The Wired Christian

Try this: go to Google and try searching for “scripture” or “bible” or “bible verse”. What is the first listing that you see? That’s right, BibleGateway.com is the top dog. Not only because they have great SEO (search engine optimization), but because the site is a great research tool. The title says it all, “A searchable online Bible in over 50 versions and 35 languages.”

Research

There are three different ways you have to lookup scripture on BibleGateway: 1) by passage 2) by keyword and 3) by topic. Passage is just what it sounds like. You enter the book, chapter and verse or appropriate ranges and you get back what you asked for. The keyword is more of search based of a word or multiple words and/or phrases that you are looking for within the scripture. Then the topical search does a keyword search through either Nave’s Topical Bible or Torrey’s New Topical Textbook. These three methods in addition to the many different translations and languages gives you an extremely wide variety of ways to look at God’s word.

Under the Additional Resources heading there are also listed Audio Bibles, Commentaries, eBooks, Dictionaries, Study Tools and Reading Plans.

Web Authors

Web authors and bloggers also have tools at there disposal to integrate scripture into their sites now! BibleGateway gives you several options to use under the Use On Your Website header. There are instructions for linking to BibleGateway when quoting scripture so that when a reference is made someone could click on the link and read further into the passage if they wanted to. You can also add a BibleGateway search form on your website. They also provide a Verse of the Day in several delivery options including a plain HTML code method, an RSS feed, a Web Service call or an embedded Flash object.

Conclusion

BibleGateway has been around since 1995 (and the site design shows it). Sorry. It’s not a Web 2.0 site. It’s not flashy. It’s not glamorous. What it is… God’s word delivered in a very easy to retrieve manner. So go on over and get your verse on!

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Isn’t technology great? When you call the bank you don’t have to talk to anyone; you just have to wade through a gazillion menu items and either say or press one. If you opt to go to the bank you can use the automated teller and not even have to deal with a person then. Now the robots have infiltrated our grocery stores as well! Self-checkout lines. What a phenomenal idea… we can’t hire anybody for minimum wage with a decent attitude so we’ll just let you get your stuff, ring up your groceries and bag it all yourself too!

Yes, I know sarcasm isn’t very Christian-like, but I have some real issues with these so called improvements. For one, they are supposed to be a convenience right? Wrong! Most of the time the lines are taken up with people that are not… how shall I say… tech savvy. That or they have two or three buggies full as if they are stocking up for the next world war. The only time I use these lines is if all other lines are full and I only have a few items.

Ok, soap-box over with… let’s continue.

On one particular occasion through the self-checkout line I had a diet soda and two other items. A few days later I was faithfully entering the receipt into my financial software and noticed that I had been charged twice for the soda. Why that incompetent cashier! Oh, wait… right there on the receipt were the words, “Self-Checkout.” DOH! I was the incompetent cashier. See what I mean? That’s why I usually let them do that job.

Then it occurred to me, if I made the mistake of charging myself twice for that item I could just as easily have made the mistake of not charging myself for the item. Take it one step further and I could purposely not charge myself for one of the items in my bundle of goods. After all at those self-checkout lanes the employees aren’t really paying any attention to what is going on. They will come and help you out if the light dings because something is wrong with the process, but that’s it. They don’t double check your receipt for accuracy. I’ve never once been stopped and asked to see the contents of my bag. Why shoplift? Now you can just pick out your high dollar item and put it in with a few cheap items that you actually purchase at the self-checkout. Cameras in full view and everything it wouldn’t be hard at all.

So what’s to stop you? Well for one, it goes against one of The Big Ten: “Thou shalt not steal” Exodus 20:15 [KJV]. This is where the you have to let the Holy Spirit speak into your life about right and wrong. You have to let your conscience do what it does best. It’s a matter of character. What would I have done if I had discovered that I had made a mistake in the other direction? What if I had accidentally not charged myself for the soda? Would I have gone back and paid for it? Would I have written it off because it was an insignificant amount of money? To be honest I’m not real sure. I can only pray that in times like that I will look to God and let Him be the voice of truth to cut through the nonsense that will try to tell me it’s ok to let things slip.

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Filed under: Character, Christianity, The Big Ten | No Comments »

Hello, my name is Jonathan Franzone. I am a husband and a father of three beautiful children. You can learn more about my family on the Franzone Family Blog. I’ve developed a passion for blogging this year (2007) and I’ve had a passion for Christ most of my life, so I decided that it might be a good idea to combine the two.

Initially I started a geeky technology blog and would occasionally include Christian based posts, but this tended to confuse some of my readers. Therefore I decided to create a blog fully devoted to my love Jesus, the scripture and walking the faith in today’s modern world. In this blog I hope to bring to light some of things that God has taught me about my own personal walk in the face of the challenges of a modern wired world. What exactly do I mean by what? Well, for one you are currently reading a blog! There is so much information online… or on the wire. There is also a lot that we do via cell phones and other various technology.

I don’t know quite where this going, but then we never really do. I’m so glad you took the time to stop by. God bless!

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Ah, life’s glorious adventures! The twists and turns are sometimes like white water rafting. This is how yesterday started out. A phone call from the Vice President of the sector that I work under for my current contract.

Let’s rewind a bit. Let’s go back in time and relive the events that lead up to this earth shattering moment in my Tuesday. As Dane Cook would say, “Let’s Tarantino it.” Actually I just want to share a few points.

I belong to a home group (bible study, small group, whatever you want to call it). Basically we (a group of families and friends) get together and study the bible, eat, talk and build relationships… it’s fun. Anyway we’ve been studying the book of Colossians for a while now and this past Tuesday (May 15) one particular verse stood out to me. I couldn’t understand why really. It’s not a verse that I would have thought that I needed work on, certainly in light of some of the other surrounding verses. For some reason this one verse just kept coming back to my mind. What? Oh you want the verse? OK.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.

Colossians 3:15 (New International Version)

Now the focus of my attention was on Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Well with the verse written on a piece of paper, folded neatly and tucked into my bible we finished up and headed home.

Have any of you ever prayed for patience? DON’T! That is unless you are completely prepared for the testing and training that is about to come… nay flood your way to teach you that patience. Same principle here. Everything the following week just went wrong… fighting, bickering, terrible attitude… and that’s just me in the room by myself. The peace of Christ definitely was not ruling in my heart. It was more like the anger mongering of Satan. Just ask Aubrey; she’ll be more than happy to let the cat out of the bag. If not then I will. I was an absolute turd this past week.

Of course there have been some more stressful things in our lives of late which I attributed this all too. Plus I can always blame it on the medications I take for my migraines. But of course those are just all excuses.

So I get the call and he tells me there is no more funding and they cannot seem to find any more sources of funding to continue my position. Great. June 1st you say? Great. Hey, Stuart Little’s dad always said you have to look for the silver lining. Well, I don’t have to clean out my desk!

After getting off the phone I thought about how crumby it was to leave me with one week to find a replacement for that income source. Of course I know other people that have been left with less time than that. Then I thought… if I had read the writing on that piece of paper a little deeper the preceding Tuesday I might have had two weeks notice. Of course that’s really reaching, but my point is that God always knows what’s coming up in our lives. He knew last Tuesday that I’d get that call and so He knew that I needed a reminder that His peace could sustain me through this time. God is good.

One of the things that’s tough about trusting God is that He doesn’t tell you what’s coming up… that’s the faith part. Also if He did tell you then you could in theory tell the future and start placing bets on races and that’d be a big ole mess now wouldn’t it? Sorry; I digress.

You know the movie Indian Jones and the Last Crusade? At the end of the movie when they’re all inside the cave and Indiana has gone on ahead of everyone to get the grail in order to save his father he comes to a huge bottomless chasm. It is too far to jump to the other side and the only clue he has is Only in a leap from the lion’s head will he prove his worth. That’s a little how I feel right now. Like I’m standing out on the edge of a bottomless chasm trying to trust that God knows what He is doing and that He will provide for my family, but a wee teensey weensey bit scared too.

I’ve already had numerous friends and family pray with me and Aubrey about this. If you are the praying type and would find it in your hearts to pray for us it would be greatly appreciated. If you are the hiring type and need a great software engineer then leave a comment and make sure your email is correct (won’t be in the comment) and I’ll surely give you a quick response. Thank you for taking the time to stop by.

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Filed under: Daily Grind, Faith | 1 Comment »

Yes, I’m a little late on this one but I just discovered them so I thought I’d share. Red is a rock band consisting of Randy Armstrong (Bass) (twin brother to Anthony), Anthony Armstrong (Guitar) (twin brother to Randy), Jasen Rauch (Guitar), Hayden Lamb (Drums) (has a twin brother) and Michael Barnes (Vocals). Umm… what’s with the twin thing? Moving on. They released their debut album, End of Silence in June 2006, almost a year ago. I’m still not sure why we still call them albums. Aren’t they CDs these days? Anyway the album was nominated at the 49th annual Grammy Awards.

Michael Barnes has a great voice and he has some good backup from the band at times. There is also some good old screamo (yes that’s a real musical genre) mixed in at times and plenty of head-bangin, foot thumpin, heart racing good beats. But don’t let that scare you off; the music is very complex and there are a number of songs that are not so in your face. There are piano and string snippets mixed in to give some feelings of grandeur (synthesized of course) and a nice mix of tempo and volume contrasts to keep your interest. In fact, this album has replaced 30 Seconds To Mars - A Beautiful Lie as my current favorite.

The impressive part… they’re a Christian rock band. That’s right. Rockin with the brethren! Representin for Christ. I couldn’t believe my ears. I’m really proud that the quality of good Christian rock music has risen to the level that the “world” is nominating their albums for Grammy Awards despite blatant Christian themes in the music.

If you’re into rock or would like to try it out you can purchase Red - End of Silence here. Or if you’d like a FREE preview head on over to the band’s website where you can listen to their song Breathe Into Me online.

So how did I do? Do you have any suggestions on how I could have improved this review? Do you disagree with anything I said? Or do you just want to give me the ole two thumbs up? I’d love to hear any comments you have below! Thanks for taking the time to stop by.

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That’s an odd quote to hear from the pulpit of your church on a Sunday morning. Kind of graphic, but it gets the point across. I decided to look it up a bit myself. The passage being referred to is in Isaiah 64:6, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”

Oh, by the way, I’m referring to the Holy Bible… the one us crazy Christian folk read, just in case you’re just tuning in. If this bothers you then you are waaaay too sensitive. Try reading my post on eating babies. Well, we do! We eat baby cows. It’s called veal. At least I do.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes… Tampons. I decided to verify the quote made from stage and lookup the meaning of the text from the passage and indeed that is the original meaning. Not actually tampons, but menstrual rags or clothes. Here’s a link to the Strong’s Concordance lookup. See for yourself.

The chapter starts out talking about how awesome and glorious God is. It talks about how God acts on behalf of those who remember His ways and those who gladly do right. It then reveals the reality of the human condition. We tried to do it our way, but we failed. We continued to sin against God’s ways and He became angry. It then talks about our righteousnesses being like filthy rags.

Take the absolute best person on Earth and he will fail. Nobody is perfect. Compare anyone’s righteousness with God’s perfection and it looks and smells like… well… a used tampon.

There you have it.

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Filed under: Christianity | 10 Comments »