Who is this Jesus I worship?

Who is Jesus?  

His full title is The Lord Jesus Christ.

He is Lord

He is the Almighty Creator.   "In the beginnning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made."  Jn. 1:1-3.  "For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him.   He is before all things and in Him all things hold together."  Col. 1:16-17

Lord is defined as Authority or Master.  So, in His person, He is Lord.   That is, He has authority over all creation including created beings.   Even though not all creation acknowledges Him as Lord or gives Him Lordship, the fact remains that He is Lord over all.   Phil. 2:10-11 makes it clear that everyone will acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord, "Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Do you acknowledge His Lordship to the exclusion of all else?

He is God in the flesh, Jesus

"You shall give Him the name Jesus because he shall save his people from their sins."  Mt. 1:21

"He is the image of the invisible God", Col. 1:15.   Wow!  God made Himself visible to man and walked amongst us.   He was born as a baby, experienced all the trials and temptations, had feelings and compassion, yet was entirely God at the same time, "In Christ, all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form" Col. 2:9.

When He commenced His ministry, people were wondering who He was.  The account of Jesus healing the paralytic man can be seen in the parallel passages of Matt. 9, Mark 2 and Luke 5.   Jesus healed the paralytic man, but this was a 2-stage miracle:

In the first instance, Jesus healed the man's spiritual needs.   Clearly his spiritual needs were more important than his physical needs.  Jesus said, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

Mark and Luke report that the teachers of the law thought to themselves, "Who can forgive sins but God alone?", and accused Jesus of blasphemy, that is, claiming to be God.

Even though Jesus had already forgiven the paralytic man for his sin, and the forgiveness was complete, there was no physical and tangible evidence for the people who were present.   It is easy for people to use words, but the words can be empty and meaningless.   Jesus decided to demonstrate with physical evidence that He was indeed God Himself and had the power to forgive sin.  

Jesus then performed the second miracle, healing the man's physical problem, "Get up, take your mat and walk."   The physical healing demonstrated His authority and power over creation, an attribute belonging to God alone, thus defeating the allegation of blasphemy arising from the first miracle.

The paralytic man was saved from his sins and healed from his physical disability by God in the flesh, Jesus.

He is the Christ

Jesus asked His disciples, "Who do people say I am?"  (Mark 8:27)    Peter, the unskilled, unschooled fisherman, knew who He was, "You are the Christ."  But even with this special revelation, Peter was not able to grasp the full implications of Christ the Messiah's role in saving His people (Mt. 16:17, 22).  Peter was looking for a mighty warrior, not a servant-Messiah who would die for the sins of the people.  Yet at times, even His family did not recognise who he was and doubted his sanity when He started His teaching ministry:  "He is out of His mind."  (Mark 3:21)

For many hundreds of years, people were looking forward to the Messiah appearing and had many clues to His origin, (for example, Micah 5:2).   Everyone including the Samaritan woman knew that the Messiah was coming, "I know that the Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming", she said in John 4:25.   Then Jesus declared "I who speak to you am He".   What an exciting day for that woman and her village!  The long-awaited Messiah was amongst them in bodily form, healing their spiritual disease and teaching them.

Jesus will come to claim His bride, the church.   He will then return in great glory as the triumphant Messiah-King (Micah 2:12-13, Rev. 19:11-16 and others).   Many will mourn, so be ready and don't be amongst the mourners!  (Matt 24:30)

"Behold, I am coming soon!"  Rev. 22:7

"He who is coming will come and will not delay" Heb. 10:37


Credit:  The beautiful photograph is from https://www.lds.org/bible-videos/videos/jesus-forgives-sins-and-heals-a-man-stricken-with-palsy?lang=eng#gallery=img-3

What I'm Reading: Breakout Churches

Breakout Churches by Thom Rainer, published 2005, ePub Edition in January 2009

Thom Rainer as President of the Rainer Group is a church growth consultant who was inspired to write this book based on Jim Collins' book, Good to Great.

The book Breakout Churches tells the story of 13 local churches that did not accept the status quo.  These are not just 13 randomly selected churches - they had to meet a very strict set of criteria, and were measured against a control group.   The 13 churches were shortlisted from 50,000 churches researched.

The Rainer Group believes that any healthy church should be reaching one person with the gospel every 2 weeks.   They were looking for churches that had an annual conversion rate of 26 people; that is, it takes 20 members one year to reach one person.   There were other strict criteria too, including the requirement that the decline or slump, then the breakout, occured under the same Pastor.

Each of the 13 churches had a "Chrysalis factor" which was the trigger for growth.   The Chrysalis factor had some commonalities in the 13 churches that the control group did not have.

A common factor of breakout churches is that they have "Servant Leaders", which is a great study in itself and may feature as a blogspot in the future!

I am forever struck by Rainer's claim that

"It is a sin to be good if God has called us to be great".

Rainer quotes Bill Orr,

 "Churches do not remain plateaued.  They either begin to grow again or they begin to die."   

(That quote was a trigger for me to read the book "Autopsy of a Deceased Church", also by Rainer!)

Rainer provides some fascinating graphs of breakout church growth, and spends some time discussing leadership.  The key to Rainer's discussion of leadership focuses on the Acts 6/7 leader as a "Legacy Leader" (less than 1% of senior pastors according to his research).   He discloses that many of these legacy leaders (or Breakout Church Pastors) are reluctant leaders, and further, that there were no autocratic leaders in Breakout Churches.

Reinforcing the value of small groups, one of the Breakout Churches reported that most of their ministry occurs in small groups that meet in homes, and they have a strategy to plant a new church every time they reach 500 members.   This comes with a warning:

"Members who are involved in worship services alone tend to drift toward inactivity."   

Small groups provide opportunities to grow in spiritual health.

Growth will not occur unless local church leaders are willing to confront reality.  When you confront reality as a church leader, you will have what Rainer refers to as the "ABC moment" (Awareness, Belief and Crisis).   Rainer points out the risk of a church being inward looking, and the "deadly path" that follows as slow erosion.   The common factor in the ABC moment was that many of the leadership shared the experience, not just the senior pastor.

In his "how-to" or "where-to-from-here" chapter entitled "The Who/What Simultrack", Rainer quotes Collins emphasising:

'(the importance of getting) "the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus and the right people in the right seats" and then figuring out where to drive the bus'

Rainer describes the fascinating concept of the Freedom/Expectation Paradox and demonstrates why all Breakout Churches are alone in the High Expectation/High Freedom quadrant.

He describes how in some churches, the (program) becomes the tail wagging the dog, and some churches that don't have a vision even have the wagging tail, but no dog.   In speaking about innovation, he points out that innovation follows the growth of the church, unlike many churches where a new facility is constructed with the hope that it will engender growth itself.

Resilience is a key factor throughout the book.   Rainer says,

"The cost of becoming a breakout church, ironically, is most often the result of problems and conflicts with other believers.  Many of the comparison church leaders grew weary of the struggle with fellow Christians.  The breakout church leaders had no fewer conflicts, but they decided to persevere despite the pain and struggles."

Breakout Churches is a sound read and in my opinion is a good companion book for Becoming a Level 5 Multiplying Church by Todd Wilson and Dave Ferguson.   Breakout Churches is another quality book that can't be summed up adequately in a short article!

Breakout Churches is published by Zondervan.   I read the ePub version which I downloaded from iBooks.   At the time of publishing this article, it was on Amazon.com.au for $11.99.

Beware the Slow Fade

Are you a Master of Sin, or a Slave to Sin?   To ask another way, do you have mastery over sin or is sin your dictator?

Who (or what) is at the door of your heart?    Jesus says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me" (Rev. 3:20 NASB).   There's also a predator at the door:  "... if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door; it desires to have you but you must master it." (Gen. 4:7b NIV)

Notice the order of words in Gen. 4:7:  first is the attitude, then the attack.   The sin is not crouching waiting for you to open the door and make a decision, but in fact the decision of the heart is first, then the sin attack.   What is your heart attitude toward sin?   Cain's was already decided:  he had a bad attitude.  He knew the Lord and His commands, but due to his heart attitude, his offering was not accepted.   We see later in the OT that grain offerings were acceptable if made in the right attitude of heart, and that obedience is better than sacrifice:  "Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifice as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord?   To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams."  (1 Sam. 15:22 NIV).

"Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts" (CS Lewis, Screwtape Letters). 

Yes, the sin slide is a gradual one.   Jude gives a warning about this when he speaks of "The way of Cain" (Jude 11) and warns against ungodly men and their methods.   "These men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals - these are the very things that destroy them" (v.10) "... they follow their own evil desires" (v.16)

Isn't it typical of God to give Cain another chance after his sacrifice was rejected?   We see this incredible grace of God as a scarlet thread throughout the entire scriptures, reinforced in the letter to the Church at Laodicea (Rev. 3:20).

Rom. 5:20, "The law was added so that the trespass might increase.  But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.

We are given the solution to the sin slavery problem:  Sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace (Rom. 6:14).  We are no longer powerless over sin because God sent His own Son ... to be a sin offering (Rom. 8:3).

There is certainly a conflict of the two natures, the old man and the new:  "The good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want." (Rom. 7:19)

CS Lewis has a lot to say about the conflict between the two natures in his brilliant book "Screwtape Letters":

"There is a subtle play of looks and tones and laughs by which a mortal can imply that he is of the same party as those to whom he is speaking.   That is the kind of betrayal you should specially encourage, because the man does not fully realise it himself; and by the time he does you will have made withdrawal difficult"

and then Screwtape offers a solution to man's sin-slide,

"The man who truly ... enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring twopence about what other people say about it, is by that very fact fore-armed against some of our subtlest modes of attack."   

Do you single-mindedly desire to serve God and focus on Him to the exclusion of all else?

A rendering of Acts 1:8 shows us that as believers we have received power through the Holy Spirit to be God's witnesses, thus overcoming sin as we witness to the world.   What then is the application of this discussion?  Commit to live in the power of the Holy Spirit, desiring God and none other, being aware of the attitude of your heart and inclining your heart toward God more every day and resisting sin.   "Submit yourselves, then, to God.   Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." (James 4:7)

Slow Fade by Casting Crowns

Be careful little eyes what you see
It's the second glance that ties your hands
As darkness pulls the strings
Be careful little feet where you go
For it's the little feet behind you that are sure to follow

It's a slow fade when you give yourself away
It's a slow fade when black and white are turned to gray
And thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid
When you give yourself away
People never crumble in a day
It's a slow fade, it's a slow fade

Be careful little ears what you hear
When flattering leads to compromises, the end is always near
Be careful little lips what you say
For empty words and promises leave broken hearts astray

The journey from your mind to your hands
Is shorter than you're thinking
Be careful if you think you stand
You just might be sinking

People never crumble in a day

Daddies never crumble in a day
Families never crumble in a day

Oh, be careful little eyes what you see
For the Father up above is looking down in love
Oh, be careful little eyes what you see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QASREBVDsLk

Songwriters: John Mark Hall

Slow Fade lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Drawing credit:  https://screwtapelettersjlams.wordpress.com/

Is Christianity Religion?

Do you live under strict religiosity or Christian freedom?

Do you strive to keep "the rules", or do you revel in the grace of God?  Not in the sense, "Shall I go on sinning so that grace may increase?" (Rom. 6:1), but in the knowledge that in His grace, God has provided a remedy for our sin problem in the person, death and resurrection of Jesus.   See Rom. 6:23.

The Pharisees were "experts in the law" who placed sets of rules around the law to strive for righteousness, but in their great knowledge, learnings and zeal, they were blinded to the truth of the One who was sent to make them righteous (Rom. 5:19)

We see that the Pharisees with their co-accused, the Sadduccees, even planned to murder Jesus, the One who came to save them:  "So from that day on they plotted to take His life" (Jn. 11:53).   Their sin was increasing, not decreasing whilst their righteousness was diminishing:  first, they allowed the death of John the Baptist, then they asked for the murder of Jesus, then they murdered Stephen themselves.

In his book "Pharisectomy", Peter Haas claims that "we all have a hidden Pharisee lurking inside us." He doesn't mean something wierd like there's another person inside us, but simply that we have a tendency to be legalistic and attempt to earn our salvation.   He says, "... the Pharisees were so obsessed with maintaining their ceremonial purity that they'd rarely even eat with a normal person (aka a non-Pharisee)." (p.4)   The Pharisees lived under a heavy yoke, but Jesus says, "I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."  Matt. 11:29-30

I am often asked if I'm religious.   Here's my answer:   Religion is man trying to reach God.   Christianity is God coming to man.

Image credit:  https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/ac/ac/41/acac41de1288876076f639b6e9741f1d.jpg

What I'm Reading: Fool's Talk - Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion

Fool's Talk:  Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion, by Os Guinness.

I will never promote a book above scripture or encourage you to read something in place of scripture, but there are many instructive books that help us to understand and apply it.  Read in the light of God's Word, some books can be very helpful.   This is one such book.

... and wow, what writing!   Even on my first reading, I bounced back and forth several times through what I'd read, re-reading and highlighting passages of impact.   The problem is, I don't want to highlight the entire book!

Guinness' entire thesis is based on the premise that we have lost our ability to persuade people of their need of a saviour, and he spends some time proving this thesis, then outlines a comprehensive method for overcoming it.

Across 12 eloquently written chapters, Guinness builds a case.   He even addresses the problem of education, knowledge and eloquence and how these attributes get in the way.

"Just as to a man with a hammer, everything is a nail, so in the age of science and technology, everything is a scientific and technical matter to be solved by scientific and technical means." (p.31)

Guinnes denies that he is a scholar or academic, yet he is a highly educated man with a Ph.D:

"Many of us today, and I include myself, are not naturally adept at creative persuasion.  But the reason is not that we are not educated enough, but that we have too much education of the wrong sort."  (p.177)

Interspersed with a very healthy humour, the book contains many challenges that strike at the heart:

In talking about persuasion through story-telling and paradigm shift, he says,

"The method acts like a spring-loaded trap that promises cheese but delivers a coup de grace to the unsuspecting mouse" (p.42) and,

"The cross, Martin Luther wrote, was the devil's mousetrap.  The devil smelt cheese, and wham, felt steel."  (p.72)

In his section "Cross-centred and Cross-shaped", Guinness says that proclamation and persuasion must never be separated, but that Christian advocacy must ...

"... be shaped ... by five central truths of the faith - creation, the fall, the incarnation, the cross and the Spirit of God",  (p.27),

and he goes on to expound each of these pillars in the context of proclaiming the gospel through persuasion.  I found this section very helpful and practical, for example, he says,

"True to the incarnation, Christian persuasion always has to be primarily person-to-person and face-to-face, not argument to argument, formula to formula ..." (p.27)

This concept reminded me of Screwtape's description of a man in C.S. Lewis' Screwtape letters,

"Think of your man as a series of concentric circles, his will being the innermost, his intellect coming next, and finally his fantasy.  You can hardly hope, at once, to exclude from all the circles everything that smells of the Enemy:  but you must keep on shoving all the virtues outward till they are finally located in the circle of fantasy; and all the desirable qualities inward into the Will." (Ch. 6)

Guinness gives warning (The Defence Never Rests) and Exhortation (The Way of the Open Hand) and beautifully explains bible passages to encourage our Christian Advocacy work.  The most striking of these is the account of Jesus telling the parable of the vineyard (Lk. 20:9-19 and Guinness pp.179-181)

In wrapping up, Guinness gives a very good and practical overview of the psychology of the mind, and how an understanding of peoples' thought processes can bring an individual to faith.

I have two criticisms of this book.  The first is relatively minor in comparison with the second;  there is the loose quote which Guinness uses of Frankfurt on page 192, which I would argue does not add value to the thesis, and on page 242, Guinness apparently refers to the God of the Christian faith and the god of Islam as one-in-the-same.   His intended meaning is not clear in this section though.   This needs to be carefully measured against scripture.   An explanation that I found helpful is here:  https://carm.org/god-christianity-islam



This has to be one of the best books I have read in terms of thesis, purpose, flow and structure.   It's a very academic book, yet it's not!   This is a 5-star book.  There's so much more I could write, but the post is long enough - you'll just have to read the book if you want more of it.  

(For those cynical readers who wonder whether I was given a free book:  No!  I purchased this book.  I'd tell you if I was given the book to review!  I have used an e-book version on Kindle.)

Rose Coloured Glasses and Facebook Testimonies

 

Rose-coloured glasses and facebook testimonies:  I have used this title because there seems to be a trend amongst evangelicals to paint their life stories through rose-coloured glasses, and to impress on others how great their lives are.   The reality is that without God's intervention, our lives are not that great, so why do we pretend?

Rahab's testimony: 

I am a business-woman in a small middle-eastern city in Moab, A'bel-shit'tim.   I have high-ranking clientele who don't know that I also work as a secret agent for the Israelite Army.   I have been very brave: whilst my house was under surveillance, I smuggled Israeli Officers out of the city.   When my city was raided by the Israelites, they rescued me and my family because of what I have done for them.  I became a grandmother of the Kings of Israel, and eventually the Messiah.  (See Joshua 2&6, Mt. 1:5, Heb. 11:13, Jas. 2:25)

David's testimony: 

I am the King of Israel and Judea.   I have everything I want and need.  I have a beautiful wife, Bathsheba, and a wonderfully healthy son, Solomon.   I have a great right-hand man and advisor, Nathan.  (See 2 Samuel 11&12)

Paul's testimony: 

I have had the best upbringing and education in all of Israel and received rapid promotion.   I am a great detective, identifying and prosecuting those who would try to introduce new thinking.   I have done much travelling, and I'm very resilient.   I once fell blind, but found a wise specialist who was able to heal me.   Although I've been in shipwrecks that were not my fault, I used my leadership skills and miraculous powers to save people, including myself.   (See Acts 9,22&26-28, 2 Cor.11:16-28)

Do these short testimonies ring true in your heart?   There is no falsity in them; but there is a misleading of truth that makes you feel uncomfortable.   The testimonies only share the "good bits", and there is even a little "twisting of the truth" to make the witness look better.   Is there value in witnessing if we only share the "good bits" of our lives?   Facebook is a classic example of this falsity in our cultures.   People feel depressed because they see how great everyone else's lives are portrayed on facebook whilst their own lives are messed up, mundane and ordinary.  Their kids are sick, they are on a tight budget, working hours are long and hard, and they need a holiday.  But it seems like all their friends have a great life; kids are never sick, they win all their sports events and they are always on holidays.

What is your purpose in sharing life stories?   The writer of Ecclesiates gives us a warning: 

"For there are many words which increase futility.  What then is the advantage to a man?" Ecc. 6:11 (NASB) or as rendered in the NIV:  "The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?" 

Are you using your words wisely?

Ray Comfort, in his excellent book "God Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life", says

"If non-Christians respond to the gospel message only to improve their lives, they will be disillusioned when persecution comes, and they may fall away from the faith.   This is because many respond experimentally, simply to see if the "wonderful life" is as good as Christians say it is" (p.28)

"Jesus didn't shield the newly converted Saul of Tarsus from what was in store for him as a Christian.  Instead, Jesus said that He would "show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake" (Acts 9:16).  Stephen was cruelly stoned to death for his faith.  James, who told his brethren to "count it all joy when you fall into various trials" (James 1:2), was murdered with a sword.  John the Baptist also felt the sharp steel of persecution.  Down through the ages, Christians have been hated, persecuted, thrown to lions and - like John Hus - even burned at the stake for the sake of the gospel. (p.29)

John recognised that it was not about himself, but all about Jesus: 

"He must become greater;  I must become less",  Jn. 3:30 (NIV)

 and Paul said,

"If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weaknesses", 2 Cor. 11:30 (NIV)

Rahab's true testimony: 

I was a prostitute in a small middle-eastern city in Moab, A'bel-shit'tim.   I have sinned a lot in my life.   Many men come to my house for illicit purposes, but on one occasion, the God of the Israelites sent two honest men to my house for safekeeping.   I harboured them and helped them to escape, but God had His hand on me all the time.  I was scared of being found out.   I lied to the officials when they asked me about the men.   Some time later, the Israelite Army raided my city, but again, God was gracious toward me and my family and we were rescued and I was grafted into the line of the Messiah.  God gave me a wonderful husband, even though I did not deserve one.  (See Joshua 2&6, Mt. 1:5, Heb. 11:13, Jas. 2:25)

David's true testimony: 

I am the King of Israel and Judea, but I wasn't always King of both nations.  I was annointed, but I became afraid of Saul and ran away.   I am a great warrior, but a few years ago I became complacent and stayed home when I should have been leading my troops at war.   I looked for fulfilment in fleshly things, and saw a beautiful woman who was not my wife.  In fact, she was the wife of one of my Officers.   I took her and had a sinful relationship with her, then tried to cover up by having her husband murdered.   God confronted me through the prophet Nathan and my sin was exposed.   I was convicted of my guilt and sought redemption.  I begged with God not to cast me out of His presence or take His Spirit from me.  God has graciously redeemed me and blessed me again, but I didn't deserve it.   God still punished me and took my beautiful baby boy, but now he has blessed me with a wonderfully healthy son, Solomon who will be my successor.   I praise God for a great right-hand man, prophet and advisor, Nathan who confronted my sin.  (See 2 Samuel 11&12 and Ps. 51)

Paul's true testimony: 

I have had the best upbringing and education in all of Israel and received rapid promotion, but I was a pharisee and legalist.   I took offence at the gospel of Jesus Christ and persecuting His followers consumed me.   I murdered many of them.   I was present and consented to Stephen's stoning.   Jesus confronted me on the road and struck me blind, but in His grace, he sent me to a believer who placed his hands on me and healed me.   I met the One I was persecuting and now I travel for him.  My travel has been hard.   Men want to kill me and they pursue me.   I have been in many bad situations - too many to even list in this blogspot!   I can only give glory to God, and will only boast of my weaknesses and what God has done for me.   (See Acts 9,22&26-28, 2 Cor.11:16-28)

Do our testimonies lead people to understand their own desperate need for salvation, and the grace of God, or do we selfishly paint a great picture of ourselves to the eternal loss of souls?   Are we pretending or are we honest?   Pretending was fatal for Romeo and Juliet:  "Thus with a kiss I die", and it almost cost Edmund his life in C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe when he was tempted by the "good things".

I should have called this blogspot "It's all about Jesus"

Do you surf the NET?

Do you surf the NET?   I don't mean the interNET;  I mean the NET Bible.   This blog is (in part) intended to point believers to helpful and useful resources, and the NET Bible is one such resource that might prove almost invaluable to you or someone you know.

The NET Bible (New English Translation) is a relatively new translation by biblical language scholars and first released in 1996.  Continual refinements and recent improvements have made this translation very easy to access and study, especially if you do computer-based bible research.   It is completely free to use online or to download, or if you prefer a hardcopy this can be purchased.   Although there are some big names involved in the development of the translation, let's focus on the Author of the scriptures rather than the men who are the scholars and instrument of God:  2 Tim 3:16, "Every scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (NET)

Lumina is the measure of light being radiated in all directions from a solitary source.   It is appropriate that the NET Bible calls it's interface page "Lumina".   The NET Bible can be directly accessed at the Lumina interface here:  https://lumina.bible.org

The Lumina interface provides for comprehensive searches, selection of any scripture, daily bible readings, scholarly notes and provision to make and record your own.   The daily bible readings are structured for reading the entire bible in a year (or 90 days if you prefer!)   You can customise your homescreen to exclude non-scriptural headings, chapter and verse numbers.  In a parallel column, you can select commentary notes, Dr. Thomas Constable's notes, maps, original language text and parallel bibles.

I could set out to do a critical review of the NET Bible, but it has already been done by many others.  Here is a fairly balanced review by a critic named Michael Marlowe if you want to dig deeper into the translation.  In places, Marlowe seems to attempt to discredit the translation, especially in his comments about the source of the translators, but in doing so he actually paints it in a pretty good light.   http://www.bible-researcher.com/net.html  (The NET Bible has 22 editors and translators;  17 are or have been professors at Dallas Theological Seminary, and another 5 were students there).

My blogspot today does not seek to endorse the NET Bible translation, or Marlowe's review; simply to highlight the NET to you as an option for study.   I have found that the NET Bible is a very credible translation.

The downloads page is here:  https://bible.org/article/net-bible-download.  You can also download the NET Bible phone App (Lumina) and the Olive Tree Bible App in the App Store or here:  https://www.olivetree.com/store/home.php?cat=262&language=1&sort=title_popular&free=on.