these heretical

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Christians on TV and elsewhere, and all these false teachings, is really because people don't know how to handle the

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Word of God. If they learned how to interpret on their own, if they learned how to study, and they had the tools, then they'd hear this stuff and go, wait, no, that's wrong.

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And it really doesn't take a whole lot of tools. So I mean, one of the things that I find the most is that, even as a pastor, when

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I was pastoring a church, any pastor is competing with the best of preachers on the radio, five days a week.

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And you have a pastor that's faithful to the study of the Word of God, he has his congregation one day a week, and yet you have everyone else on the radio five days a week.

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And that's who people are really getting their instruction from. And when they're not trained to interpret, they're not trained to handle

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God's Word, they don't feel they have the tools to do that, they have a difficult time judging truth from error.

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Because, hey, this guy's on the radio, he must be good. And they really are influenced usually by that person more than their own pastor, unfortunately.

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And one of the things I like about the Blue Lair Bible is, it puts the tools that people need in their hands.

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So it takes one argument away from people. And this is one of the things I end up telling people when I do our

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Bible Interpretation Made Easy seminar. There's no more excuse anymore, well,

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I don't have the tools that my pastor has to handle God's Word and interpret it. You have it now because it's free.

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You can get access to commentaries. I go through and I teach them how to use commentaries, how to use

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Bible dictionaries, encyclopedias, concordances that concordances people don't realize is not just that chapter in the back of the

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Bible where you go, I can't remember that, where's that verse that I was looking for? No, it actually is to get you back to the original languages.

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I teach them how to use all those tools. But the thing is, those can be expensive if you're buying in paper.

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Take up a lot of space and if you're like me, your wife wants to sell them every time you leave the house because they take up a lot of room.

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But the thing is, you make it all available so that people can have it right at their fingertips.

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Most people have a phone that can pull, that can get the, I mean, there's the iPhone and then there's those other things that people use.

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I don't understand why. What kind of phone you got?

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I am with you. Okay. I'm with you all the way. We're good. Yeah, I just set you up.

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Yeah, yeah. Okay, I'm good. Hide my Android device. No, but, you know, it's like people have these available now at their fingertips.

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They can have access to all that stuff. And even if you don't know Greek and Hebrew, in the

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Blue Letter Bible, it's only a few clicks. It's like, you know, it's like people have these available now at their fingertips. It is. And, you know, and so, yeah, that's, you know, that's one of the biggest benefits of using

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Blue Letter Bible, that we hear from our users, that they love the original language resources that we offer.

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Not only the parsing, but we've got the Strong's resources as well. We have some lexicons, both for the

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New Testament and the Old Testament. So, you know, and at the same time, it's important that users know how to use those tools.

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And that's where, you know, we're trying to also provide some instruction in that area.

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You guys are doing that. And that's a huge, that's a massive blessing to the body of Christ, because you got these tools, you might have some hammer and nails and some screws in the tool shed, but what do you do with them?

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Yeah. How do you use them? And that's, that's important as well. And so that's where we've got the body of Christ at work.

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Yes, we hope that's coming from the church, right? We hope that instruction is coming at the local church level, but that's not always happening.

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You know, you say hammer and nails, and one of the things I sometimes say is, what I notice with cultic groups, they know a little bit of the tools.

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In other words, they know how to use Strong's, and they use Strong's concordance like a hammer.

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And they use it for everything, because it's the only tool they have. So everything is a nail. It doesn't matter if it's a screw, if it's a nail, if it's a screwdriver, it's all a nail.

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And so they end up sitting there, and it's funny because you end up talking, I do a lot of open air evangelism.

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Sometimes I'll deal with, I don't know if you're familiar, Black Hebrew Israelites, a very interesting group. But their argument basically is that all the

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Africans that were in the slave trade, those are the Israelites, okay? And they'll always, it's funny because they'll always go back to Strong's.

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And you look at the Strong's, and Strong's gives you like one, two, maybe three variations of a word.

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It's really quick, it's short. You really want the detail. You go into lexicons and word books and things like that.

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But for them, it's like, this is the hammer. And they're going to nail everything with it. But when you get into having more resources, it's like, oh wait, there's more nuance to this word.

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There's more understanding to this word. If you have more tools, you understand that. When you don't have those tools, everything's a nail to the hammer.

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And I think what Blue Letter Bible does is open up to folks all the other tools.

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So that, okay, I got a screw, I use the screwdriver, not the hammer. Yeah, and that's just right.

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And there's so much we can do, and we've got projects to constantly be improving what we're providing.

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For example, we just came out with a Greek inflection tool. And that way you can search for the same word, a word that is inflected in the same way, in other places.

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And so there are things like that, that is that your only tool? Of course not.

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Might it help you? Yeah, absolutely. It might help to see how this word is used in other contexts, how it's used in terms of the tense and the mood and some of those things.

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And so it's just another piece of data. It's just another tool. But like you said, it's one of many that should be a part of your entire toolkit as you seek to understand the meaning.

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Okay, so after this break, what I want to do is talk about just some of the other things you're working on.

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We'll start with the courses. The good news is Striving for Eternity would love to come to your church to spend two days with your folks, teaching them biblical hermeneutics.

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That's right, the art and science of interpreting Scripture. The bad news is somebody attending might be really upset to discover

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Jeremiah 2911 should not be their life verse. To learn more, go to strivingforeternity .org

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to host a Bible interpretation made easy seminar in your area. And don't just watch.

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Okay, so we're back. And so, you know, as we come back, I want to talk about these courses, because this is actually something

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I wasn't familiar with, with Blue Lair Bible, because I was using it more for for study resources. So talk about the courses, what what can people learn through the courses that you offer?

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Sure. So we have some courses in exposition. So I, so you could study

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Book of Matthew, for example. We have some courses in kind of a worldview, cultural worldview courses as well.

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And those courses were given to us by Peter Jones and Truth Exchange, on kind of understanding our culture and how to speak into that culture, based upon Romans one, largely.

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And so they've given us some courses for that. And then we've got courses on biblical counseling, one course on biblical counseling and servant leadership and some, some more pastoral or ministry minded courses as well.

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And so there's a number of courses covering different areas of doctrine as well as ministry and life from a biblical perspective.

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And then we've got eight more courses that we are looking to add in the near future, hopefully the near future from a

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Bible college and we haven't released this announcement yet. So this is an exclusive?

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So I'm not announcing it right now, I'm just going to announce to you the concept that we do have a partnership with an excellent

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Bible college that has invested in creating courses specifically for us.

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And that's going to cover areas such as some of the Old Testament survey,

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New Testament survey classes, as well as hermeneutics and some of these other courses that are essential for understanding how to study

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God's Word. That's cool. So you heard it here first, sort of. Sort of.

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I didn't completely unveil it. Yeah. It got close to the unveiling. We look forward to the content, but we didn't say which school.

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No. Okay. So is it Master's University? We'll just go through it. We'll go one by one until we figure out which one.

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When you go silent, that's the one. Right. Right. No, it's not that. No, it's not that.

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We're going to interrogation mode. So, I mean, I think the thing that's neat about that is, you know, we have our academy that we have, the

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Strive and Fear Academy, and I think there's a lot more ministries that are starting to go this way to realize that, yes, you could do academies and you could charge money for it, but what we ended up finding was we did an academy really just to put it out there, and what we never realized is the impact we have worldwide.

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I mean, in China, there are pastors that can't get a seminary education, and all they need to do with us is know

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English and have internet. That's it. Now, you know, that was at least when we were small enough that China didn't block us.

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It's not so much anymore. But the thing that when you have these things is that, you know, we have people in Chile.

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I know of a pastor in Chile, a pastor in Canada, and we never would have that impact if we just tried to do it where we charged for it.

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But here we're literally able to train up pastors, not just people in the congregations, which is,

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I mean, we just put it out there. But the thought never even dawned on us that we could be impacting pastors overseas in countries where they don't have seminaries.

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They don't have access to this kind of training, and this becomes huge because that ends up influencing the entire congregation.

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So I mean, what you're doing with the courses, literally, especially when you're offering it for free, it impacts more than just people that come to Blue Letter Bible to get a course sitting in a church because they want to learn a little bit more.

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Because when those pastors start doing it, it influences an entire congregation. So I think the vision that you guys have for that is really neat.

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Yeah, you know, and we've, to that point as well, we created, intentionally we created it such that you don't even, you don't have to create an account to take a class.

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You can just audit it. You can take it. And the reason for that is that we want, there may be pastors in some of these countries where they don't, they would prefer not to put their information on there, and we want to encourage them to be taking those courses.

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We don't want to limit anybody from having access to this material. Now, I was looking while you were talking to see, is it on the phone app or no?

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It's not. Because I couldn't find it on my phone app. So right now, the website can be found at blbi .org.

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So the normal website's blbi .org. This is blbi .org. But we just acquired a new domain.

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And here's another unveiling for you. This is a little more public, but we acquired study .bible.

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That is a good... And we are complete. So if you go to blbi .org right now, you'll see a very antiquated resource.

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The content's there, everything, the programming, but it's an older kind of technology.

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You'll see that. And so we are in the latter stages of a complete overhaul, redesign of blbi .org,

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which will be study .bible. That's a great... Having the .bible for the domain, you gave me some ideas.

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Well, the Bible Registry folks are awesome people, and they were excited about the

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Blue Letter Bible Institute as well, and they got behind that. And the Lord opened the door for us to have that domain.

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So we're very thankful. Yeah, Anthony and I were talking last night. We're sitting around... We had a...

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That's out of a fire pit as we were hanging out by this hotel we're at. We're sitting there, and we were looking up, because Mormon .org,

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it was announced they're changing to ComeUntoChrist .org, because their prophet got a revelation.

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I love how previous prophets' revelations just are outdone by new prophets' revelations. But their prophet said,

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Mormonism isn't to be used anymore. You have to say Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, which is really hard, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

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Saints .org. So I guess they're changing their domain. So I went on to see whether we could get

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Mormon .org. I mean, how fun would that be to take that over? If it frees up, I'm sure they won't let that go.

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But we were looking at other things like Mormonismiswrong .org, like, can we get that?

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Yeah. AnsweringMormonism .org. So we may grab some of those and give some answers to them.

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So yeah, I never thought the .bible domain, that's a good one.

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It's really fairly new. You could get a lot of ... You may be able to get some good domains through that, yeah.

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Anthony's head is turning. I see the mind. He's already thinking, I can see this. By the time we get back to the car, he's going to be like, hey, how about this .bible

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and this .bible? We're going to have about 10 new domains by the end of the day. It's a good thing he doesn't have the code to purchase the domains, otherwise

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I'd be having a large bill at the end of the year. So more than just the study tools, you had a new project that you're doing with the

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Inductive Bible Study. Talk about that with this new app. Yeah, so this is ...

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You actually can go to scripturemark .org. So scripturemark, M -A -R -K, all one word, .org,

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and that tells you a lot more about what the resource is about, as well as it has a video introducing how to use that resource.

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But really what it is, it allows you to really dig in to the tools in an inductive way, which is different than anything else that we present in terms of our website and apps.

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There's a number of things that you can do that are really beneficial. You can set up layers. So let's just say we talked about the block diagramming thing, but let's say you've blocked it out and now you want to focus on just the verbs and the tenses and the meanings in the original language.

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You can create a layer of just verbs. You can also create a layer of themes where you might highlight certain themes, and then you can go into those layers and you can make the layers visible or invisible.

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So both as a study tool, but also as a teaching tool, if you want to focus your students on certain aspects of that passage, then you can easily do that through scripturemark and you can add images.

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You can freehand draw. You can add shapes, add text, again, highlighting, underlining, blocking.

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So there's a number, but I encourage you to just jump on scripturemark .org and see like a five -minute or so tutorial on that.

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You might want to think of getting marked .bible as a domain. That might be a nice one. You're just right.

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What I want to do, we'll take a break. After this break, what I want to do is talk about your specific role. And with your role specifically,

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I want to talk about how folks can help the mission of Blue Letter Bible.

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We'll be right back. ... ... ... ... ... ...

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... you already said, just because it's free to the users, it's not for you. It costs quite a bit to run a ministry like this, doesn't it?

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It does. And that's the reality of it. And we have been very blessed by God's provision over the past 20 plus years.

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The ministry has been around, well, at least Blue Letter Bible has been around since, I think, 1996.

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And the ministry was supported by one source, primarily during that time, and that was a foundation.

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And in about 2010 or so, the ministry realized that we need to start transitioning into a more public -supported model, a user -supported model.

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And so that transition has been ongoing for a good part of the past five or six years, and the

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Lord continues to provide. And we're not fully supported by the public. We're about halfway there, but we're very thankful for the thousands of supporters that we have.

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Because that's actually, I knew of Blue Letter Bible, I didn't really play with it a little bit.

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And then when my friend Alan came over, started working for you guys in development, Alan Pearson, he came over from Living Waters, came here.

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That's when I was like, okay, if Alan's coming over here, I want to check this out a little bit more, because I know him.

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I said, this has got to be something worth checking out in more detail, because it's got to be a solid thing for him to come over.

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And so I started, that's when I started to invest a little bit more in checking out Blue Letter Bible. And his role is obviously to try to raise support and donations.

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And folks, if you do have Blue Letter Bible, whether on the website or on your phone, there is that little link that you can go,

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I'll look what it is specifically worded on the phone. But if you click on the middle where it has the

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Blue Letter Bible, you can, it has a Donate Now is what it says. But you can go to blb .org,

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or you can type out blueletterbible .org if you feel like it. But right on the top right of the menu is a

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Donate button. Now, if you're thinking, well, hey, this is great, I'm encouraged, I want to help others, let me give a one time donation.

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Don't do that. Don't ever do that. Because they have monthly bills. So it'd be better, even if you have to give a smaller amount, give a smaller amount every month than one time big amount.

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I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure you'd agree with this. But you do have to pay bills. And you have employees that like to get paid like every month?

32:30

Or do they prefer just like whenever the money comes in that they get paid? No, they they they have they have to make a livelihood and families and they like to eat every month, not just yes, when just not when it so happens that is always me, it always cracks me up when ministry people's view of ministry.

32:49

I don't know if you get this, but I get it from people be like, well, you're in ministry, you should just trust the Lord. And I remember one gentleman that told me that he actually emailed us and said that I was in sin.

33:01

If I was to ask for donations at the conferences where we don't charge people to attend the conference, but we do a love offering.

33:09

And he said it was wrong to do a love offering, we should live by faith. And so hey, you know, that's a great idea. How about you go to work on Monday, tell your boss, hey,

33:17

I don't want you to give me a paycheck. If you feel like paying me pay me. If not, I'm just going to keep working. He goes,

33:24

I gotta eat. I said, Yeah, I know. Me too. Funny thing.

33:30

You know, so so folks, if you're going to donate, seriously, don't give a one time donation, although they won't mind.

33:38

I'm looking at Andy, he's smiling, he doesn't mind. If you want, if you're going to do a one time donation, make sure it's really big, like drop, you know, a couple $1 ,000.

33:45

And he'd really appreciate it. But, but it's much better to give like a 20 or $25 donation every month, then, you know, for years and years and years, then to give a one time, big donation, because it actually helps with an organization to be able to pay bills to be able to do their budgeting.

34:03

One time donations kind of throw off, you don't you really can't budget for one time donation. So you have to budget off the monthly.

34:10

So consider consider giving monthly, because that will help this to to be able to go forward, they you could do it through PayPal, they have that right on the website, you could do it through mailing in your your donation.

34:22

And so consider making sure you do that on a monthly donation, you can do weekly if you want to, they won't mind that.

34:29

But the idea being and they have an option. When you go into the website, you could do credit card, you could do an e check, and you can set up how often to do it.

34:37

So don't do the once, even though that's the default, quickly change that drop down to either monthly, quarterly, weekly, something else.

34:46

And he's just smiling. You realize that we, we, you understand exactly what we go through as being a ministry, certainly appreciate your, your support and encouragement to our users, we, we are thankful.

35:00

And, you know, we, you know, we have a desire, certainly, to be sustainable on in terms of a user supported model.

35:09

But, you know, our mission is global. And we're really praying that we could really expand the resources that we provide and, and provide them in other languages.

35:21

And that's the the blessing of being in ministries, we can we can make those ministry decisions and, and Lord willing, one day sooner than later, we'll be able to provide some resources in the

35:32

Spanish language, and Mandarin, in Hindi, and some of these major languages around the world and start, start, start there and really begin to reach people with the

35:43

Word of God. And here's the thing that I find interesting is there's people who will support either through their church or individually missionaries,

35:53

Americans, to go somewhere in the world to be a missionary, and they'll fund them.

35:59

And it costs way more money to pay a missionary to go to to somewhere in China and support them there than it is to support a national there.

36:13

I mean, this is where I think the technology is changing things. And as in missions, we almost have to rethink things.

36:21

Because I would argue, I think I can make a really good case for it. But I would argue it'd be better to invest in something like bootlet or Bible, which could train up local missionaries, so that they would be able to impact their own people, rather than training someone spending a year or two to learn a language and do all this, and then have to pay them to support themselves.

36:45

And when you're dealing with a missionary, they come back stateside and retire, they have to have that. So you're really, you're funding them not only on what it takes to live on there, but when they retire, where you get someone that's, that's indigenous to that area, if they have the tools in their hands, and as you're offering the courses, they can get the training they need right there in their own land, and impact far more people because they're already living there.

37:13

And this is why I think that you're impacting the pastors there. The question is, do we need to send missionaries like we used to?

37:20

I would argue it might be better stewardship, and more effective if we invest in a blue letter

37:28

Bible to impact local people, and have that be the mission.

37:34

I really think that this is where blue letter Bible has an opportunity to really be a change of the way we view missions.

37:44

Because it is something, I mean, you think about how much, how many churches fund missionaries around the world, and now when many of them are trying to do church planting, or evangelism, okay, that that's helpful.

38:00

But it's good, it's a good thing. I'm not saying it's not. But I know of a lot of missionaries that are really just pastors of a church on a foreign mission field.

38:09

And they sit there and stay there because they say, well, they don't have the education. And that's the argument that a lot of those missionaries have.

38:17

Like I know a missionary that's been in the same church over in Taiwan for going on 40 years.

38:24

And it's like, okay, when do you move on to another church? And his argument has always been, well, they don't have, the people here don't have the training.

38:32

So they need me to be their pastor, to train them. I'm like, there's tools to train them, like hand off the tools and move on.

38:41

I think this is where blue letter Bible can come in and really be a different mindset for missions.

38:47

Yeah, we certainly want to resource those people who are doing the work of equipping in the field.

38:53

And there's some, you know, we, there are some wonderful ministries of equipping that's going on.

39:00

And of those who are equipping the International Church, and we want to be a resource to them.

39:07

And we are hoping that they would pass on these resources to them. And in that part of the equipping process is instructing how to use, like we discussed earlier, just instructing how to use those resources.

39:20

But also passing those resources on. And, you know, we see ourselves as one part of that global mission that, you know, that Christ gave us to make disciples of all nations.

39:35

And so hopefully, Lord willing, our prayer is that, you know, these resources would help people to do that as they're in the field equipping others.

39:45

And for you guys to do that here, through the technology, is far cheaper if you consider all the missionaries that are being supported just in the

39:55

US. Right? I mean, it's really, I found with our Striving Fraternity Academy, just the impact you can have worldwide.

40:03

It's amazing. You know, it really is. And I think the technology is going to change things.

40:09

But you need to think about it. There are countries where they don't have even a completed

40:15

Bible. Where, you know, I recently was talking to someone who, he's in a foreign land, but he basically was in jail.

40:25

And what they do is they memorize the Word of God. Because they know they're going to be in prison. And they try to memorize as much as they can.

40:33

And when they are in prison, what they do is they try to teach each other the parts that they memorized. And that's how they have the

40:40

Word of God. Because they only have portions of it. And we have,

40:45

I mean, most people listening to this podcast have more Bibles than they can count sitting collecting dust on their shelves.

40:52

There's people around the world that would love to have just one completed Bible, even in their language.

40:58

And the fact that you guys at Blue Letter Bible, not only provide the Bible, the different translations of the

41:03

Bible, but then all of these tools to help in studying the Bible is just a huge thing for people overseas to have at their fingertips.

41:15

And I mean, I agree with you having it in languages other than English, you know, Mandarin is going to be a big one soon, because the church is exploding in China.

41:24

And the Chinese government still doesn't know how to deal with it. They're trying all these different things to stop it.

41:30

And I think it's kind of funny, the more they try to stop it, the more it seems to be expanding. But it kind of, yeah, you could try to stop

41:37

God's work, but he has other plans, and he's in control. But I think that this is a thing that I think

41:44

I want for our listeners to think about when it comes to Blue Letter Bible. It's not just a tool for them.

41:51

Okay, that I mean, this is my kind of why I want to have this dialogue is because most people that I know use

41:58

Blue Letter Bible, because it's helpful to them. They don't see how they can help Blue Letter Bible impact the world.

42:06

And that's really what you're doing by the power of the internet. That's right. And that's exactly, you know, why

42:14

I want to mention those desires and long term, hopefully not too long term goals that we have.

42:21

And because yeah, our users could help others by supporting the ministry down the road and really being able to provide, you know, other languages.

42:31

And to provide other languages, you're going to need to have people who are on staff to do that, because technology is always changing.

42:39

It's not, you know, it's not the type of resource that you can just provide it done, okay, walk away from it. And then 10 years, yeah, it's not going to work very well in 10 years.

42:48

And so, you know, it's, so that's, that's where, you know, we want to move slowly. But, but, you know, we want to prepare well to move into this area of ministry.

43:00

But God owns it all. And we know he's able to provide that. And we pray that he would, would do that.

43:07

Yeah, being being in the technology industry as well. It's, you know, the average is every five years got to do a complete redesign.

43:14

If you don't completely redesign all your development, every five years, you're going to be left behind. And that's how fast the technology is changing the stuff with browsers.

43:25

And if you don't keep up with it, it, it won't get, you know, you won't get found in Google, things like that.

43:31

It's just, it's crazy, the pace that it's moving. You know, and I'm just, as we're speaking and saying about number of Bibles people have in your shelves,

43:39

I'm looking over behind you. And I can't even count not only all the Bibles, but study Bibles and everything that you have in your, the wall back there.

43:47

I'm definitely going to get lost in this room for a little while. I kind of have an addiction to good

43:53

Christian books. I used to work at an addiction recovery center.

43:59

And I went to the director. And I walked up to him like, Bill, my wife says I need to get into the into the program here.

44:06

And he goes, he starts laughing because he knows something. So he's like, okay, what are you addicted to? So my wife says,

44:12

I'm addicted to Christian books, that I like getting a lot of good

44:17

Christian books. And he goes, I'm sorry, we have no room for you in the program. I said, Why is that? He goes, because then

44:22

I'd have to come in too. He says, so you're not allowed. He said, some addictions are good.

44:29

So I went back and told my wife, she didn't buy it. But, you know, what would you say, you know, as we wrap up, you know, what is it you want to leave folks with?

44:40

What are, what are some of the things that you would and give this and then after this, we're gonna play a game.

44:47

Don't worry, all the pressure's on me, not on you. But I always do this with guests. But see, you haven't listened to enough of a longer podcast to know what the game is.

44:56

So that's a beautiful part. It's either going to be one of two games, a spiritual transition game or name that fallacy.

45:02

So you'll have to figure, we'll figure out which one. But any, what kind of things, you know, would you want to leave with folks with Blue Letter Bible, we talked about the mission, we talked about what you guys are doing, some of the apps, some of how people can help.

45:15

Anything else you want to share with folks? You know, I, we're just, we're thankful for our users.

45:24

We've, like I said, we've been around for 20 plus years, and God has sustained us.

45:30

And so, you know, we would say, we would ask for their prayers.

45:36

And, you know, we've, like any other ministry, we have decisions to make, and we ask for God's guidance in his provision, and strength.

45:48

We desire to have a ministry filled with staff who are not only believers, but are growing in Christ.

45:57

And so I think that would be the big thing I would want to leave. If our users could not only use the

46:05

Blue Letter Bible and jump in there and understand scripture and love and treasure

46:11

Christ more than anything else in this world, that would be our desire. And we'd ask for prayers, that we would have all that we need to continue to provide these resources.

46:22

All right, and now it's time for a game. It's time now to start the

46:29

Spiritual Transition Game. All right, so it's time for our

46:37

Spiritual Transition Game. Let me explain how this game works. And like I said, there's no pressure on you, the pressure's all on me.

46:44

You're going to give me something, anything. This part doesn't get edited. So if I pause for long periods, it means you stumped me, which so far only

46:53

Matt Slick has done because he gives me words I don't understand. But my goal is to take whatever you give me and get to the gospel as quickly as I can in a very natural way.

47:02

And the reason we play this game is for this. Most of you, and this is now for you to start thinking while I explain this part, but most people struggle with sharing the gospel because they think, oh,

47:10

Lord, just give me an opportunity. Meaning having someone just walk up and go, can you tell me about Jesus? Which never happens.

47:16

You know, where people say they want someone to just go, you know, you're just so happy. What is it that makes you happy in life?

47:22

You know, they look for this opportunity that never actually happens. And I've long ago learned

47:28

I don't need to ask for an opportunity, because anything can be transitioned into the gospel.

47:34

So you can make the opportunity. And that is the hardest thing for people when it comes to evangelism is going from the natural world to spiritual world, making that transition.

47:42

So we've turned it into a game. And by playing it often, you get better at transitioning. And so the way we usually play this game, if it's in a youth group or a bunch of adults, you give an object, you want to be easy to someone, you'd say,

47:54

Andy, take that water bottle and go to a spiritual conversation. So it just has to be spiritual. It's not necessarily the gospel.

48:00

We make it harder on me. I don't know why, but we make it harder on me. And it always has to go to the gospel.

48:06

Because that's more specific, not just general spiritual. And reality is when you play this in a group of people, you find out that everyone had a different way of transitioning.

48:15

Usually at first, it takes you a long time, the more you play, you actually get better. My pastor is the one that taught me to he used to just for when we were trained to be pastors and deacons, he would have a leadership training, he just drop an object on the table.

48:28

And you always had to go to a spiritual conversation from it, whatever he drops on the table. And at first, when we first started, each of us took like five minutes to think of something.

48:38

And he just didn't wait. But by the end of 13 weeks, within a minute or two, we could do it.

48:44

And he was so good. We actually had a fruit bat that got that was in the church building somehow.

48:50

And he took from exactly what the text his illustration of the text, he used the fruit bat to be an illustration, people thought

48:57

I released the fruit bat. Because they said, how could he you know, like, how could he so quickly use that?

49:02

They thought I let the bat loose. So everyone would know he just saw everyone's head spinning, looking at the bat circling the auditorium.

49:08

He used the as an illustration to get everyone's attention. He was just really good at it.

49:14

I'm just good at it. So go ahead. So give me whatever it is. And I got to try to transition to the gospel. So am

49:19

I asking you a question? Am I I mean, can it be an object, it could be a question, anything, anything is it can be a question from the

49:27

Bibles, a question, a hard question. Some of you might have we could do that. But that one's that one's kind of easier, because it's already on the issue of the

49:33

Bible. So you want something from the natural world. So something from the natural and you've already learned, as we talked earlier, you know, pop culture and me and sports and me are just not

49:42

Yeah, yeah. So I just avoid this. So if you ask me something, I could throw something out there. Yeah. So if you if you as Anthony is giving him pointers, okay, now we're getting a more difficult question,

49:53

I'm sure. But if you give me if you ask me where the baseball player was born in New Jersey, I'm not gonna have a clue.

50:01

But what would you say about Mike Trout? Mike? Was that your question that you asked him? No, but I but I am interested to see how

50:09

I go from my job. I mean, surely you know who Mike Trout is. No, I don't.

50:15

He's from New Jersey. That can I tell you that I want to help you a little bit. So Mike Trout is a baseball player.

50:21

Mm hmm. He's a very famous one. Okay. All right. Very famous here in California.

50:27

Folks listening are like going you're like amazed that I'm amazed that you're from New Jersey. And I don't know who

50:35

Mike Trout is. So that that's as much grace as I'm going to give you. I'll let you take it from here.

50:40

Okay, so so it's kind of cheating. Because I use I have a typical way of going. When I go from sports, team sports,

50:48

I'm going to try not to go my typical way. Only because I usually I've gotten basketball and baseball references.

50:55

But, you know, the thing is, is that, so I'll go a different way with Mike Trout, because you assume that me being from New Jersey, I should know someone who's somewhat famous,

51:04

I guess, in some fields, in one realm in New Jersey, somewhat famous, more than someone, he's more than someone.

51:12

Okay, we'll just let you go on that. So later on, I'm sure Anthony's gonna be like, here's who Mike Trout is. And what in the world is it that you don't know?

51:19

He's like one this many words or something. But you know, the thing is, is that it's kind of interesting, because even though he's very well known, and he's he's famous, and you're amazed that I don't know who he is, only because, you know,

51:34

I really don't follow baseball at all. And it's one of an interesting thing that you can have something that's so just taken for granted.

51:42

Like you're taking for granted that I should know, especially being from New Jersey, that I should know who Mike Trout is. And yet,

51:48

I don't because I have no following. I don't follow at all any of the team sports.

51:54

So what ends up happening is even though it's it seems like common knowledge, I'm ignorant. And that's part of the reason

52:02

I come out and talk to people when I travel, about things that they're usually ignorant of, even though it might be clear and common sense to so many, and in fact,

52:12

I would argue clear to most people. See, most people know that God exists, even though they're ignorant of him specifically, they know of him because he puts that in that knowledge inside of them.

52:23

They know he exists. This is Romans chapter one, God says he's put that there. So everyone knows he exists, they know something of his attributes.

52:30

But even more so, they have a knowledge of right and wrong called a conscience. Every time they feel that guilt, they know they broke

52:36

God's law, they feel that they know that they need to get right with God in that. And even though we may be ignorant of the details, there's the knowledge there that is common knowledge.

52:48

Now more so than with Mike Trout, only because Mike Trout, you actually have to follow baseball somewhat. But here's information that God puts in our heart and so many people suppress it on righteousness.

52:57

And they do so because we really don't like that message that we're accountable to God. And yet God made a way of escape that he himself came to earth as a man and died in our place, that we could be forgiven of sin.

53:08

So you notice I completely ignore the baseball part because I know nothing about it. So that's how

53:14

I would go from Mike Trout to the gospel. What did you have, Anthony? You wrote something down. Well, I was going to have him give you something like shoelace, right?

53:23

Because that's what people do. They try to stump him. Somebody actually gave him the eyelet of a shoelace. And he got there.

53:29

And he got to the gospel. So all right, I don't know how I did it that time. But I'll do it this way. So folks, you're getting a twofer this week.

53:38

So for the eyelids, the little plastic piece on the end of a shoelace to keep it so you could poke it through a hole.

53:44

Because have you ever tried pushing when that plastic pieces? Okay, if you're like me, when I was a little kid, and back when

53:50

I was a little kid, you always had shoelaces, you never had the shoes that I have now that you just slip them on. But I used to love ripping the eyelids off.

53:58

Because I would get bored and especially like if I was in synagogue, I got really bored. But I would rip those things off.

54:06

And then if the shoelaces came out, man, was that painful to try to get because, you know, it becomes very wide.

54:13

And you have to get like one thread through and as you pull it through, you can kind of pull the rest of it. But it just it pulls it out of place.

54:20

And then you try it then it ends up fraying the whole thing. And so that that eyelid actually serves as a purpose to act so that we can thread through like a like a thread of a needle so that you can go through something.

54:33

So it serves a purpose of being able to get this through a very small hole.

54:39

So it makes something that's very typically very difficult to be very easy. And you know, the thing that makes me think of with that is the fact that when we go through life, we think that everything is about being a good person.

54:52

I just spoke to someone this past weekend that were there just said, Well, hey, I'm a good person. As long as I'm good to others.

54:58

You know, everything's fine. And yet the reality is, being good is harder than trying to get a, a, that shoelace without the eyelid.

55:07

But you know, we should probably correct something here. The eyelid is is is where the shoelace goes through.

55:13

It's the aglet. Aglet. Okay, it's the aglet. Plastic. Okay, the plastic is aglet.

55:19

Sorry. He has to be technical. But yeah. So the aglet is right.

55:25

Yeah, it is born of detention. I forgot the naming of it. But it's not something you study very often. Right? He probably was looking it up earlier.

55:36

So, so the, the aglet was again, as aglet. So the aglet.

55:41

So the aglet serves a purpose when you rip that aglet off, it becomes very hard to get it through the, the, the, you know, but here's the here's the reality that it is much harder.

55:52

It is much harder. It's much harder to to try to get righteousness with God.

55:59

Just from doing through good works. In fact, what God says, it is impossible.

56:06

And therefore, when we look at this, we end up realizing that we need the help of Christ to be able to get through that needle.

56:14

And Christ does that by if we turn from trusting ourselves or our good works, but trusting only in Christ. That's how we can have the forgiveness of sin.

56:22

So twofer. Great job. The aglet and the eyelid. At least we learned some new words.

56:30

All right. So in closing, any, any other things you want to share with folks, anything you want to leave with them as parting wisdom?

56:37

No, we just, we appreciate you appreciate this time to, to discuss these things that are important and thankful for your ministry and thankful for our ministry as well.

56:47

And just continuing to pray that we would be faithful as he has us here.

56:53

All right. So folks, remember to go out to you could go to blueletterbible .org. Or if you really want to make it simpler, just blb .org.

57:04

People are going to start singing that song blb .org. Get blb for me.

57:10

Yes, we do make up songs here as well. You know, $5 a day.

57:42

So that's like $25 a week that you can give in. You really shouldn't be drinking Starbucks anyway.

57:47

It's killing you. Just, just stop, you know, but I hope you don't drink Starbucks. I'll be in trouble.

57:54

But, but seriously, you could find ways to help Christian ministries and support them. And, and with that, let me just remind you guys, if you, if you want to support

58:02

Striving for Eternity, we're still doing the, the things where if you will donate just $2 a month, you'll get a copy of What Do We Believe?

58:10

If you donate $5 a month, you get that plus What Do They Believe? If you donate up to $10 a month, you'll get those two books plus On the

58:19

Origin of Kinds by Dr. Silvestro. And if you donate up to $20 a month, you get those three books plus Sharing the

58:26

Good News with Mormons, which has 24 different authors. I'm one of them. And if you donate $25 a month, we give it away.

58:34

That's right. If you donate $25 a month, what we look to do is find a missionary that we can set them up with podcasting equipment and pay for their hosting for the year with just $25 a month.

58:45

That covers all of that. And we would be able to set them up. So instead of giving newsletters that no one actually ends up reading in the churches, they could do a podcast for folks to listen to.

58:55

We think that'll have a greater impact on missions. When people hear from the missionary, this is themselves as people are getting saved and being discipled.

59:02

So if you could help us out in that way, that would be great. You could go to strivingforeternity .org slash donate to do that.

59:09

So until next week, I have no idea right now what we have coming up next week, because I haven't recorded that yet.

59:16

But we may have some previous interviews that we've done in the past. But I hope that you keep listening.

59:22

And remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God. This podcast is part of the

59:27

Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org