The response to our request for assistance was incredible, and we thank all of you that were able to help. We are in the clear to go into the new year and start off with our banning auction which helps fund the rest of the year. This will keep us from being in this position again God willing. Thank you with much appreciation.

For details on the giveaway please read the very bottom of the post. Only comments made at the World of Apple publication of this review will be entered for a chance to win a free copy.



Accordance by OakTree Software is one of those massively powerful programs that causes me to think, "Where to begin?" Let's start with introductions. Readers, Accordance 8 is a highly flexible and in-depth program for studying the Bible, commentaries, and related reference tools—including maps—with the ability to conduct extraordinarily complex searches. Its functions meet the needs of the layperson up through the scholar starting with simple translation comparisons all the way to delving into the original languages behind the English translations of the text. Those two sentences, however, do not do this program justice. As I have stated in the past, I am a fairly new Mac convert, joining the cult family in about May 2007 after nearly twenty years of Windows usage since Windows 3.1. Prior to my switch, my Biblical software of choice was the very popular Logos program—particularly the Scholar's Library. Logos did the job, but I did not find it particularly intuitive—and no matter how useful a program may be once mastered, if mastery becomes a chore, I lose interest and motivation. This is why I remain a mediocre Photoshop user. Although there are a ton of resources and conventions and blah, blah, blah to learn the program, I do not care for any software that requires the time of maintaining a second husband to understand. This fact does, however, have to be balanced with the reality that complex programs do have a learning curve, but a good developer will minimize that curve as much as possible and thoroughly equip the user with tools to quickly navigate that painful period. I am very pleased to report that Accordance has done this with true faithfulness to continuity with the Macintosh GUI. While I had recently learned that Logos is being developed for the Macintosh platform, and my (expensive) license is transferable, unless something has greatly changed with their user interface, I do not anticipate ceasing... [Read More]

Temporary Vs. Eternal

One of the great contrasts we make in Christianity is that while we realize we live in a fallen world, that that will change. This world is not meant to be around forever as it is. My eschatological position is that God will restore this world to a beauty and grandeur that far surpasses Eden. Even if you don’t hold a view exactly as mine, which is the right view by the way, (winks) we all believe in some heavenly afterlife (Although I prefer to call it after-death) that will be far better than this.

The problem is that we often lose sight of that. Granted that being a Christian is not about going to Heaven, but it is part of the package. What brought this to my mind most recently was an event that started probably around a year ago. A friend contacted me worried about their friendship with another mutual friend of ours and thinking “We’ve really messed it up! It’s just not going to last!”

I gave some words of comfort at the time that I do not recall, but several months later started pondering about temporary vs. eternal. I contacted this friend again and just said out of the blue “How are things going between you and X?”

“Fine. Why?”

Then I reminded this friend of what had happened months earlier and how it turned out to be nothing. This friend had seen a circumstance and for the moment, that seemed to eclipse all of reality. It had stepped out of being a “now” event to being an “all-time” event.

Some might think I’m chiding my friend or looking down on them. I’m not. If there’s one point that needs to be stated clearly about my relationship to this article, it is the old adage of “Those who can’t do, teach.” I am not the best at practicing what I teach, but I believe many in the Christian community in teaching would say the same.

Paul was one who realized the truth about looking at the temporary with a mindset of the eternal. (By eternal often here, I mean the heavenly worldview. We do not live an eternity, as we have a beginning, but we do live forever.) In 2 Cor. 4:17-18, we read these words of his:

17For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Notice that term that he uses here. “Light and momentary... [Read More]