Valuable Website Resources

[Hank Voss]

Review of www.biblicaltraining.org

The web has some amazing resources, but there are so many sites that the best ones are often buried. In this thread (or perhaps the tumi team will decide it deserves its own discussion forum), I would like to share recommended websites for urban church leaders.

After our tumi websites, one of my favorites is www.biblicaltraining.org . The website offers free conservative evangelical training resources. In my opinion the best resource on this website are the 25 or so free seminary courses that are available as MP3 downloads.

These are actual seminary courses that were taught at seminaries like: Gordon Conwell Seminary, Beeson Divinity School, Western Seminary, Denver Seminary, Reformed Theological Seminary, Southern Seminary, etc.

Professors who teach the courses are people like: Dr. Robert Stein, Dr. Bill Mounce, Dr. Paul House, Dr. Craig Blomberg, Dr. Gordon Isaac, Dr. Darrell Bock, Dr. Bryan Chapell, Dr. John Piper, Dr. Gerald Bray, Dr. Peter Kuzmic, Dr. Ron Nash, Dr. Thomas Shreiner, Dr. Bruce Ware, etc.

Each course averages 15-25 lectures and the lectures in a course average 30-50 minutes in length. The courses also include the textbooks that were used in the seminary class and many of them also have some type of course outline. Courses available include classes on hermeneutics, OT and NT surveys, pastoral theology, systematic theology, etc.

To date I have listened to three courses: a course on Old Testament Theology from one of my old professors, Dr. Paul House (I had Dr. House at Taylor University, he is now at Beeson Divinity School), some of Dr. Bruce Ware’s Systematic Theology courses, and a course on Martin Luther by Dr. Gordan Isaac (Dr. Isaac is at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary).

For example, this morning I listened to a 70 minute lecture from Dr. Isaac on Luther’s Theology of the Cross. I listened to the lecture as I went running and cleaned up our storage room—which gives you an idea of how I like to use the site. I tend to download a half dozen lectures onto my MP3 player, and then work my way through them while exercising, sitting in traffic, or cleaning.

Two final notes:

1) Obviously the schools and professors listed above are from the conservative evangelical end of the spectrum—so listeners should be aware of where the professors at biblicaltraining.org are coming from. The professors do come from a variety of denominational backgrounds, and in my opinion, represent some of the best of what conservative evangelicals have to offer. The fact that the lectures are available for free, makes this a great resource for the urban poor.

2) If you are interested in learning NT Greek, or using Bible Study tools that are based on the original Greek, you should definitely check out Dr. Bill Mounce’s two classes:

a. Greek Tools for Bible Study (13 lectures). This course has some helpful lectures on things like translations, commentaries, word studies, and history of the Bible. A great supplementary resource for those teaching the Capstone module on Bible Interpretation.

b. Introduction to Biblical Greek (35 lectures). Dr. Mounce has written the standard introduction to NT Greek (Basics of Biblical Greek, Zondervan), a textbook that is used in more than 100 seminaries and Christian colleges around the world. These lectures are actually intros to the chapters of his book, so they tend to be shorter—15 minutes or so. This is a great resource for those wanting to teach themselves Greek. Using Dr. Mounce’s book and these lectures, I think it would be quite doable.

Let me know if you find this site useful, or if there are others you would also recommend.

[Hank Voss]

Favorite Free Websites

1. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Almost all of the Church Fathers, Calvin, Wesley, Edwards, Spurgeon, etc. available for Free here.

2. Google Books. This is an amazing resource that continues to grow. I can often read a chapter, page, or search a book for a particular word, all without buying the book of going to the library. Great. I use a couple times a week.

3. Bible Gateway. 90 free Bible versions. This link http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/ takes you to my favorite feature. You type in your reference, and it compares the passage in five versions of your choice for free. I am using less now, because I am currently testing Logos Bible software.

[ryancarter]

for our students we also recommend:
1) net.bible.org - online free version of the NET Bible, an extensive evangelical study bible
2) www.soniclight.com - under the study notes tab you will find dr. tom constable's notes over the entire bible. they total almost 2,000 pages of expository notes. dispensational point of view.
3) www.freebiblecommentary.org - dr. bob utley's exegetical notes on the whole bible; very detailed textual explanation. from a southern baptist point of view.
ryan