That’s All, Folks!

All-

Over almost 8 years I have enjoyed sharing this with you and it has been fun.  I’ve reached a lot of people and, based on various emails and comments to the blog touched a lot of people in a positive way.  For those of you who subscribed and received the blog on your e-Ink Kindle, we collectively raised over $10,000 for the Nehemiah Center of Houston over the years – wow!

However, as with all good things, it’s time to call it a day with this blog as the time commitments in my personal and professional life require me to make some cutbacks in the number of lists / blogs I maintain: this will be the last post to this site.  I will keep the content up for a while for people to peruse.

Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your life over the years!

Best regards,

Michael Gallagher

Bible Verse of the Day for Sunday

“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and I if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophecy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

– 1 Corinthians 13

Books of the New Testament

Four hundred years after the close of the Old Testament, the New Testament completes the cosmic story of God’s plan to bring salvation upon the earth.  The word testament is best translated as “covenant.” The New Testament embodies the new covenant of which Jesus was mediator.  This new covenant was sealed with the atoning death of Jesus Christ.

The New Testament opens with five narrative books – four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.  The Gospels cover the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  The Book of Acts continues the story of the development of the early church over the next thirty years.

Matthew
Mark
Luke
John
Acts of the Apostles
Romans
First Corinthians
Second Corinthians
Galatians
Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians
First Thessalonians
Second Thessalonians
First Timothy
Second Timothy
Titus
Philemon
Hebrews
James
First Peter
Second Peter
First John
Second John
Third John
Jude
Revelation

 

Books of the Old Testament

The Old Testament begins with God’s creation of the universe and continues by describing the mighty acts of God in and through His people.  The 39 books of the Old Testament were written over a period of several centuries.

The first five books of the Old Testament are referred to as the Books of the Law or the Pentateuch, a Greek word meaning “five volumed.”  The Hebrew term for this collection is Torah, meaning “instruction, teaching, or doctrine.”

Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Judges
Ruth
First Samuel
Second Samuel
First Kings
Second Kings
First Chronicles
Second Chronicles
Ezra
Nehemiah
Esther
Job
Psalms
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Song of Songs
Isaiah
Jeremiah
Lamentations
Ezekiel
Daniel
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi

Bible Verse of the Day for Saturday

“Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you; turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.  This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success.”

– Joshua 1:7-8

The Bible Through History

The Bible in its original form was recorded in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.  It is generally accepted that the very first complete English translation of the Bible was created toward the end of the 14th century and is credited to John Wycliffe, an eminent and influential Oxford theologian and popular preacher.  Wycliffe strongly advocated the English translation of the scriptures so that poor people would have access to God’s Word.

The evolution of the English version of the Bible:

YEAR	VERSION
1380	Wycliffe
1525	Tyndale
1535	Coverdale
1537	Matthew
1539	Cranmer
1560	Geneva Bible
1568	Bishops’ Bible
1582	Rheims’ NT
1611	Authorized Version
1750	Challoner
1881	Revised Version
1901	American Standard Version
1913-1914	Moffatt
1928	Westminster
1945	Knox
1946	RSV
1949	Basic English
1961	New English Bible
1971	The Living Bible
1971	New American Standard Bible
1976	Good News Bible Version
1978	New International Version
1979	New King James Bible

 

Bible Verse of the Day for Friday

“He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

– Isaiah 2:4

What is the Bible?

The Bible is the written record of “the Word of God.”  This record came to prophets, apostles, and other spokesmen and “became flesh” in Jesus Christ.  Christians believe Jesus Christ was the Word of God in a unique sense.  Through Jesus, God communicated the perfect revelation of himself to humankind.

Before written forms of the Bible came into existence, the Word of God most likely circulated in spoken form.  Narratives of the life and ministry of Christ were probably repeated orally for two or more decades before they were given literary form.  But the Bible owes its preservation to the fact all of these oral narratives were eventually written.

The original biblical documents – referred to by scholars as the “original autographs – have not survived the ravages of time.  No remnants of the authentic biblical authors remain.  However, before the original documents disappeared, they were copied.  It is on these reproductions of the original writings that modern day biblical translations are based.

Bible Verse of the Day for Thursday

“And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in glory.”

– 1 Timothy 3:16

Bible Verse of the Day for Wednesday

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.”

– Philippians 3:12-16