Ligonier Ministries, the teaching ministry of R.C. Sproul, puts out an EXCELLENT monthly devotional publication called Tabletalk that has great articles and daily Scripture reading and study material.  You can peruse a complete copy of a recent issue by going HERE. (Ain’t the internet a great thing!  Thanks Al Gore!)  I highly recommend all HLPC folk (and others reading this blog) to subscribe!

From wordle.net:

“Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.”

The ESV Blog has depictions of the New Testament and entire Bible done in this format- it has been “wordled”.  Interesting to see which words get prominence.  Here’s the New Testament:

(HT:  ESV Blog,  Justin Taylor)

According to an online dictionary, an apotheosis is the supreme example, the ideal, the quintessence.  That’s what Dr. Phil Ryken (pastor of Tenth Presbyterian in Philadelphia and one of the guys I like to read and listen to) calls the new ESV Study Bible in this post on the Reformation21 blog.  This really whets my appetite for the release of this new study tool in October.

Ryken notes that the ESV Study Bible will pay particular attention to the literary features of the Biblical text as well as give attention to the redemptive-historical themes of the Bible- that is, it will bring out how the entire Bible points to Christ and his work.  The Old Testament pictures and pre-figures Christ while the New records His life and work and the Apostles through their epistles explain and apply that work.

We use the ESV here at HLPC.  Why not add the ESV Study Bible to your “to be bought” list?

Just received my new Logos Bible software yesterday in the mail. Thanks to my student status with Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando (I’m working toward a D.Min) I was able to get a sizable discount. I received the “Original Languages” package which has more resources in Hebrew, Greek, and even Aramaic than I’ll ever use. Word studies along with verb parsing has never been easier!

Any other Logos users out there? I also looked into BibleWorks but couldn’t pass up the good price from Logos. Now, back to Habakkuk.

Crossway publishes the English Standard Version (ESV) which we use here at HLPC. As noted in an earlier post, the ESV Study Bible is coming out this October. If you pre-order by THIS THURSDAY, May 15th, you get a 35% discount. Just wanted to pass that along! You can pre-order HERE.

Bible Gateway is a terrific web site for Scripture study. They have MANY translations and search options along with the ability to compare translations side by side. This is a great tool for Bible Study that I use often in sermon prep. Just wanted to share the wealth!

this blog hasn’t been up for long and it’s already being quoted and referenced in other places! Actually, the plug I made for the new ESV Study Bible made it to the ESV blog you can access here. See if you can find it on the list!

I thought it was cool. It made my Friday.

If you’ve been attending HLPC for some time you’ll notice that we use the English Standard Version published by Crossway.  It’s a relatively new translation on the scene.  Why do we use it?  We appreciate and affirm the translation philosophy of the ESV that’s given in this quote taken from the ESV website :

There are two main kinds of Bible translations. The first is commonly referred to as (1) “word-for-word” (or “formal equivalence”) translation, the second as (2) “thought-for-thought” (or “dynamic equivalence”) translation. The main difference between these two translation philosophies is that the first one places the primary emphasis on what the words of the original say and mean (in their context), while the second one places the primary emphasis on the main thought or idea in the phrases of the original.

As an “essentially literal” translation, the ESV is committed to the principle of “word-for-word” translation, as the translation philosophy that most accurately conveys the Bible’s own understanding that “all Scripture is breathed out by God” (2 Timothy 3:16), or as Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

Other translations, such as the New American Standard Bible (NASB) follow this similar philosophy.  Translations such as the New International Version (NIV) would follow the “thought for thought” philosophy.  While both are excellent translations, we are excited about the ESV and want to encourage its use!

Also, the new ESV Study Bible is soon to hit the shelves and looks to be an excellent resource to go with the Reformation Study Bible and the Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible.