Posts Tagged: Accordance software

God’s Specific Likes about Us

On April 25, 2025 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

God pulled off a surprise love attack on me this morning. God lured me into the trap in a quite trivial way. I thought I would start my day, not by grading students’ assignments, but by reading and meditating on some Scripture. By the way, I am not saying that reading Scripture is trivial. The triviality was connected with the way in which God pulled off his Surprise.

I had started reading through the book of 1 Peter the other day. I got stuck in verse 1 of chapter 1, doing a word study on the word “exiles”. (I am thinking about writing a book. Tentative title: Slow Reading: How to Not Finish Any Book.)

So, I started reading (again!) verse 1. I am proud to report that I have finished 1 Peter 1:1! (Ain’t I special?) However, it was upon reading the following words that God bushwacked me with his divine love: “Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bythinia.” You don’t get it? I don’t blame you! But stick with me.

I knew that these were the names of Roman provinces and that they were in what is now Turkey. But I couldn’t remember precisely where they were, so I went to my Accordance software. It has so much good stuff in it, most of which I don’t know about.  I don’t even know how to navigate to it.

But I did find the map I was looking for—eventually. I scrolled down past all kind of interesting tables, charts, and maps. I was filled with joy at what an abundance of information I have literally at my fingertips. And then I thought about the abundance of wonderful people I’ve gotten to know (at least a little) over my lifetime. How incredibly wealthy I am, I thought to myself. God has been so good to me!

And then, I heard from God. “You haven’t seen anything yet, kid! I have all of eternity with you to show you interesting stuff.”

Now, I knew that this was indeed the voice of God, because the kind and loving tone of this remark is the hallmark of God’s communications to me. It is not the voice that I usually hear. The voices inside my head usually have some pretty cruel things to say to me.

But God wasn’t quite finished speaking yet. “And also, my dear child, I like and love how you are curious about and grateful for almost everything.”

Now, you may find it almost impossible to believe, but I have never in my life thought that God both liked and loved any particular thing about me. The idea (and it was just that, an idea) that God loves me was a general theological notion that I kind of, sort of believed. Now, however, the reality of the specificity of God’s love for me filled my entire body with light.

But God still wasn’t finished. “My child, there is actually a lot that I like and love about you.”

And you know what, my dear reader? The same is true for you and for everything else that God has made.

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“ON BEING ASKED TO TEACH SOME CLASSES AND BEING IN OVER MY HEAD”

On August 16, 2018 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

Have you ever felt—at the same time—great joy and great fear?  If so, you will understand the following e mail that I just sent to my twelve-step sponsor.  It consists of a report (“No violations,” in this case) and my affirmation for the day (in bold print).

“Dear Bob,

No violations.

Today, by God’s grace and with God’s help, I am consistency in doing triage and doing what I can do, rather than the perfect stuff that I wish I could do.

The affirmation requires a bit of unpacking, I think.

This past Friday, I got an e mail from the dean at Cincinnati Christian, asking me if I would be interested in teaching some classes.  They involved helping students (master level and perhaps also undergrad) to understand a bit about Hebrew and Greek by means of software.  Of course, I was tremendously thrilled with this, and said of course.

I met with the dean yesterday, and while I am still thrilled, there are some problems, none of which are unsolvable.  However, in the interest of getting current (as well as in the interest of unpacking the affirmation), I will list them.  Then, I will solve them as best I can, one at a time.

  1.  The undergrad course begins on August 27 of this year!
  2.  I am using Accordance software applications, rather than BibleWorks.  I am fairly used to BibleWorks, but not Accordance.  However, I have downloaded Accordance onto my computer already, and am beginning the learn it.
  3.  There is a very rough draft a syllabus, but I’m going have to develop my own in a hurry.
  4. I have not read the only book that is required for the course.
  5. I’m scared.

This is the sort of class that I have dreamed about teaching.  I can do this, and do it well.  However, I need to be consistency—not just consistent, but consistency!

However, consistency is not perfection, and I need to do a good job of triage on what I can do in the length of time I have to do it, with my current understanding of the Bible and technology, and with the students I have.

Perhaps the fifth thing that I listed above is the most important: I’m scared.  I plan to let fear drive me in a good direction and at an appropriate pace, but only God is capable of leading me to be a really good instructor.  That is because God Himself is the most “teacherly” of teachers.”

(You might also want to read another post I wrote, “DTEB, “IN OVER MY HEAD”.  It would appear that I feel overwhelmed quite a bit of the time!)

 

 

 

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