Like me, I guess most readers of this blog try to start the day with a time of reading and prayer. Since the beginning of the year I have been using my little netbook to start the day most days and it has been a real help, with things going better and for longer than ever before. I try to follow the M'Cheyne reading scheme, which is quite demanding, especially as I endeavour to do all four readings at once. (I find if they are left they are less likely to get done). So I start with the Interactive M'Cheyne Daily Bible Reading Calendar (there is a button you can click on my sidebar) which takes you to the correct place on Bible Gateway. Sometimes (though there is rarely time) I'll read from more than one version. Sometimes to help me concentrate I'll use the audio facility there.
Users of the M'Cheyne system will be aware of Don Carson's helpful two books (For the love of God) offering a daily page of devotional comment. I have both volumes but it occurred to me that it must be available somewhere online and I found that Crossway have put the two volumes here and here. The snag here is that you have to go searching through to find the page you want. Further, obviously Crossway don't want to lose sales on this and so eventually they will not allow you to access all pages, which rather spoils the fun. However, the other day I was looking for a quote from Carson to lump across to here and discovered this very helpful blog. The way this is set up is that if you come to the main page you will have the text from one of the books for that day. To get the text for the other two readings you need to go through the archives (indeed today I had to do that in both cases as the current reading was not up - at least it's all there somewhere by now so you can find what you want eventually).
Obviously over reliance on technology can have its drawbacks but I have found these few sites a real help. I'll say more in a further post I hope.
Users of the M'Cheyne system will be aware of Don Carson's helpful two books (For the love of God) offering a daily page of devotional comment. I have both volumes but it occurred to me that it must be available somewhere online and I found that Crossway have put the two volumes here and here. The snag here is that you have to go searching through to find the page you want. Further, obviously Crossway don't want to lose sales on this and so eventually they will not allow you to access all pages, which rather spoils the fun. However, the other day I was looking for a quote from Carson to lump across to here and discovered this very helpful blog. The way this is set up is that if you come to the main page you will have the text from one of the books for that day. To get the text for the other two readings you need to go through the archives (indeed today I had to do that in both cases as the current reading was not up - at least it's all there somewhere by now so you can find what you want eventually).
Obviously over reliance on technology can have its drawbacks but I have found these few sites a real help. I'll say more in a further post I hope.
2 comments:
Hi Gary,
"For the love of God" volumes 1 and 2 are available as free PDF files here:
http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/resources/author-index/a/da_carson#Bibliography
under 1998 and 1999. Or put "don carson free pdf" into Google. Hope this helps.
Gary, this is such a helpful post. It gave me a renewed desire for good personal devotions. I'm now using the Interative M'Cheyne. I've subscribed to the RSS feed and view it along with your blog and others in Google Reader. I find that the text interface is much less distracting and I can focus on the content and not start clicking around.
Is there a shift happening from scrolls to hand-copied books to printing to electronic media? Ive got a bible on my phone and have read and studied online on and off for quite a few years. But maybe we'll soon be at critical mass in terms of numbers of Christians that access the word thru this medium.
I know a young man from Iraq who converted thru meeting Christians online, reading the word etc. I'm told that the hits on Arabic bible web sites is huge.
Thy kingdom come!
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