From iPod to iPhone

I finally knuckled under and jumped into the world of iPhone. And to be very honest, I love my iPhone. Blackberry is no competition at all. I struggled with the keyboard issue for some time before getting the iPhone, but I can say that that the landscape keyboard is far and away better than those tiny physical Blackberry buttons.

The other big plus are the apps. The world of iPhone apps is a mindboggling place. With over 80,000 apps, many of which are free, you’re sure to find something that will benefit you on your commute, unless you are driving.

After one month of use on the commuter bus, here is a short list of my favorite apps

WORDPRESS – Yes, WordPress has a free app to access your blog. Case in point, this post is coming from my iPhone while commuting home on the bus.

LOGOS – Believe it or not, Logos Bible software has a free app that allows you to study the Bible with many of the desktop features. It even accesses your library of purchased books. How incredible is that?

AMAZON KINDLE – You don’t need to buy a $200+ Kindle if you have an iPhone. The Kindle app allows you to search, preview, buy and read Kindle books. This is a great tool because now I can access the extensive book previews of Kindle. While it’s probably not the most exciting reading experience compared to a Kindle, it’s incredibly convenient, and if I did have a Kindle, my devices would sync purchases and bookmarks.

GREEK FLASH — At this point there is one app for learning Koine Greek, and it is a flash card reviewer. The iPhone app field is wide open for some good, creative Greek tutorials and learning games.

GRACE TO YOU app – This app simply blows me away. Here you have easy access to a multitude of John MacArthurs resources, audio, video, and textual content such as articles and blogs. You have to see this to believe it. And since you have an iPhone, you just download the content wherever you are and you can instantly watch or listen.

Music learning tools — There are a multitide of instructional apps that will help you practice and learn scales on a variety of instruments, key signatures, and how to read sheet music on any clef. The apps here are overwhelming. TREBLE GAME is a fun game that times how quickly you can identify notes on a treble clef. NOTE TRAINER is a similar game that times you ability to identify notes on a keyboard.

On the Dark Side of the Moon?

While it may seem not much has been happening here on the blog, behind the scenes I’ve still be listening to a lot of material.  Here’s what I’ve been doing:

Over the past year I’ve accumulated a load of Martyn Lloyd-Jones sermons from Living Grace and decided to spend a few weeks immersing myself in the messages of the Doctor.  There are so few preachers who have the power and insight of Lloyd-Jones. If you haven’t benefited from the ministry of Living Grace, I encourage you to visit the site at One Place.

I’m also preparing to teach through the book of Revelation to my church’s Bible study soon.  Revelation is a daunting book, and further the wide variety and strong polarity of interpretation is overwhelming.  So I have been methodically listening to a number of preachers from different perspectives — men such as Arturo Azurdia (amil), John MacArthur (premil), John Fesko, Jim Hamilton, and others.  I haven’t found an engaging postmil preacher yet, and may not since that position I find to be one of the least convincing perspectives.  John Fesko’s messages have been very helpful since he tends to broadcast the strongest arguments of a variety of men.

In a future post I’ll tackle these series in Revelation in much more detail, and hopefully, with some greater insight than I’m able to do at the moment.

So, for the next few months it may still seem like FBH is hovering on the dark side of the moon, but it won’t be because we’re not working.

The Brothers Karamazov

ChristianAudio is offering an ABRIDGED version of Dostoevsky’s magnificent novel The Brothers Karamazov.  The one chapter you don’t want to miss is chapter 5, “The Grand Inquisitor”, which tells the story of Jesus appearing in the 14th century town of Seville, and his arrest by the Cardinal of Seville.

The Cardinal has a lengthy monologue in the dungeon explaining to Jesus how the church has corrected the failure of Jesus in reaching the people.  This is a very insightful narrative, and incredibly relevant for the evangelical church today, which has turned to the things of the world to reach people (such as psychology and business models) and rejected the clear commands of Scripture.

The Brothers Karamazov >>>