By Matthew Elliot
“Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” (Matt 22:36)
An “expert in religious law,” backed up by the Pharisees, poses this seemingly innocent question to Jesus in an attempt to trap him. Will he agree that some laws are greater than others? Jesus’ answer thwarts their expectations and overturns their religiosity: (more…)
We’ve heard your feedback, and we’re excited to announce what we’ve created in response.
This past quarter we have been busy launching three products to equip the Church to grow in the light of the Bible and also enhance your ministry:
We’ve built these tools with your feedback in mind and are confident you will love what you see. But we also want to hear how we can serve you better. Please follow the group at Faithlife.com and share with us today, then keep reading to learn about other ways we are working to come alongside you in ministry.
Thanks for being with us,
– Bob Pritchett
We know churches desire to be good financial stewards. And because online giving is the future of tithing, we’ve introduced Faithlife Giving, an electronic platform for givers to gift funds to churches and nonprofit ministries.
Churches will benefit from simple, streamlined budgeting with electronic records, saving time and effort. Donors can give through their desktop or mobile device with a single or recurring donation and easily add funds to different events—or split funds between events.
And because it’s integrated with Faithlife Groups, givers can get more involved in mission while supporting their church. How can we help your church give more cheerfully? Let us know in the Faithlife Giving community.
Another new product, Faithlife Sites, helps churches easily build and maintain websites. This integrated website platform automatically updates a church’s website based on information such as the church calendar, smart photo galleries, and most recent sermon. It’s built for community and so easy you barely have to touch it.
Join the Faithlife Sites group, and learn from others who are using Faithlife Sites.
More churches and individuals are leveraging Faithlife Groups to communicate activities and build relationships across their church community. A Faithlife Group supplements individual and community experiences with faith-based books, films, and images to help you go deeper in Bible study.
Unique to Faithlife Groups are prayer requests, events, and newsletters. And the Faithlife Groups app allows you to connect with your community on the go! Groups can be public or private, and items can be shared within those groups to foster a community that’s always connected.
Are you already using Faithlife Groups in a creative way? Post your story here. Or create a free group for your church or Bible study group today on Faithlife.com.
We know how hard you work but also how much time administrative activities take. That’s why we are working on creating a new suite of products that will strengthen relationships across your staff and whole congregation to help you fulfill your mission—and give you back time to do what you do best: ministry. Stay tuned for when this product goes public.
Logos 7 Fundamentals is a brand-new Logos package that helps anybody deepen their Bible study, no matter their skill level. It offers the breadth of what a good Bible study library should have, including dictionaries and encyclopedias, commentaries, word study resources, theology resources, devotionals, and more. Purposefully lean, Logos 7 Fundamentals is perfect for anybody who wants to deepen their Bible study on a budget.
Where can you find solid biblical content that will deepen your Christian walk without overwhelming you? Meet Faithlife Connect, a single subscription to hundreds of Christian resources—videos, Bible study tools, courses, Logos, ebooks, and Bible Study Magazine—as well as exclusive discounts. Check out everything included in Faithlife Connect, and be sure to let us know what you think by posting in the Connect group.
It’s here! Bible Study Magazine is now available digitally in a new Logos format. You’ll enjoy the same sound advice, tools, and methods for Bible study from pastors, professors, historians, and archaeologists as in the print version. What articles have you recently enjoyed in Bible Study Magazine? Follow the group and share them in a post.
The Faithlife Ministry Relations team will be at a number of conferences in the summer months including the Young Leaders Conference in Atlanta, GA on August 2–4. Stop by our booth. We’d love to see you!
Comparably provides accurate and comprehensive compensation and culture data to understand employees’ true value and needs to make work better. Recently, Comparably awarded Faithlife three Comparably 2018 Culture Awards:
We’re always looking for talented, awesome, fun employees. Interested? Join our team!
Our goal is to build products that help you grow in the light of the Bible and give you back time to do what you do best: ministry. We’re hearing you like what you see—but we want to know how we can serve you better.
Follow Faithlife.com today and let us know what kinds of products and tools will help you grow in the light of the Bible.
The January/February issue of Bible Study Magazine features J.D. Greear—pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. In college, Greear’s study of Romans 2 led him to a life-altering realization: “Paul talks about those who are not under the law still being held responsible for the law because God has given the law to them on their hearts. Suddenly my heart understood that there were a couple billion people out there who had never heard the name of Jesus but were still responsible under the law.”
This realization propelled him toward seminary, and years later, he’s a pastor of a big church with an even bigger emphasis on sending missionaries.
In Jessi Strong’s interview with Greear, he explained why sending capacity matters more than seating capacity:
The November/December issue of Bible Study Magazine features Nabeel Qureshi—an itinerant speaker with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and bestselling author of Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus.
Qureshi was raised in a close-knit Pakistani-American family devoted to Islam—so when he became convinced of the truth of the Bible and the claims of the Christian faith, he knew everything would change. “I knew from studying the Gospels that I was called to give up everything. Jesus says in Matthew 10, ‘He who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.’ ”
In Jessi Strong’s interview with Qureshi, he opened up about some of the barriers he faced in his conversion to Christianity:
“In responding to the gospel, Qureshi realized his relationship with his family presented two barriers to Christian faith. The first was intellectual. From an early age, he had been taught Islamic apologetics—he learned to defend his minority faith in a majority Christian context. ‘Islam and Christianity teach such disparate things, and my parents needed a way to teach their son—who was growing up in the United States—to hold his beliefs against Christian teachings. I was taught Bible verses that seemed to argue against the deity of Jesus. One was Mark 13:32, where Jesus talks about no one knowing the day or the hour of the end of times, “not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Qureshi had to re-examine everything he had long assumed to be fact.
The second barrier was social. Even before he seriously considered Christianity, Qureshi knew how devastating his conversion would be to his parents. His close ties with them stemmed from their Eastern, communal-minded family structure—compounded by the isolation they experienced living as a minority race, religion, and culture in the U.S. To describe Qureshi’s family as devout doesn’t truly portray their religious legacy: “My mom was a missionary kid who grew up in Indonesia, where my grandfather preached to tribes in the jungles. My great-grandfather was a missionary and physician in Uganda. From a social perspective, there were two things that gave my parents a sense of respect and standing in the Muslim community: the family legacy and their children. My conversion would mean taking everything away from them.”
While in college and medical school, one of Qureshi’s Christian friends challenged him to examine the Bible more seriously to see if its claims could be verified. It took years, but he began to respect the Bible as a historical document—even before he recognized Jesus as God. “We know through biblical archaeology that some of the things Luke mentioned were not corroborated until archaeological digs confirmed them. I came to the conclusion that they had compelling historical truths. I researched textual transmission, wanting to find out if what the Bible says today is what the Bible has always said. We have so many manuscripts of the New Testament in ancient Greek that we can be very confident in our reading of its text. Understanding the nature of the evidence began to change my perspective on the reliability of the Bible.”
As his respect for the Bible grew, Qureshi began to look more closely at the Gospel of Mark’s claims about Jesus. “Muslim apologists will usually say that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, but he didn’t claim to be God. They expect Jesus to identify himself using certain words. It’s not a bad expectation, given how God identifies himself in the Old Testament. In Isaiah 45:22, for example, God very powerfully says, ‘I am God, and there is no other.’ When he meets Moses in Exodus 3:14, Moses asks him who he is, and God says, ‘I am that I am’—in other words, ‘I eternally exist.’ ””
Read the rest of Nabeel’s story in the November/December issue of Bible Study Magazine—subscribe today and get 30% off the cover price!
BibleStudyMagazine.com got a makeover—and a new blog!
Check it out.
When you can turn to the Bible for anything, where do you begin?
Bible Study Magazine offers unique insights, study methods, and step-by-step Bible studies to help you dig deep into the Word and apply it to your life.
Each issue of Bible Study Magazine offers inspiring stories and studies from notable Christian leaders. Each issue also hones in on a biblical book or theme, helping you focus your study.
Biblical scholars offer guidance as they walk with you through challenging passages. Consider ancient contexts, pick apart Greek and Hebrew terms (without knowing the original languages!), and discover repeated themes you may have missed before. Poignant devotionals prompt you to interact personally with the text. And stunning infographics help you grasp and remember difficult concepts.
The new and improved BibleStudyMagazine.com features some of the latest stories from each issue giving you a sense of what you’ll be getting if you subscribe to the magazine!
On BibleStudyMagazine.com, you’ll find:
The cover story of each issue, featuring the influences of the biggest names in biblical scholarship and the church. Some of our latest cover stories include interviews with Eric Mason and Philip Yancey.
Feature stories with a global focus. What does Bible study and discipleship look like in India, Russia, or Palestine? Discover stories of Christian leaders who are bringing the Gospel in various places around the globe.
Exclusive content and infographics that will reveal the theme of the issue. You’ll get a sense of the multiple Bible study tips, tricks, and insights we offer in each issue!
What’s more—we will be keeping a backlog of articles published on the site at BibleStudyMagazine.com/Extras. Explore this page and you will find past articles and stunning interactives!
We will be regularly updating BibleStudyMagazine.com with blog content and new articles every time we release an issue. You’ll find exclusive interviews with cover authors, additional articles, and other exclusive Bible Study Magazine deals.
Sign up to receive weekly updates on the latest issue, blog updates, new Bible study tips, and Bible study insights from Christian leaders and Bible teachers!
For over five years, Bible Study Magazine has been encouraging individual relationships with God by equipping personal Bible study. Every issue features articles and interviews with biblical scholars and pastors, like John Piper, N. T. Wright, and Josh McDowell. You’ll also get Bible study tips and tools, ongoing devotionals, reading plans, and topical studies. To top it off, each issue gives you Hebrew and Greek word studies, info on historical and archaeological findings related to Scripture, wisdom from the Church Fathers, reviews of recently published books and commentaries, and infographics that show you the Bible’s world.
Simply put, Bible Study Magazine brings you closer to God’s Word.
Subscribe to Bible Study Magazine now and you’ll receive our May and June issue, which features the views of Kevin DeYoung (member of The Gospel Coalition and pastor at University Reformed Church) on the foundations of Bible study in our lives. DeYoung encourages us to guard our rest and daily time in God’s Word in the midst of our busy schedules, saying “Bible study isn’t just a vocational responsibility; it’s a necessity we have as Christians, and it’s what we need today in order to know God better.” He also discusses Scripture memorization and the process of learning to love Scripture.
You’ll also get details from the recent archaeological discovery of the first-century Magdala synagogue. Synagogues were the primary venue for Jesus’ ministry (John 18:20); the article discusses Jesus as a teacher, treating the historical purposes of such synagogues and providing both images of the Magdala synagogue and an immensely helpful infographic to simplify the learning.
Bible Study Magazine gives you all this and more. Subscribe now for only $19.95—33% off the cover price—and you’ll receive a full year of issues, including our detailed May–June issue!
Know the Bible better: subscribe to Bible Study Magazine today.