The Take Action Bible: A Review

In short: I like it. The purpose of this edition of the bible is summarized in the headline at the top of the back cover: "Put the word of God into action". And it gives you plenty of ideas how to do exactly that. Besides the expected biblical text, it includes several stories about different modern-day people who heard the call of God and answered, in the form of giving, going, serving, or otherwise presenting their lives to God for His purposes.

At the end is a list of 52 suggestions (one for each week of the year) for how readers can make a difference in their community for the advancement of the Gospel. Each suggestion has an accompanying bible verse. This edition also includes a bible-reading plan.

Of course, there are the usual things one would like to have a bible to have: red letters for Jesus' words, a concordance, maps, and helpful notes and cross-references throughout.

(The Take Action Bible, published by Thomas Nelson, is a paperback New King James bible, a free copy of which was provided to me for review purposes.)

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Saying goodbye to one set of twins, and hello to another

"It's been ten whole years already? Wow! Hard to believe." Many a father will say something like that while shaking his head in disbelief, when his oldest approaches the 10th birthday. It's a milestone, not just for the kid, but for the parents. It's a head-shaker because I am reminded that on that day, 10 years ago, my life changed forever. In some ways, it has passed very quickly. In other ways, it seems like it's been every bit of ten years. There are two distinct things, though, about the ten-year anniversary of my dadhood. The first is that I became a father of not one, but two little bundles of joy that Tuesday morning. Abby was born at 8:48, followed by her brother Jacob at 8:50. The second is that their birth marked some rare joy in the midst of the darkest day in our nation's history. As my wife was in labor, a nurse came in and told us that an airplane had crashed into a skyscraper in New York. I turned on the labor room...

Embarrassing video clip--John Cougar

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The Two Christmases

As I walked through the front door of the Post Office to make my stamp purchase, I was faced with a choice. On my left was a vending machine, and to my right was the customer service desk, where I could make the purchase from actual human beings. Because there was no line at the moment, I chose the human interaction. I strolled up to the middle-aged, slightly balding postal employee, read that his name was "Rex", and I asked for two books of stamps. As it was mid-December, Rex asked me "would you like Christmas stamps, or...". Once I realized he wasn't about to complete the sentence, I looked down and saw that he was holding some very un-Christmas-like stamps bearing images of the Liberty Bell and the word "Forever." Knowing that my wife had planned to mail several Christmas cards, I told him "One of each." To my surprise, the decision-making did not stop there. Rex hit me with a follow-up: he held up two types of stamps: one had a pi...

Middletree

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