Praise the Lord for E-Sword !!

E-sword is incredible.

I have been using this free (yes, free), searchable, fully-customizable, loaded-with-extras Bible program for four or five years now, but lately some of the newer plugins are astounding me.

I currently run it with this setup (in case you want to take notes):

• Bibles: KJV, ESV, ISV, several Greek NTs (GNT), Hebrew Old Testament, Septuagint (LXX)
• Dictionaries: Strong's (standard), BDB, Thayer
• Commentaries: John Gill, Matthew Henry, Jamieson Fausset Brown, Keil & Delitzsch, Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
• Extras: Doctrinal Works in the Reformed Tradition, Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, Luther's Concerning Christian Liberty, Ante-Nicene Fathers, Schaff's History of the Church, Westminster Confession, and Fox's Book of Martyrs
• STEP Libraries (which function outside of the program's window): John Bunyan's entire collection, JC Ryle's entire collection, and John Newton's entire collection

Some of the more astounding features are:

• the ability to view your favorite commentaries (Gill, Henry, K&D, Spurgeon) while reading the text
• the freedom to search in English, Hebrew, and Greek
• and the ability to make your own commentary inside the program!!!

Tonight, another download amazed me, and it's something I've been looking for and working on for the last five years: a commentary that just displays intra-Biblical word links. The "Treasury of Scripture Knowledge" in the commentary section is just that. Take, for instance, Revelation 2-3. I was doing a study on the seven churches, and I noticed that Jesus often uses phrases that sound like you've heard them before. Well, I just click on the verse, and the TSK commentary pops up several words that have links to the other parts of Scripture in which they occur.

In case that doesn't make sense, here's an example: Rev. 3:3

Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.

Now I read that verse and realize that Jesus has said in other parts of the Bible that He will come like a thief. Well, I click over the the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge and it tells me exactly where He has said that! Amazing!

Praise the Lord for whoever put this commentary together, and for Rick Myers, who built and maintains E-Sword out of his own pocket and time. Christ the Lord is truly using him.

Drink Deeply of Jesus Christ

Having read the SBC resolution on alcohol consumption from last year's SBC convention, and then receiving an email announcement from my seminary president addressing that very resolution, I quickly became aware of the foolish legalism of this call for alcoholic abstinence. I mean, there are many, many things I love about the Southern Baptist Convention and its churches, but I love God and His Word more. So it's time to call it out:

This foolishness, this ugly Phariseeism, must stop.

The Southern Baptist Convention, its churches, and every believer in Jesus Christ would do well to pay attention to the commands, logic, and implications of Colossians 2:16-23

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— 21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” 22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? 23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

It says in essence, "Church, let no one judge you! Christ is the substance, not fleshly practices! Church, let no one cheat you! They will try to pull you away from the Head, from whom you are supplied with life!"

I preached on this passage last night at our local rescue mission and actually resisted the urge to call out the SBC on this one. I thought it was my sinful, critical nature trying to exalt myself over the convention; but it was nothing of the sort. My urge was from the Holy Spirit, because this anti-alcoholic legalism is a dangerous and deadly deception. And it is hurting, not helping, local churches.

I was reminded of this fact when I read this article from Christianity Today about the Missouri Bapist Convention and its fight against a local church who uses a local bar (gasp!) to meet people and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In response to the Journey Church's practice of utilizin a St. Louis pub in order to "become all things to all men, so that by any means (they) might save some" (1 Cor. 9:22), the MBC has mandated the teaching of the false doctrine of alcoholic abstinence. One board member, Michael Knight, has even proposed that the MBC cut off all ministry partnership with Acts 29, the Mark Driscoll-founded organization that helps and funds many church plants, including the Journey.

With this idea, the MBC risks building folly upon folly. And it all comes from really bad theology:

• God is not honored when people imply that alcoholic abstinence is a way of gaining His approval.
• God is belittled when His Word is pushed to the wayside while we make rules that have nothing to do with it.
• When we first appeal to personal experience and cultural evidence, God's Word has become of no effect.

Let us not build houses upon sand, but upon the rock of Christ's Word. Please join me in calling for a return to the God of the Bible.