Podcasts about read to me daily

Greetings friends to this end of the year podcast! Before I share my own stories, I want to give you our last two Listener Stories for 2020, one from Tom and another from Tammy. I think Tammy’s story is especially interesting because the Coronavirus pandemic had a big impact on her. I think her story will resonate with many of you.  Hello, my name is Tammy.  I recently retired from being a principal and before that a school teacher, a job I had done and loved for over 30 years.  I had oodles of plans for what I was going to do, places I was going to go and things I was really looking forward to doing-  like working with children at our church this summer.  When COVID hit and closed down school as we knew it on March 13, 2020, my life really changed.  I didn’t get to say goodbye to my students, parents and staff, it just all ended that Friday in March.  I was really struggling with what to me felt like a major loss. (This is in no way to disrespect those that have had greater losses due to COVID.) I was talking to my husband explaining how I was feeling such an absence of being needed and like I was just wandering looking for what I was supposed to be doing with my life at this time.  My sweet husband said some very wise words to me.  He said, “Tammy, I believe God is just giving you this down time to recharge you and prepare you for what He has planned next for you to do for Him.  Take this time and use it to its best.”  While I knew he was right, I have to say I DON’T  do down time well.  When you work 60 hours a week for oodles of years and have people consistently needing things from you, to have that come to a screeching halt, really put me off kilter.   I was struggling trying to figure out what God wanted me to do.  Then one morning in my devotion time God put on my heart that I have been wanting to complete a read through the Bible in a year program for a long time.  Even though it was August, I thought, this doesn’t have to wait until January to be a New Year’s Resolution, it can be my New Life Resolution. What a blessing this decision has been!  I looked at all different types of programs.  I found Digging Deeper Daily and liked the explanation of how this program was laid out. I wanted to learn about the “threads that unify the message of the Old and New Testaments”. I also like the fact that there were brief devotional notes that I thought would help me see the connections clearer.   I started this journey on August 20th and upon hearing the first reading, I fell in love with this journey.  Phil’s voice was so calming and yet assured in what he was saying and reading.  The brief stories he shares of his work as a Bible translator make me feel like I have a new friend.  This adventure has helped me grow daily in my understanding of God’s word.   Being a Christian since a child, I had heard many stories from the bible, now I understand more deeply what was happening before, during and after those isolated events.  It has really helped make the Bible come to life for me.   Phil explains how he started this project as a gift to leave his grandchildren.  He wanted to read the entire bible to them.  I feel his love each morning as I listen to him read and explain the daily passage, its as if for those brief moments I have been adopted into his family.  This has not only been a way for me to learn more about the Bible, grow closer to God, but also to feel like I am being gathered into the fold each morning.   The brief explanations at the end of the readings are so helpful.  I always look forward to the prayer Phil delivers to close the devotional time.  Often, I will replay the prayer a time or two more.  At the end of “our time together” I try to conclude with a prayer for Phil and all those doing God’s work to bring His word to the nations that don’t have the Bible yet.  This reminder of what a gift the Bible is to us, that I often take for granted because I haven’t known a time without it, has made my daily time with God even more precious.   Early on in the program, Phil was reading to us from Matthew.  When He read Matthew 11:28 which says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” I cried.  This to me reiterated what my husband told me.    I was in need of this passage.  When Phil read this verse, with such love in his voice, I felt as if it was God speaking it to me.  I needed rest, yet I wouldn’t let myself admit it.  Now, each morning I consider my time listening to Phil read God’s word as a time of rest, connection and recharging.   I can’t wait to find out what great adventure God has in store for me next, or where He needs me in this stage of life, what I do know though is that Phil Fields and Digging Deeper Daily will be on that amazing ride with me.   Thanks so much, Tammy, for your story! And with a sincere blush, I also say thanks for your kind words. I am so pleased— more than that— filled with joy, when people are able to look through the kind of one-way mirror that podcasting is, to become my friends and even adopted family.  Thanks to Tom giving me this next story. Tom is mainly a reader (not a regular podcast listener). The 3D YouVersion plan he has followed for 2020 is called Read To Me Daily. (Link given in the episode notes.) Tom is a long time friend, dating back to my music teaching days. There is one odd, totally unplanned, similarity between his story and Tammy’s. I think you will catch it. My name is Tom and I am a sixty-year-old Arkansan.  I have read through the Bible several times using different plans.  The last few times, using electronic media, such as Digging Deeper Daily, has aided me greatly through ease of access.  Reading the Bible entirely in one year gives one little time for Bible study, but I value the discipline of daily reading which stirs my thoughts and continually whets my appetite to, what else, dig deeper. I read through the Bible this year using the Amplified Bible, Classic Edition.  In the past I have used various translations and even some paraphrases and I may have been wiser to use the recommended New Living Translation or Good News Translation.  Instead, however, I wanted to use the AMPC this year to slow me down.  The many bracketed words and phrases in the AMPC which are used to further describe a translated word or passage, forced me to ponder over a word or passage and think about how an idea was being explained.  I did enjoy the New Living Translation as well as the Good News Translation versions referenced most often in the devotionals.  I found multiple translations of the same verses to be quite helpful. Most years when using a daily reading plan I plowed right past the devotional passages and read only the scripture.  This year I was determined to include reading the devotionals, again, to slow me down and to help me think about what I was reading.  I enjoyed reading the Digging Deeper Daily devotionals which often gave the translator’s perspective of a passage, citing examples of difficult passages to translate and including real-life examples of working with an indigenous people group to help them understand the Bible.  In addition to translation notes, I appreciated the occasional summaries from prior days, reminding me of an important passage, even to the point of repeating some passages over consecutive days for emphasis.  I also appreciated being prodded by the devotional to live up to its title to, here it is again, dig deeper into particular passages. I appreciated how the daily readings were divided up between Old and New Testaments, particularly saving Isaiah for the end of the calendar year with so many relevant passages for the advent season.  My favorite passage, personally, occurred late in the calendar year on September 21.  Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you.  Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” (NLT)  I am never more at peace than when I surrender to Christ’s yoke. Finally, while I spent the year in the daily reading plan rather than listening to the daily podcasts, I did enjoy utilizing the audio podcasts through the Old Testament genealogies.

Greetings friends to this end of the year podcast! Before I share my own stories, I want to give you our last two Listener Stories for 2020, one from Tom and another from Tammy. I think Tammy’s story is especially interesting because the Coronavirus pandemic had a big impact on her. I think her story will resonate with many of you.  Hello, my name is Tammy.  I recently retired from being a principal and before that a school teacher, a job I had done and loved for over 30 years.  I had oodles of plans for what I was going to do, places I was going to go and things I was really looking forward to doing-  like working with children at our church this summer.  When COVID hit and closed down school as we knew it on March 13, 2020, my life really changed.  I didn’t get to say goodbye to my students, parents and staff, it just all ended that Friday in March.  I was really struggling with what to me felt like a major loss. (This is in no way to disrespect those that have had greater losses due to COVID.) I was talking to my husband explaining how I was feeling such an absence of being needed and like I was just wandering looking for what I was supposed to be doing with my life at this time.  My sweet husband said some very wise words to me.  He said, “Tammy, I believe God is just giving you this down time to recharge you and prepare you for what He has planned next for you to do for Him.  Take this time and use it to its best.”  While I knew he was right, I have to say I DON’T  do down time well.  When you work 60 hours a week for oodles of years and have people consistently needing things from you, to have that come to a screeching halt, really put me off kilter.   I was struggling trying to figure out what God wanted me to do.  Then one morning in my devotion time God put on my heart that I have been wanting to complete a read through the Bible in a year program for a long time.  Even though it was August, I thought, this doesn’t have to wait until January to be a New Year’s Resolution, it can be my New Life Resolution. What a blessing this decision has been!  I looked at all different types of programs.  I found Digging Deeper Daily and liked the explanation of how this program was laid out. I wanted to learn about the “threads that unify the message of the Old and New Testaments”. I also like the fact that there were brief devotional notes that I thought would help me see the connections clearer.   I started this journey on August 20th and upon hearing the first reading, I fell in love with this journey.  Phil’s voice was so calming and yet assured in what he was saying and reading.  The brief stories he shares of his work as a Bible translator make me feel like I have a new friend.  This adventure has helped me grow daily in my understanding of God’s word.   Being a Christian since a child, I had heard many stories from the bible, now I understand more deeply what was happening before, during and after those isolated events.  It has really helped make the Bible come to life for me.   Phil explains how he started this project as a gift to leave his grandchildren.  He wanted to read the entire bible to them.  I feel his love each morning as I listen to him read and explain the daily passage, its as if for those brief moments I have been adopted into his family.  This has not only been a way for me to learn more about the Bible, grow closer to God, but also to feel like I am being gathered into the fold each morning.   The brief explanations at the end of the readings are so helpful.  I always look forward to the prayer Phil delivers to close the devotional time.  Often, I will replay the prayer a time or two more.  At the end of “our time together” I try to conclude with a prayer for Phil and all those doing God’s work to bring His word to the nations that don’t have the Bible yet.  This reminder of what a gift the Bible is to us, that I often take for granted because I haven’t known a time without it, has made my daily time with God even more precious.   Early on in the program, Phil was reading to us from Matthew.  When He read Matthew 11:28 which says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” I cried.  This to me reiterated what my husband told me.    I was in need of this passage.  When Phil read this verse, with such love in his voice, I felt as if it was God speaking it to me.  I needed rest, yet I wouldn’t let myself admit it.  Now, each morning I consider my time listening to Phil read God’s word as a time of rest, connection and recharging.   I can’t wait to find out what great adventure God has in store for me next, or where He needs me in this stage of life, what I do know though is that Phil Fields and Digging Deeper Daily will be on that amazing ride with me.   Thanks so much, Tammy, for your story! And with a sincere blush, I also say thanks for your kind words. I am so pleased— more than that— filled with joy, when people are able to look through the kind of one-way mirror that podcasting is, to become my friends and even adopted family.  Thanks to Tom giving me this next story. Tom is mainly a reader (not a regular podcast listener). The 3D YouVersion plan he has followed for 2020 is called Read To Me Daily. (Link given in the episode notes.) Tom is a long time friend, dating back to my music teaching days. There is one odd, totally unplanned, similarity between his story and Tammy’s. I think you will catch it. My name is Tom and I am a sixty-year-old Arkansan.  I have read through the Bible several times using different plans.  The last few times, using electronic media, such as Digging Deeper Daily, has aided me greatly through ease of access.  Reading the Bible entirely in one year gives one little time for Bible study, but I value the discipline of daily reading which stirs my thoughts and continually whets my appetite to, what else, dig deeper. I read through the Bible this year using the Amplified Bible, Classic Edition.  In the past I have used various translations and even some paraphrases and I may have been wiser to use the recommended New Living Translation or Good News Translation.  Instead, however, I wanted to use the AMPC this year to slow me down.  The many bracketed words and phrases in the AMPC which are used to further describe a translated word or passage, forced me to ponder over a word or passage and think about how an idea was being explained.  I did enjoy the New Living Translation as well as the Good News Translation versions referenced most often in the devotionals.  I found multiple translations of the same verses to be quite helpful. Most years when using a daily reading plan I plowed right past the devotional passages and read only the scripture.  This year I was determined to include reading the devotionals, again, to slow me down and to help me think about what I was reading.  I enjoyed reading the Digging Deeper Daily devotionals which often gave the translator’s perspective of a passage, citing examples of difficult passages to translate and including real-life examples of working with an indigenous people group to help them understand the Bible.  In addition to translation notes, I appreciated the occasional summaries from prior days, reminding me of an important passage, even to the point of repeating some passages over consecutive days for emphasis.  I also appreciated being prodded by the devotional to live up to its title to, here it is again, dig deeper into particular passages. I appreciated how the daily readings were divided up between Old and New Testaments, particularly saving Isaiah for the end of the calendar year with so many relevant passages for the advent season.  My favorite passage, personally, occurred late in the calendar year on September 21.  Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you.  Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” (NLT)  I am never more at peace than when I surrender to Christ’s yoke. Finally, while I spent the year in the daily reading plan rather than listening to the daily podcasts, I did enjoy utilizing the audio podcasts through the Old Testament genealogies.

Hi Friend! Here’s my news: First, I have attached a little image which I hope you will download from the episode notes to this podcast, our Facebook page, or the BibleReaders.info forum. I hope that you will share this image in whatever social media platform you use. Let’s pray that the simple message of this picture will cause someone to stop mindlessly scrolling and stop to read the message: “Read the Bible this year.” Let’s pray that the Lord will plant this message in the minds of those whom He is calling. Let’s pray for lives to be transformed in 2020 because of your sharing this simple message. Secondly, if you happen to be good at making share-able pictures, please make any kind of imaginative graphic that we can use to promote the Daily Bible Reading Podcast or our YouVersion Bible reading plans. Please send them to me via the contact link found in this episode’s notes. An easy way to make such a graphic would be to make a verse picture inside of the YouVersion Bible app. When you share your picture with your friends, please include our web address (dailybiblereading.info) in your message. And I hope you will share a personal recommendation also. Any new graphics I receive will be posted at our forum, BibleReaders.info. If you visit that site by manually typing in the address, click on the portal link in the site menu to see the newest posts.  In the last two weeks, I have revised the 365-day Digging Deeper Daily YouVersion reading plan. Lots of improvements have been made in the devotional pages. This is the best YouVersion plan to use if you want to read the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan while listening to the podcasts for each day. I have also revised one half of the first semester of the Read To Me Daily reading plan. I have also revised the Read This First pages at our website that are for new readers or listeners using the 3D reading plan. In my last news update of each year, I always try to share information about the best one-year full-Bible reading podcasts out there. I am surprised NOT to find more good ones to choose from! I don’t recommend listening to my voice for multiple years in a row. Here are some great options to consider for your next year of Bible reading: The first one, Dailyaudiobible.com with Brian Hardin is the oldest and biggest in this genre. They have a very active on-line community that shares in mission projects and prays for one another, and this makes it so people keep following his daily podcasts year after year. Unlike my podcasts, Brian and his family produce the Daily Audio Bible series new and fresh every year! This collection of podcasts includes products for children and in different languages. I consider the dailyaudiobible to be— in an odd way— an online church. If you cannot attend a local church, you might find the online interaction and the sharing of prayer requests a wonderful thing. I listened to the dailyaudiobible throughout 2012 on the advice of a friend in Jakarta. This is the audio Bible that gave me the idea to do my own podcast.  The second one is Daily Radio Bible with Hunter Barnes. Hunter’s podcasts are in many ways like Brian Hardin’s. I think that he also is recording the Bible afresh each year. I have only listened to 1-2 of Hunter’s podcasts. They seem good.  And THIS is a new one for me to recommend this year: I think some of you might really like the YouVersion audio reading plan named Bible in One Year 2020 by Nicky Gumbel, who is a pastor in London, England. There are also dedicated apps for this plan for Android, Apple, and even Amazon devices. The web site for this is http://www.bibleinoneyear.org/. I note with a little bemusement that Pastor Nicky and his wife Pippa were able to get past YouVersion’s length limit for devotional content. Their first day’s devotional has 4 times the normal YouVersion limit for devotional content. So if you choose to listen to the audio content for this reading plan, it will probably take you 35 to 45 minutes per day. (My podcasts average 24 minutes per day.) Pastor Gumbel has the advantage of having a staff of people who can help with all the production work of creating a wonderful podcast with great devotional content. You will also enjoy their British accent.  I started my no-frills Daily Bible Reading podcast reading the NLT in 2014, then I added the GNT in 2016. Each day’s podcast was done with the hope that my children and grandchildren would one day be blessed by them. We praise the Lord that our five grandchildren are doing fine spiritually at this point. Luke is the oldest, at 18 years old, and our youngest, Devin, is 3. I still hope that my podcasts will be remembered by them just when they need spiritual input, and that might be when grampa is no longer around to talk to. The motivation I have for asking YOU to share word about website, podcast, or reading plan is similar. Send out the news about the DBRP or the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan with a prayer that it will be noticed by those whom God is calling. I bet that not everyone of your Facebook or Instagram friends has their life perfectly together, spiritually speaking. They need God’s Word to be living and active in their lives. And they know you and will trust your recommendation, and God will use what you share! May the Lord bless you ‘real good’ this Christmas and in 2020! Phil & Gale

Hi Friend! Here’s my news: First, I have attached a little image which I hope you will download from the episode notes to this podcast, our Facebook page, or the BibleReaders.info forum. I hope that you will share this image in whatever social media platform you use. Let’s pray that the simple message of this picture will cause someone to stop mindlessly scrolling and stop to read the message: “Read the Bible this year.” Let’s pray that the Lord will plant this message in the minds of those whom He is calling. Let’s pray for lives to be transformed in 2020 because of your sharing this simple message. Secondly, if you happen to be good at making share-able pictures, please make any kind of imaginative graphic that we can use to promote the Daily Bible Reading Podcast or our YouVersion Bible reading plans. Please send them to me via the contact link found in this episode’s notes. An easy way to make such a graphic would be to make a verse picture inside of the YouVersion Bible app. When you share your picture with your friends, please include our web address (dailybiblereading.info) in your message. And I hope you will share a personal recommendation also. Any new graphics I receive will be posted at our forum, BibleReaders.info. If you visit that site by manually typing in the address, click on the portal link in the site menu to see the newest posts.  In the last two weeks, I have revised the 365-day Digging Deeper Daily YouVersion reading plan. Lots of improvements have been made in the devotional pages. This is the best YouVersion plan to use if you want to read the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan while listening to the podcasts for each day. I have also revised one half of the first semester of the Read To Me Daily reading plan. I have also revised the Read This First pages at our website that are for new readers or listeners using the 3D reading plan. In my last news update of each year, I always try to share information about the best one-year full-Bible reading podcasts out there. I am surprised NOT to find more good ones to choose from! I don’t recommend listening to my voice for multiple years in a row. Here are some great options to consider for your next year of Bible reading: The first one, Dailyaudiobible.com with Brian Hardin is the oldest and biggest in this genre. They have a very active on-line community that shares in mission projects and prays for one another, and this makes it so people keep following his daily podcasts year after year. Unlike my podcasts, Brian and his family produce the Daily Audio Bible series new and fresh every year! This collection of podcasts includes products for children and in different languages. I consider the dailyaudiobible to be— in an odd way— an online church. If you cannot attend a local church, you might find the online interaction and the sharing of prayer requests a wonderful thing. I listened to the dailyaudiobible throughout 2012 on the advice of a friend in Jakarta. This is the audio Bible that gave me the idea to do my own podcast.  The second one is Daily Radio Bible with Hunter Barnes. Hunter’s podcasts are in many ways like Brian Hardin’s. I think that he also is recording the Bible afresh each year. I have only listened to 1-2 of Hunter’s podcasts. They seem good.  And THIS is a new one for me to recommend this year: I think some of you might really like the YouVersion audio reading plan named Bible in One Year 2020 by Nicky Gumbel, who is a pastor in London, England. There are also dedicated apps for this plan for Android, Apple, and even Amazon devices. The web site for this is http://www.bibleinoneyear.org/. I note with a little bemusement that Pastor Nicky and his wife Pippa were able to get past YouVersion’s length limit for devotional content. Their first day’s devotional has 4 times the normal YouVersion limit for devotional content. So if you choose to listen to the audio content for this reading plan, it will probably take you 35 to 45 minutes per day. (My podcasts average 24 minutes per day.) Pastor Gumbel has the advantage of having a staff of people who can help with all the production work of creating a wonderful podcast with great devotional content. You will also enjoy their British accent.  I started my no-frills Daily Bible Reading podcast reading the NLT in 2014, then I added the GNT in 2016. Each day’s podcast was done with the hope that my children and grandchildren would one day be blessed by them. We praise the Lord that our five grandchildren are doing fine spiritually at this point. Luke is the oldest, at 18 years old, and our youngest, Devin, is 3. I still hope that my podcasts will be remembered by them just when they need spiritual input, and that might be when grampa is no longer around to talk to. The motivation I have for asking YOU to share word about website, podcast, or reading plan is similar. Send out the news about the DBRP or the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan with a prayer that it will be noticed by those whom God is calling. I bet that not everyone of your Facebook or Instagram friends has their life perfectly together, spiritually speaking. They need God’s Word to be living and active in their lives. And they know you and will trust your recommendation, and God will use what you share! May the Lord bless you ‘real good’ this Christmas and in 2020! Phil & Gale

Greetings Friends! Thanks for listening or reading this news update, which is for everyone reading the Bible— but especially to all who are following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. As always, you can find all sorts of information about this reading plan at dailybiblereading.info. That’s where to look for helpful tips to make it easy listen or read the Bible in a year. In particular, see the Read This First information linked in the site header. I praise God that the 3rd semester of the Read To Me Daily reading plan is live now in your YouVersion Bible reading app. The link for subscribing is in the episode notes. If you don’t know, this reading plan follows the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan (like my podcasts) but this is an audio plan within YouVersion. In the third semester, I read the devotional page, then the internally bundled YouVersion recordings are played for the Bible readings. Please pray for me in preparing the 4th semester, so that it will be published before people complete the 3rd semester. I haven't been posting the videos from TheBibleProject.com like I planned in email updates and at our Facebook group. But I do at least want to remind you of them. The overview videos for each Bible book that they have done are Way Better than my short comments in the podcasts. They are especially helpful for more difficult books of the Bible, like the Old Testament prophetic books. Our Facebook group is now replaced by our forum at http://biblereaders.info. Right after this news podcast goes live, I will do another podcast on What Greek text of the New Testament that I recommend. That is the Byzantine text. In my opinion, the Nestle-Aland text no longer holds up under academic scrutiny as the best text for Bible translation or serious Bible study. In my podcast notes, I will link to readable articles that support what I am saying. For me as a Bible translator, this is not a decision I have made lightly. This will mean a lot of work for me and my team in Indonesia, because we will  revise our published New Testament to match the Byzantine text by 2022. Some have asked and will ask if I will redo all my daily Bible reading podcasts. I’m sorry, I certainly won’t have time for that. But here’s what I want to do, LORD willing: I would like to make a new series of podcasts of the New Testament that will be based on a new translation of the best Greek text. These won’t be daily podcasts, and I can’t do this alone. I need some volunteers who have time to help me. If you can use online Bible study tools effectively, and think you might have a flair for expressing Bible concepts in everyday language, please use the contact link at dailybiblereading.info to email me. Here is the MOST IMPORTANT thing I want to share with you in this News update: I want to highly recommend that EVERYONE who will read this letter or listen to this podcast to see the documentary movie called American Gospel. If you don’t want to spring immediately for the two hour movie (which is well worth the $5 price), please view the free one hour video linked here. This is a very clear presentation of the TRUTH about the false gospel that is being taught in so many churches in America. Even if you feel that your church is teaching what the Bible teaches, I still urge you to see the one hour version of American Gospel. I think every Christian needs to be able to identify the false message, because someone you know is listening to it, and you will want to be able to help them. If you live in another country, I also urge you view to this video, because this false gospel has been exported all around the globe. Let me also share another little tidbit on this topic, showing Francis Chan’s perspective. In family news, I am thrilled that my grandson Luke (16) will be going with me for 18 days to Papua, Indonesia, starting on the 22nd of June. Four college age people in an internship program with Pioneer Bible Translators will meet us there, and I will take them for a five-day adventure living in an Orya village. The goal of this time is to find out what village life in a tropical rainforest is like. They will help catch, butcher, harvest, and prepare the food we eat. I hope that they leave feeling like they have truly made a few good friends among the Orya people. And I know that whenever I go out there, the people will ask me about Luke and the four interns. Please pray in the first week of July! We hope that this experience will prepare all five of them for whatever service God has in mind for them in the future. Lord bless you all. We send our love in Christ to you. Phil & Gale

Greetings Friends! Thanks for listening or reading this news update, which is for everyone reading the Bible— but especially to all who are following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. As always, you can find all sorts of information about this reading plan at dailybiblereading.info. That’s where to look for helpful tips to make it easy listen or read the Bible in a year. In particular, see the Read This First information linked in the site header. I praise God that the 3rd semester of the Read To Me Daily reading plan is live now in your YouVersion Bible reading app. The link for subscribing is in the episode notes. If you don’t know, this reading plan follows the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan (like my podcasts) but this is an audio plan within YouVersion. In the third semester, I read the devotional page, then the internally bundled YouVersion recordings are played for the Bible readings. Please pray for me in preparing the 4th semester, so that it will be published before people complete the 3rd semester. I haven't been posting the videos from TheBibleProject.com like I planned in email updates and at our Facebook group. But I do at least want to remind you of them. The overview videos for each Bible book that they have done are Way Better than my short comments in the podcasts. They are especially helpful for more difficult books of the Bible, like the Old Testament prophetic books. Our Facebook group is now replaced by our forum at http://biblereaders.info. Right after this news podcast goes live, I will do another podcast on What Greek text of the New Testament that I recommend. That is the Byzantine text. In my opinion, the Nestle-Aland text no longer holds up under academic scrutiny as the best text for Bible translation or serious Bible study. In my podcast notes, I will link to readable articles that support what I am saying. For me as a Bible translator, this is not a decision I have made lightly. This will mean a lot of work for me and my team in Indonesia, because we will  revise our published New Testament to match the Byzantine text by 2022. Some have asked and will ask if I will redo all my daily Bible reading podcasts. I’m sorry, I certainly won’t have time for that. But here’s what I want to do, LORD willing: I would like to make a new series of podcasts of the New Testament that will be based on a new translation of the best Greek text. These won’t be daily podcasts, and I can’t do this alone. I need some volunteers who have time to help me. If you can use online Bible study tools effectively, and think you might have a flair for expressing Bible concepts in everyday language, please use the contact link at dailybiblereading.info to email me. Here is the MOST IMPORTANT thing I want to share with you in this News update: I want to highly recommend that EVERYONE who will read this letter or listen to this podcast to see the documentary movie called American Gospel. If you don’t want to spring immediately for the two hour movie (which is well worth the $5 price), please view the free one hour video linked here. This is a very clear presentation of the TRUTH about the false gospel that is being taught in so many churches in America. Even if you feel that your church is teaching what the Bible teaches, I still urge you to see the one hour version of American Gospel. I think every Christian needs to be able to identify the false message, because someone you know is listening to it, and you will want to be able to help them. If you live in another country, I also urge you view to this video, because this false gospel has been exported all around the globe. Let me also share another little tidbit on this topic, showing Francis Chan’s perspective. In family news, I am thrilled that my grandson Luke (16) will be going with me for 18 days to Papua, Indonesia, starting on the 22nd of June. Four college age people in an internship program with Pioneer Bible Translators will meet us there, and I will take them for a five-day adventure living in an Orya village. The goal of this time is to find out what village life in a tropical rainforest is like. They will help catch, butcher, harvest, and prepare the food we eat. I hope that they leave feeling like they have truly made a few good friends among the Orya people. And I know that whenever I go out there, the people will ask me about Luke and the four interns. Please pray in the first week of July! We hope that this experience will prepare all five of them for whatever service God has in mind for them in the future. Lord bless you all. We send our love in Christ to you. Phil & Gale

 Hey, greetings to ninty-two friends who have signed up for this letter! If you haven't signed up for our email Digging Deeper newsletters, here's the link to do so. Thank you for responding to my invitation to join this letter list. If you are listening to the podcast covering the information below and you did not receive an email from me by now, that means that you haven’t signed up. Please visit dailybiblereading.info and follow the link at the top of the site to join our list. The idea to have a special list for newsletters should have come to me sooner. I finally decided to add this list because it has been so clear that my news update podcasts plus my posts at the Facebook group have not been reaching very many people. You who have signed up for this list will get a maximum of 12 emails in 2019, and then no more. I will start a new list for 2020, and this list will be deleted. Our Facebook group is now replaced by our forum at http://biblereaders.info. For those listening to the audio Devotionals in this first semester of the Read To Me Daily reading plan, beginning next semester the devotionals will be read by Ashlee Smith. Ashlee is a member of the same church our family attends in Siloam Springs. For those who have listened to the Daily Bible Reading Podcasts her voice will be somewhat familiar, as she recorded a lot of the women’s parts when those podcasts were made. Here are The Bible Project videos that will enrich your understanding of the books we’ll be reading. 22 January Job summary   wisdom series 27 Jan 1st Peter summary   31 Jan Exodus 1-18  19-40  Torah Series 1 February James summary   7 February 2Peter summary   9 February Luke summary Luke-Acts Series 11 February Psalms summary   21 February Leviticus summary  Torah Series Now I have something rather unusual and surprising to share: Having been in the field of Bible translation for 39 years, I didn’t think that I would change my opinion about the best Greek text to follow in translating the New Testament. But less than a year ago, the Lord arranged for me to meet a world-class expert in Biblical Greek, and he got me interested in this topic. Before meeting him, I confess that I would not have been motivated to click on any link leading to an article about different Greek texts. I was happy with remaining ignorant about the topic. My opinion now is that the Byzantine text (also called the Majority Text) is the most authoritative New Testament Greek text. And I urge every Bible reader to NOT just remain ignorant about what this means. I have brought this up because I ask for your help in sharing a 12-page article that I have written. If you can help me share it with pastors or anyone else you think would be interested, we have a chance of halting a senseless game of ‘follow the leader’ that has been played in the field of Bible translation for the last 120 years. My article has quite a few supporting links to other articles written by people more knowledgeable than I am about this topic. Look, I know this is an advanced subject, and many of you are going to say, “This is all Greek to me,” but here’s the point: Most of us are using Bibles that really ought to be considered defective. My own Bible translation work turns out to also be defective, because for 38 years I made translations of the Eclectic Greek text (also called the Nestle-Aland/UBS text). Nearly all Bible translators made the same mistake because we were unaware that suppositions (or opinions of experts) about ancient Greek manuscripts were speculative and wrong. (This should not surprise us! Just think of the conflicting claims of nutritional experts about what are healthy and not-healthy foods!) The defective Bibles I mean include the NIV, NLT, GNT, ESV, NET, and so many others. My friend Doug Pack (who frequently posts in the Digging Deeper Facebook group) asked me recently how come I still am promoting reading the Bible in translations — like all those I just mentioned — if I believe they are based on a defective Greek text. My answer is that it will take time for the decision-makers and Bible publishers to be open to hearing the truth. I hope all major Bible translations will be revised and released in new versions based on the Majority/Byzantine text. In the meantime, let’s not stop reading the Bibles we have! My article gives information about currently available English translations of the Byzantine Greek text. If you will help me spread the word by reading my article or sharing the link, perhaps we can hasten the day when new editions of the Bibles mentioned above will follow the best Greek text. Please share my article with people who are dedicated students of God’s Word. You don’t have to be able to read Greek to understand my article.   On to a new topic! If you are following the Read To Me Daily YouVersion reading plan and using the audio, you have probably noticed a little bug. I don’t know if this bug shows up for Apple devices. For Android devices it definitely is noticeable. The automatic audio playing of the different Bible portions will sometimes skip back to re-play the Devotional page’s audio, rather than continuing on to the next Bible reading. The YouVersion people have been informed and I am told they are working on this. Then something I am sure is happening for all platforms is this: If you are playing the audio of Read To Me Daily plan or any other, and if the next portion is only a partial chapter, then the recorded citation of the book name and chapter is not played. When the YouVersion app automatically progresses to the next portion listed for the day, the reader only cites the book and chapter if that next chapter is a full chapter. Take for example day 22 of the RTMD plan. The audio reading of a chapter from Job was immediately followed by Mark 14:1, without even a pause between the two. For people who are not watching the screen, this can be VERY confusing! I have put in a request that this be fixed, perhaps using an automated voice give the citation for partial chapter readings. I think we’ll have to live with this defect for some time.   As some of you know, I still go to Indonesia twice per year, and each of my visits there lasts for 7 weeks. My next trip starts on February 5. I would really appreciate your prayers for Gale and myself. This time, Gale will visit her aunt who lives in NY State, and she normally would not pick to go there in February. But her aunt is turning 100, so she is going to help celebrate this milestone. Her aunt is still ‘with it’ mentally and will definitely enjoy Gale being there. I personally thank the Lord for such good communication options as we have nowadays. Gale and I talk with each other every day. An important activity is happening for our team on this trip to Indonesia. From February 11th through the 28th, a consultant will be helping us with the final pre-publication check of Genesis 5-25 and the book of Esther. Three of our team members will be coming from three different provinces. The consultant herself will be coming from India. There will also be some reasonable costs that need to be paid for some local people who will help us in answering the consultant’s questions. So perhaps now you can see why a full consultant check like this is so expensive! A lot of money will be spent to check just 30 chapters. Thankfully the event will have a lot of training value for our team members. Here are some prayer requests about this: Please pray that the Lord will help us with good health. Please pray the Holy Spirit will help the team of local people so that they will be able to answer the consultant’s questions thoughtfully and correctly. Checking like this always reveals some weak places in a translation. I have never seen any translation pass a consultant check with no changes. Please pray that weaknesses found in our translation will be fixed, resulting in a high-quality and very understandable translation. Please pray that the consultant will be so pleased with the integrity of our work that she will agree to do checking via email in the future, rather than face-to-face. Praise the Lord with us that He has already supplied the funds budgeted for this checking event. Our translation team is being blessed and challenged daily by the participation of almost 20 active volunteers. These volunteers receive two chapters per day of our draft translation via a Whatsapp group. They respond with helpful suggestions and questions. I am hoping to build upon this and expand the number of active volunteers to 48. The input from these groups has been VERY valuable in checking Genesis and Exodus recently. We offer an online Basics of Bible Translation course online to further enhance the ability of the volunteers to help us. Here are our prayer requests about this: For the first time, In our current group-sharing of our draft of Exodus, we had some people leave the checking group. One person said, “Don’t add or take away from anything in God’s Word!” Uh, well, doing that is certainly not our intention! But there was no discussion that I could find within that group where anyone accused us of adding or subtracting anything from the text of Exodus. Please pray that we will learn how to more effectively manage these groups so that people remain happy to take part in them. Please pray for Jaya, our team member who manages all the groups, currently five groups and some people contributing suggestions via email. Please pray that our active volunteers will grow to 48 people from all over Indonesia. I will still be in Indonesia through most of March, so I will send my next update letter from THERE and can tell more about what is happening. May the Lord bless you Real Good! 

 Hey, greetings to ninty-two friends who have signed up for this letter! If you haven't signed up for our email Digging Deeper newsletters, here's the link to do so. Thank you for responding to my invitation to join this letter list. If you are listening to the podcast covering the information below and you did not receive an email from me by now, that means that you haven’t signed up. Please visit dailybiblereading.info and follow the link at the top of the site to join our list. The idea to have a special list for newsletters should have come to me sooner. I finally decided to add this list because it has been so clear that my news update podcasts plus my posts at the Facebook group have not been reaching very many people. You who have signed up for this list will get a maximum of 12 emails in 2019, and then no more. I will start a new list for 2020, and this list will be deleted. Our Facebook group is now replaced by our forum at http://biblereaders.info. For those listening to the audio Devotionals in this first semester of the Read To Me Daily reading plan, beginning next semester the devotionals will be read by Ashlee Smith. Ashlee is a member of the same church our family attends in Siloam Springs. For those who have listened to the Daily Bible Reading Podcasts her voice will be somewhat familiar, as she recorded a lot of the women’s parts when those podcasts were made. Here are The Bible Project videos that will enrich your understanding of the books we’ll be reading. 22 January Job summary   wisdom series 27 Jan 1st Peter summary   31 Jan Exodus 1-18  19-40  Torah Series 1 February James summary   7 February 2Peter summary   9 February Luke summary Luke-Acts Series 11 February Psalms summary   21 February Leviticus summary  Torah Series Now I have something rather unusual and surprising to share: Having been in the field of Bible translation for 39 years, I didn’t think that I would change my opinion about the best Greek text to follow in translating the New Testament. But less than a year ago, the Lord arranged for me to meet a world-class expert in Biblical Greek, and he got me interested in this topic. Before meeting him, I confess that I would not have been motivated to click on any link leading to an article about different Greek texts. I was happy with remaining ignorant about the topic. My opinion now is that the Byzantine text (also called the Majority Text) is the most authoritative New Testament Greek text. And I urge every Bible reader to NOT just remain ignorant about what this means. I have brought this up because I ask for your help in sharing a 12-page article that I have written. If you can help me share it with pastors or anyone else you think would be interested, we have a chance of halting a senseless game of ‘follow the leader’ that has been played in the field of Bible translation for the last 120 years. My article has quite a few supporting links to other articles written by people more knowledgeable than I am about this topic. Look, I know this is an advanced subject, and many of you are going to say, “This is all Greek to me,” but here’s the point: Most of us are using Bibles that really ought to be considered defective. My own Bible translation work turns out to also be defective, because for 38 years I made translations of the Eclectic Greek text (also called the Nestle-Aland/UBS text). Nearly all Bible translators made the same mistake because we were unaware that suppositions (or opinions of experts) about ancient Greek manuscripts were speculative and wrong. (This should not surprise us! Just think of the conflicting claims of nutritional experts about what are healthy and not-healthy foods!) The defective Bibles I mean include the NIV, NLT, GNT, ESV, NET, and so many others. My friend Doug Pack (who frequently posts in the Digging Deeper Facebook group) asked me recently how come I still am promoting reading the Bible in translations — like all those I just mentioned — if I believe they are based on a defective Greek text. My answer is that it will take time for the decision-makers and Bible publishers to be open to hearing the truth. I hope all major Bible translations will be revised and released in new versions based on the Majority/Byzantine text. In the meantime, let’s not stop reading the Bibles we have! My article gives information about currently available English translations of the Byzantine Greek text. If you will help me spread the word by reading my article or sharing the link, perhaps we can hasten the day when new editions of the Bibles mentioned above will follow the best Greek text. Please share my article with people who are dedicated students of God’s Word. You don’t have to be able to read Greek to understand my article.   On to a new topic! If you are following the Read To Me Daily YouVersion reading plan and using the audio, you have probably noticed a little bug. I don’t know if this bug shows up for Apple devices. For Android devices it definitely is noticeable. The automatic audio playing of the different Bible portions will sometimes skip back to re-play the Devotional page’s audio, rather than continuing on to the next Bible reading. The YouVersion people have been informed and I am told they are working on this. Then something I am sure is happening for all platforms is this: If you are playing the audio of Read To Me Daily plan or any other, and if the next portion is only a partial chapter, then the recorded citation of the book name and chapter is not played. When the YouVersion app automatically progresses to the next portion listed for the day, the reader only cites the book and chapter if that next chapter is a full chapter. Take for example day 22 of the RTMD plan. The audio reading of a chapter from Job was immediately followed by Mark 14:1, without even a pause between the two. For people who are not watching the screen, this can be VERY confusing! I have put in a request that this be fixed, perhaps using an automated voice give the citation for partial chapter readings. I think we’ll have to live with this defect for some time.   As some of you know, I still go to Indonesia twice per year, and each of my visits there lasts for 7 weeks. My next trip starts on February 5. I would really appreciate your prayers for Gale and myself. This time, Gale will visit her aunt who lives in NY State, and she normally would not pick to go there in February. But her aunt is turning 100, so she is going to help celebrate this milestone. Her aunt is still ‘with it’ mentally and will definitely enjoy Gale being there. I personally thank the Lord for such good communication options as we have nowadays. Gale and I talk with each other every day. An important activity is happening for our team on this trip to Indonesia. From February 11th through the 28th, a consultant will be helping us with the final pre-publication check of Genesis 5-25 and the book of Esther. Three of our team members will be coming from three different provinces. The consultant herself will be coming from India. There will also be some reasonable costs that need to be paid for some local people who will help us in answering the consultant’s questions. So perhaps now you can see why a full consultant check like this is so expensive! A lot of money will be spent to check just 30 chapters. Thankfully the event will have a lot of training value for our team members. Here are some prayer requests about this: Please pray that the Lord will help us with good health. Please pray the Holy Spirit will help the team of local people so that they will be able to answer the consultant’s questions thoughtfully and correctly. Checking like this always reveals some weak places in a translation. I have never seen any translation pass a consultant check with no changes. Please pray that weaknesses found in our translation will be fixed, resulting in a high-quality and very understandable translation. Please pray that the consultant will be so pleased with the integrity of our work that she will agree to do checking via email in the future, rather than face-to-face. Praise the Lord with us that He has already supplied the funds budgeted for this checking event. Our translation team is being blessed and challenged daily by the participation of almost 20 active volunteers. These volunteers receive two chapters per day of our draft translation via a Whatsapp group. They respond with helpful suggestions and questions. I am hoping to build upon this and expand the number of active volunteers to 48. The input from these groups has been VERY valuable in checking Genesis and Exodus recently. We offer an online Basics of Bible Translation course online to further enhance the ability of the volunteers to help us. Here are our prayer requests about this: For the first time, In our current group-sharing of our draft of Exodus, we had some people leave the checking group. One person said, “Don’t add or take away from anything in God’s Word!” Uh, well, doing that is certainly not our intention! But there was no discussion that I could find within that group where anyone accused us of adding or subtracting anything from the text of Exodus. Please pray that we will learn how to more effectively manage these groups so that people remain happy to take part in them. Please pray for Jaya, our team member who manages all the groups, currently five groups and some people contributing suggestions via email. Please pray that our active volunteers will grow to 48 people from all over Indonesia. I will still be in Indonesia through most of March, so I will send my next update letter from THERE and can tell more about what is happening. May the Lord bless you Real Good! 

Hi, and Merry Christmas! I have plenty of information to share this time. I hope you are not too distracted while listening to all this! Would you like to see more people find the Daily Bible Reading Podcast? If so, here is a quick way you can really make a difference: Some time ago I made a channel for the DBRP on YouTube which is linked here in the episode notes. Please, even if you never intend to listen to an episode on YouTube, please click the link to subscribe to that channel. The more people that are subscribed, the higher our channel will appear in search results. At the beginning of 2019, I hope to be able to make Youtube playlists of episodes a month at a time, so that it becomes easier for people to actually listen to the DBRP using that platform. Youtube is the second most popular Internet search engine. So please help some people who are searching to discover the DBRP. Just click the link above and click to subscribe to our channel. Currently, there are only 8 people subscribed. The DBRP got off to a rough start in 2018. This was due to my not observing how the new update to the Apple podcast app ruined the way the many episodes of the DBRP were being displayed. People--- including my son, David, were having difficulty finding the next episode they wanted to listen to. This is important because, around half of our audience are listening on Apple devices and primarily using the podcast app. So we lost many listeners at the first of the year. To address the problem, I have taken three categories from the DBRP podcast and moved them to two different new podcasts. This makes it so that menus and search results are less cluttered. So here’s how it will work for next year: If you want to listen to the NLT podcast series, starting on January 1st, use our first web site, which is dailybiblereading.info. You will find complete information about listening apps and how to subscribe in the ReadMe PDF file linked at the top of the site. New episodes of the NLT will be released every day. Links for everything I am talking about right now are given in the episode notes. If you want to listen to the GNT podcast series, those are no longer being released daily at the first site, but at the new one: dailygntbiblereading.info. Every day a new GNT episode will be released to all the podcast apps and will be available at that website. Complete information about listening apps and how to subscribe are found in the ReadMe PDF file linked at the top of the site. If you enjoyed the JoySightings series of podcasts, I have moved those to a new location: joysightings.info. See podcast subscription information at that site. The Joysightings.info site also is host to the DayStarters series. The Joysightings podcasts are for sharing Parables of all kinds, but especially those of Safed the Sage. The DayStarters podcasts are GNT NT readings which were prepared for our daughter Hannah, so that she could start homeschooling days for Ava and Joel by listening to grampa read and pray. The readings are just the NT portion from the GNT readings, and they do not cover the more difficult readings in the New Testament. See the table of contents for both the DayStarter and JoySightings podcasts at joysightings.info. Again I ask for your help! If you are an Apple device user and are still using the native Apple podcast app to listen to the original DBRP (not the newer GNT podcast), please tell me if you are more easily finding your episodes now. If there are problems, please send me a screenshot and tell me the difficulties you are having. In looking forward to the new year, I never encourage people to listen to my podcasts for two years in a row. If you’ve listened to me for one year, it is time to find a different voice. But this year I have something new to suggest to you! I am releasing a new 100% audio reading plan for the YouVersion Bible app called Read To Me Daily. This will be almost like listening to one of my podcasts--- almost, but not quite. You’ll only hear my voice for the first 3 minutes reading the devotional introduction. But after you play the audio on the devotional page, then the YouVersion app will automatically play the default audio recordings for the two OT portions and one NT portion in whatever version you are using. This obviously won’t work for Bibles which don’t have recordings. The translations I recommend using for this plan are the NLT, GNT and NIV. For those who have read the NLT and GNT recently, I suggest following the NIV this next year. Just to let you know: That’s the version I plan to read in 2019. One thing I like about this new RTMD YouVersion reading plan is the flexibility and the ease of use. Some people will choose to read on their own without activating the audio on days when that is convenient for them, but listen to the readings on days when they are commuting to work. Or, someone might listen one week to the readings in the GNT, and next week use the NIV recordings. Some people who delve deeper might choose to listen to some daily readings twice, perhaps once in the ESV and once in the NLT. Everything will be easy to do using just one app, the YouVersion Bible app. This Read To Me Daily reading plan will follow the same Digging Deeper Daily reading calendar as the DBRP. So on any day you might want to, you could jump to listening to your day number in one of the DBRP podcasts. The reason I recommend using the NLT, GNT, or NIV for the RTMD plan is because those three translations are easier to understand in audio form. This plan will be released in 4 semesters to cover the whole year. Please help me spread the word about the new RTMD plan. I will release an audio invitation soon. Please share it with your friends. Let me shift the topic back to the podcasts now: Recently I was talking to a man who has a ministry to the elderly in our town. It seems to me that the Amazon Alexa devices are the easiest way for elderly people to listen to the DBRP. I have already registered an Alexa skill for the DBRP, and I am applying for an Alexa skill for the Daily GNT Bible Reading podcast as well. Alexa devices like the Echo Dot start at just $29, but to use it, the person also needs to have a Wifi connection. By the last week of December, I will have new information in the ReadMe PDF file linked at the top of our websites that will tell you how to get things set up for using Alexa devices. Once you initiate the podcast on the Alexa device for your elderly friend, they can listen any time they want by saying, “Alexa, play the next episode of Daily Bible Reading Podcast.” The initial idea for the Daily Bible Reading Podcast was to leave the recordings as a legacy for our grandkids. So far none of our grandkids have made it through a whole year’s worth. They currently range in ages from 16 down to 3, so there is still hope that they will listen to grampa someday. With the help of our podcast publisher, the DBRP is able to be subscribed to in almost any podcast aggregator app (and there are many), plus Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, GooglePodcasts, iTunes and Apple podcasts, Facebook, YouTube, and soon in Pandora. I dropped the subscription to the dedicated Android and Apple podcast app, but I see that at least the Android app is still available in the Play Store. On my tablet, I noticed that the Android app is still working just fine. So for some of you, that may still be a hassle-free and advertising free way to listen. I still recommend the Podbean aggregator app for both Android and Apple devices, but it does show advertising while the podcast plays. There are two more apps from YouVersion (also publishing under the name LifeChurch) that I want to tell you about. The first is Bible Lens. This app makes it easy to put Bible verses with any pictures that you have in your mobile phone or tablet. You are given multiple ways to creatively format the verses, and the output is more artistic than is possible using the verse-image feature that is available inside the YouVersion Bible app. (You see the Image option whenever you highlight a verse.) The second terrific app from LifeChurch is Bible app for kids. This app is a very engaging way for kids from about 4-8 to listen to and watch Bible stories. The interface is like a game, and your kids will be able to navigate through and play the stories they want themselves. One of my spiritual fathers, Richard Burson, gave me Sam Shoemaker’s book, Extraordinary Living for Ordinary Man. In that book was Shoemaker’s poem, “I stand by the door.” I will read that poem at the end. [I have edited the poem, and it was already slightly modified by the one who posted it at the website I link to the episode notes.] But here I give just the first lines: I stand by the door.I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out,The door is the most important door in the world—It is the door through which people walk when they find God. Not just a few times I have been tempted to be envious of people who have such wonderful ministries to overflowing audiences or who are invited to lead organizations. Somehow, no one has ever chosen me for anything like that. This poem has encouraged me, because it seems like to me that God has called me to take my place near the door Shoemaker talks about. And truthfully, it has surprised me that God gave me an audience through my podcast. And guess what! We find now that ‘the door’ has moved. At the time Shoemaker wrote, the door might have been to a church or an organization like the one Sam Shoemaker founded, where people might come and find answers. Now the door is more often via YouTube, or Stitcher, Facebook, or the app called Whatsapp. God is still calling many people to come to Jesus. So many people are spiritually hungry and searching for answers. Please join me in standing near the door! Before I read the poem to close this podcast, I want to remind you to follow the link at the top of the episode notes to go to YouTube and subscribe to that channel. Let’s pray that this will help some find ‘the door’.   I stand by the door.I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out,The door is the most important door in the world—It is the door through which people walk when they find God.There’s no use my going way inside, and staying there,When so many are still outside, and they, as much as I,Crave to know where the door is.And all that so many ever findIs only the wall where a door ought to be.They creep along the wall like those who are blind.With outstretched, groping hands,Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,Yet they never find it . . .So I stand by the door.The most tremendous thing in the worldIs for people to find that door—the door to God.The most important thing any one can doIs to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands,And put it on the latch—the latch that only clicksAnd opens to one’s own touch.People die outside that door, as starving beggars dieOn cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter—Die for want of what is within their grasp.[While others//They live,] on the other side of [the door//it]—live because they have found it.Nothing else matters compared to helping [those on the outside//them] find it [too],And open it, and walk in, and find Him . . .So I stand by the door.Go in, great saints, go all the way in—Go way down into the cavernous cellars,And way up into the spacious attics—In a vast, roomy house, this house where God is.Go into the deepest of hidden casements,Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood.Some must inhabit those inner rooms,And know the depths and heights of God,And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.Sometimes I take a deeper look in,Sometimes venture a little farther;But my place seems closer to the opening . . .So I stand by the door.The people too far in do not see how near [some others//these] areTo leaving— [those far-in ones being] preoccupied with the wonder of it all.Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door,But would like to run away. So for them, too,I stand by the door.I admire the people who go way in.But I wish they would not forget how it wasBefore they got in. Then they would be able to helpThe people who have not even found the door,Or the people who want to run away again from God.You can go in too deeply, and stay in too long,And forget the people outside the door.As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,Near enough to God to hear Him, and know He is there,But not so far from people as not to hear them,And remember they are there too.Where [are they]? Outside the door—Thousands of them, millions of them.But—more important for me—One of them, two of them, ten of them,Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch,So I shall stand by the door and waitFor those who seek it.‘I had rather be a door-keeper . . .’So I stand by the door.

Hi, and Merry Christmas! I have plenty of information to share this time. I hope you are not too distracted while listening to all this! Would you like to see more people find the Daily Bible Reading Podcast? If so, here is a quick way you can really make a difference: Some time ago I made a channel for the DBRP on YouTube which is linked here in the episode notes. Please, even if you never intend to listen to an episode on YouTube, please click the link to subscribe to that channel. The more people that are subscribed, the higher our channel will appear in search results. At the beginning of 2019, I hope to be able to make Youtube playlists of episodes a month at a time, so that it becomes easier for people to actually listen to the DBRP using that platform. Youtube is the second most popular Internet search engine. So please help some people who are searching to discover the DBRP. Just click the link above and click to subscribe to our channel. Currently, there are only 8 people subscribed. The DBRP got off to a rough start in 2018. This was due to my not observing how the new update to the Apple podcast app ruined the way the many episodes of the DBRP were being displayed. People--- including my son, David, were having difficulty finding the next episode they wanted to listen to. This is important because, around half of our audience are listening on Apple devices and primarily using the podcast app. So we lost many listeners at the first of the year. To address the problem, I have taken three categories from the DBRP podcast and moved them to two different new podcasts. This makes it so that menus and search results are less cluttered. So here’s how it will work for next year: If you want to listen to the NLT podcast series, starting on January 1st, use our first web site, which is dailybiblereading.info. You will find complete information about listening apps and how to subscribe in the ReadMe PDF file linked at the top of the site. New episodes of the NLT will be released every day. Links for everything I am talking about right now are given in the episode notes. If you want to listen to the GNT podcast series, those are no longer being released daily at the first site, but at the new one: dailygntbiblereading.info. Every day a new GNT episode will be released to all the podcast apps and will be available at that website. Complete information about listening apps and how to subscribe are found in the ReadMe PDF file linked at the top of the site. If you enjoyed the JoySightings series of podcasts, I have moved those to a new location: joysightings.info. See podcast subscription information at that site. The Joysightings.info site also is host to the DayStarters series. The Joysightings podcasts are for sharing Parables of all kinds, but especially those of Safed the Sage. The DayStarters podcasts are GNT NT readings which were prepared for our daughter Hannah, so that she could start homeschooling days for Ava and Joel by listening to grampa read and pray. The readings are just the NT portion from the GNT readings, and they do not cover the more difficult readings in the New Testament. See the table of contents for both the DayStarter and JoySightings podcasts at joysightings.info. Again I ask for your help! If you are an Apple device user and are still using the native Apple podcast app to listen to the original DBRP (not the newer GNT podcast), please tell me if you are more easily finding your episodes now. If there are problems, please send me a screenshot and tell me the difficulties you are having. In looking forward to the new year, I never encourage people to listen to my podcasts for two years in a row. If you’ve listened to me for one year, it is time to find a different voice. But this year I have something new to suggest to you! I am releasing a new 100% audio reading plan for the YouVersion Bible app called Read To Me Daily. This will be almost like listening to one of my podcasts--- almost, but not quite. You’ll only hear my voice for the first 3 minutes reading the devotional introduction. But after you play the audio on the devotional page, then the YouVersion app will automatically play the default audio recordings for the two OT portions and one NT portion in whatever version you are using. This obviously won’t work for Bibles which don’t have recordings. The translations I recommend using for this plan are the NLT, GNT and NIV. For those who have read the NLT and GNT recently, I suggest following the NIV this next year. Just to let you know: That’s the version I plan to read in 2019. One thing I like about this new RTMD YouVersion reading plan is the flexibility and the ease of use. Some people will choose to read on their own without activating the audio on days when that is convenient for them, but listen to the readings on days when they are commuting to work. Or, someone might listen one week to the readings in the GNT, and next week use the NIV recordings. Some people who delve deeper might choose to listen to some daily readings twice, perhaps once in the ESV and once in the NLT. Everything will be easy to do using just one app, the YouVersion Bible app. This Read To Me Daily reading plan will follow the same Digging Deeper Daily reading calendar as the DBRP. So on any day you might want to, you could jump to listening to your day number in one of the DBRP podcasts. The reason I recommend using the NLT, GNT, or NIV for the RTMD plan is because those three translations are easier to understand in audio form. This plan will be released in 4 semesters to cover the whole year. Please help me spread the word about the new RTMD plan. I will release an audio invitation soon. Please share it with your friends. Let me shift the topic back to the podcasts now: Recently I was talking to a man who has a ministry to the elderly in our town. It seems to me that the Amazon Alexa devices are the easiest way for elderly people to listen to the DBRP. I have already registered an Alexa skill for the DBRP, and I am applying for an Alexa skill for the Daily GNT Bible Reading podcast as well. Alexa devices like the Echo Dot start at just $29, but to use it, the person also needs to have a Wifi connection. By the last week of December, I will have new information in the ReadMe PDF file linked at the top of our websites that will tell you how to get things set up for using Alexa devices. Once you initiate the podcast on the Alexa device for your elderly friend, they can listen any time they want by saying, “Alexa, play the next episode of Daily Bible Reading Podcast.” The initial idea for the Daily Bible Reading Podcast was to leave the recordings as a legacy for our grandkids. So far none of our grandkids have made it through a whole year’s worth. They currently range in ages from 16 down to 3, so there is still hope that they will listen to grampa someday. With the help of our podcast publisher, the DBRP is able to be subscribed to in almost any podcast aggregator app (and there are many), plus Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, GooglePodcasts, iTunes and Apple podcasts, Facebook, YouTube, and soon in Pandora. I dropped the subscription to the dedicated Android and Apple podcast app, but I see that at least the Android app is still available in the Play Store. On my tablet, I noticed that the Android app is still working just fine. So for some of you, that may still be a hassle-free and advertising free way to listen. I still recommend the Podbean aggregator app for both Android and Apple devices, but it does show advertising while the podcast plays. There are two more apps from YouVersion (also publishing under the name LifeChurch) that I want to tell you about. The first is Bible Lens. This app makes it easy to put Bible verses with any pictures that you have in your mobile phone or tablet. You are given multiple ways to creatively format the verses, and the output is more artistic than is possible using the verse-image feature that is available inside the YouVersion Bible app. (You see the Image option whenever you highlight a verse.) The second terrific app from LifeChurch is Bible app for kids. This app is a very engaging way for kids from about 4-8 to listen to and watch Bible stories. The interface is like a game, and your kids will be able to navigate through and play the stories they want themselves. One of my spiritual fathers, Richard Burson, gave me Sam Shoemaker’s book, Extraordinary Living for Ordinary Man. In that book was Shoemaker’s poem, “I stand by the door.” I will read that poem at the end. [I have edited the poem, and it was already slightly modified by the one who posted it at the website I link to the episode notes.] But here I give just the first lines: I stand by the door.I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out,The door is the most important door in the world—It is the door through which people walk when they find God. Not just a few times I have been tempted to be envious of people who have such wonderful ministries to overflowing audiences or who are invited to lead organizations. Somehow, no one has ever chosen me for anything like that. This poem has encouraged me, because it seems like to me that God has called me to take my place near the door Shoemaker talks about. And truthfully, it has surprised me that God gave me an audience through my podcast. And guess what! We find now that ‘the door’ has moved. At the time Shoemaker wrote, the door might have been to a church or an organization like the one Sam Shoemaker founded, where people might come and find answers. Now the door is more often via YouTube, or Stitcher, Facebook, or the app called Whatsapp. God is still calling many people to come to Jesus. So many people are spiritually hungry and searching for answers. Please join me in standing near the door! Before I read the poem to close this podcast, I want to remind you to follow the link at the top of the episode notes to go to YouTube and subscribe to that channel. Let’s pray that this will help some find ‘the door’.   I stand by the door.I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out,The door is the most important door in the world—It is the door through which people walk when they find God.There’s no use my going way inside, and staying there,When so many are still outside, and they, as much as I,Crave to know where the door is.And all that so many ever findIs only the wall where a door ought to be.They creep along the wall like those who are blind.With outstretched, groping hands,Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,Yet they never find it . . .So I stand by the door.The most tremendous thing in the worldIs for people to find that door—the door to God.The most important thing any one can doIs to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands,And put it on the latch—the latch that only clicksAnd opens to one’s own touch.People die outside that door, as starving beggars dieOn cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter—Die for want of what is within their grasp.[While others//They live,] on the other side of [the door//it]—live because they have found it.Nothing else matters compared to helping [those on the outside//them] find it [too],And open it, and walk in, and find Him . . .So I stand by the door.Go in, great saints, go all the way in—Go way down into the cavernous cellars,And way up into the spacious attics—In a vast, roomy house, this house where God is.Go into the deepest of hidden casements,Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood.Some must inhabit those inner rooms,And know the depths and heights of God,And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.Sometimes I take a deeper look in,Sometimes venture a little farther;But my place seems closer to the opening . . .So I stand by the door.The people too far in do not see how near [some others//these] areTo leaving— [those far-in ones being] preoccupied with the wonder of it all.Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door,But would like to run away. So for them, too,I stand by the door.I admire the people who go way in.But I wish they would not forget how it wasBefore they got in. Then they would be able to helpThe people who have not even found the door,Or the people who want to run away again from God.You can go in too deeply, and stay in too long,And forget the people outside the door.As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,Near enough to God to hear Him, and know He is there,But not so far from people as not to hear them,And remember they are there too.Where [are they]? Outside the door—Thousands of them, millions of them.But—more important for me—One of them, two of them, ten of them,Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch,So I shall stand by the door and waitFor those who seek it.‘I had rather be a door-keeper . . .’So I stand by the door.