Further to the script I whipped up for daily Bible reading, I’ve generated some more data sets corresponding to the other plans listed on the Bible Gateway. I’ve only done the full year plans, as mucking around with shorter ones wasn’t something I wanted myself, and are tricky to get to fit. If there’s demand, I can make others, or you can copy the syntax and generate your own plans.
To use any one of these, download the archive and replace your current data file with your choice of the following:
- DailyReadingPassages-OTNT.txt – this is the file included in the applescript utility in the previous post. Read through both the Old and New Testaments concurrently.
- DailyReadingPassages-TNKNT.txt – this is a modification of the OT/NT pattern, but the Old Testament progresses according to the Hebrew canonical ordering, not the English ordering (’Torah‘, the Pentateuch, ‘Nevi’im‘, the Prophets, and ‘Ketuvim‘, the Writings – Tanakh, for short).
- DailyReadingPassages-Beginning.txt – this plan simply starts at the beginning and reads straight through to the end of the Bible (English ordering).
- DailyReadingPassages-Historical.txt – this plan orders the readings according to the events within the passages, arranged in chronological order from creation onwards. I’m not sure how the dating was done (there’s lots of places where dates are contested, or unknown), so maybe take this with a grain of salt at points.
- DailyReadingPassages-Chronological.txt – finally, this plan is arranged by date of composition. Again, I don’t know the reasoning behind some of the decisions; I’m assuming a conservative set of dates apply.
Enjoy.
And get reading.
[image credit – flickr:Steve Keys]
Just the other day Stan pointed out, quite rightly, that reading the Bible can easily take second place to reading other things, like blogs and news feeds.
One solution that may be a good one is to subscribe to the news feed of the Bible Gateway’s Daily Reading plans – that way, while you’re reading all the other stuff each morning, you’ve got a chapter or three of the Bible to read as well. There’s a few different plans to choose from (although for my money it looks like the Old/New Testament plan is the best option).
I tried this for a sum total of two days before my frustrations with it got the better of me.
First, my news reader isn’t a great place to read the Bible. The font isn’t quite right, and all my instincts born of skimming scores of news posts each morning militates against attentive reading. Second, the feed (I assume) is made with the US in mind, so it arrives here at 3pm. That means it’s not fresh each morning. Third, I have good bible software on my machine already.
These aren’t huge problems. But it’s not quite right, and I’m a stickler for getting things working nicely (just in case you hadn’t noticed).
So, I came up with another solution. I’ve got an alarm that goes off in iCal at 6am each morning (that is, before I open my machine, so it actually triggers as soon as I log in). This alarm runs a little app I wrote which works out the passage(s) for the day, and brings them up in Accordance, laid out with the Hebrew and Greek beside the English for good measure, so I can see what’s going on more deeply if I want to. So far, it’s working well.
If you’d like to grab this script and set it up for your machine, keep reading for details.
read more…
Elissa’s getting baptised.
(Finally.)
July 26th,[1] 10am sharp. Baptisms usually happen at the start of the service, so if you’re late you might miss it.
Minchinbury Anglican Church – 86 Rupertswood Rd, Rooty Hill.
We’d love to have you along (assuming you don’t have church commitments, although I’m sure many of you do). If you are able, please bring along something to share for morning tea after church.
Oh, and if you’re tempted to bring along a present, please don’t. Really. And truly.
Drop me a line if you’d like more info (e.g. to ask what on earth we’re doing and why, to say you’re coming, etc.).
Yup, the day before Kristy’s birthday. Timing, huh?
(modified, via Alfréd Rényi/Paul Erdös)
A minister is a machine for turning coffee into pastoral ministry.
A bunch of Christians who play Ultimate Frisbee got together recently and chucked around ideas that might help establish and grow a community of Christians in the sport. There are other Christian people around who play, but we don’t all know each other, and many find the culture at tournaments a little difficult at times to reconcile with their faith and practice.
I was in on that discussion.
To get things rolling, we’ve put together a site and a web forum as a means of helping people find out who other Christians are, chat, organise to meet up at tournaments, pray for one another, and a bunch of other things. It may go in different directions. We’ll see.
The aims that we chucked around were the following:
- Get discussions running on any questions about the Christian faith
- Get to know other Christians in the frisbee community.
- Give each other some accountability during tournaments. (Not in a bad way, but you know)
- Ask about how to handle situations that come up regarding conflicts between frisbee and faith
- Introduce topics for study, ie. we could have continuous threads running about various sections of the bible
- Have general fellowship with each other
- Make online prayer requests… if that’s not too awkward for people.
- Introduce new people to the concepts and beliefs of Christianity
- Challenge each other to really show God’s love to everyone!
It’s kinda primarily aimed at those who play at a tournament level, but open to anyone in the frisbee scene. No, you don’t have to be a Christian to join (but understand that this is what we’re on about).
If this sounds like something you might be keen to be a part of, check it out. Sign up, contribute.
And let me know what you think.
Good essay on the cult of princess for girls.
The relentless resegregation of childhood appears to have sneaked up without any further discussion about sex roles, about what it now means to be a boy or to be a girl. Or maybe it has happened in lieu of such discussion because it’s easier this way.
Ben and Sally just had their second daughter, Rose Ellen Bathgate.
Awesome.
God is great.
Finally, I find a justification (external to my own self-justifications) for owning all these books.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb talks about Umberto Eco’s large personal library (containing thirty thousand books) in the introduction of part one of The Black Swan [via kottke.org]:
… a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allow you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.
I don’t quite have 30,000 books. I do, however, have a few Eco books that I haven’t yet read.
All evidence points to the fact that broccoli is cruel. So bad that she rejects the yoghurt peace offering.
