SwordSearcher again the “People’s Choice” at SIC 2008
By Brandon | July 24, 2008
For the second year in a row, SwordSearcher Bible Software has been awarded the SIAF People’s Choice for Best Personal Interest software. The award was announced at the annual Software Industry Conference in Boston, MA on July 19.
I wasn’t able to attend the conference this year. I’m sorry I missed it. But I’m certainly pleased to get the award again. To whomever is voting for SwordSearcher: thank you! (I’ve never solicited votes, so I don’t really know who you are.)
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But the Parents for the Children
By Brandon | June 27, 2008
2 Corinthians 12:14 Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you; and I will not be burdensome to you: for I seek not yours, but you: for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children.
As with any verse in Scripture, this one teaches many things. There is the direct application of what Paul was telling the Corinthians concerning his ministry to them, but what is striking me right now is one of the secondary truths Paul states here: that of laying up for the children.
While many Christians are busy claiming Matthew 6 and “taking no thought” of life, food, drink, and clothing, what are they doing to “lay up” for their children? And what of providing for their own house?
1 Timothy 5:8 But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
As believers in this Church Age, we are to consider Paul first (2Ti 2:7), so let us focus on what Paul tells us to do for a moment.
There is an effort right now that is indicative of the general spirit of the times in the United States. We are poised to elect the most Marxist candidate ever to the presidency, in so doing transferring more responsibility off of the individual to the State. The nation is on the verge of demanding the nationalization of the health care services industry. These are certainly not “providing for his own.” We demand from our government new handouts in the forms of economic stimulus checks and home finance bailouts, and our politicians happily oblige us by borrowing more money from our children and grandchildren — the children laying up for the parents.
While we (and I speak to those of us who are Bible believers) may not have a strong influence on our government, we can certainly do more in our own lives to take ownership of our God-given responsibilities. Paul’s writings in Scripture are not suggestions, so let us take consideration of what we are doing and be sure to line up ourselves with Scripture:
- Do you look to the government or other people for your basic provision, or do you do everything in your power to “provide for your own?”
- Do you put your hopes in a ponsi scheme for retirement (Social Security) that requires your children and your children’s children to “lay up” for you, or do you make provision for your own welfare in the future?
- Do you hope for the government to care for your health, or do you care for your own health?
- If you have children, have you planned for their care in the event of your death? (Lay up for the children!)
- Do you “lay up” for your children by ensuring they are learning strong character, independence, and honesty, or do you leave their training up to other people who are not even allowed to teach such matters?
We do not live in a world where doing everything above is easy or necessarily possible all of the time. However, the Bible does not leave us room for apathy on these things. In fact, Paul’s comments here would be regarded as heartless by today’s humanistic standards:
2 Thessalonians 3:10 For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
When you go before Christ to give an accounting for your life as a child of God, are you going to have to answer for not abiding by the precepts?
Don’t misunderstand me — we have a responsibility to care for those among us who can not care for themselves. That’s not what I am talking about. I am talking about our Biblical duty to care for our selves and not force our children to lay up for us.
Living by the Truth is hard. These precepts are hard and go against the grain of so much modern teaching on the subject that even bringing these truths up can get you shunned by other Christians. But they are there nonetheless.
Are you doing everything you can to live by them?
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Supreme Court Actually Reads Constitution
By Brandon | June 26, 2008
Well, I’m sure everybody who cares has heard by now that the Supreme Court has affirmed that an individual has the right to own guns, and that the individual right doesn’t have anything to do with military service.
So today we had a “duh” ruling. This is so obvious that one has to wonder when the four dissenting judges are going to be impeached by Congress for blatantly denying Constitutional rights.
What should worry people who care about the Constitution is that this was a 5-4 ruling. That means that there was actually a “swing vote” over such an obvious and clear right protected by the Bill of Rights. That means that it would only take one Constitutionalist judge being replaced by a liberal to erase this obvious, clear right from existence.
I won’t bore people with more punditry — it’s all been said. I’m glad that the Supreme Court has affirmed an obvious fact, and struck down an obviously unconstitutional law. I’ll be happy about that and shut up now.
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SwordSearcher Modules
By Brandon | May 31, 2008
Ever since SwordSearcher 4.0, there have been users sharing modules (Commentaries, Books, etc) that they have built for the software. There are quite a few of them floating around the net, so it’s high time I did something to help SwordSearcher Bible Software users find them in case there are items of interest in their study.
SSModules: Free Module Downloads for SwordSearcher Bible Software is currently in “beta.” It’s beta because there isn’t much listed there yet, but I’m working on it. My goal is two-fold:
- Index many of the modules available from third parties.
- Upload my own “extra” modules that I have built but not added to SwordSearcher’s Deluxe study library for one reason or another.
Work will be ongoing. I don’t know how long it will be “in beta” (certainly not perpetual beta like a Google internet service), but it’s usable now, so have a visit if you’re a SwordSearcher user. You may find something you like.
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SwordSearcher 5.3 out the door
By Brandon | May 17, 2008
SwordSearcher Bible Software version 5.3 is finally released. Yay!
In looking over the revision history, I think this is one of the most significant updates since 5.0 — not because of new content, but just because of new code. The new user editor should really be useful for people writing their own personal notes in the software, and the new Scan Text for Verse References tool should be an all-around time saver for anyone who reads Bible study stuff on the web.
Here’s what it does:
In the above example, I copied in text from a web page using the Windows clipboard. Each reference is automatically highlighted by SwordSearcher, and I can hold the mouse pointer over a reference to read the Bible text as I read along in the article. Obviously, clicking the verse links performs actions such as moving the Bible panel to the passage or loading the references in a Verse List panel.
This even works with “old style” commentaries that use Roman numerals for chapter identifiers.
(Geek alert: the rest of this blog post is programmer stuff.)
In order to handle this automatic verse reference discovery, I built a custom parser that uses a combination of Regular Expressions and good ‘ol Delphi code. SwordSearcher can understand over 2,000 forms of Bible book names and abbreviations. Jan Goyvaerts’ program RegEx Buddy was an invaluable aid in developing the RegExes SwordSearcher uses internally — I highly recommend it if you have to build RegExes in your line of work.
Anyway, version 5.3 was a lot of fun to develop. Now I can switch gears for a little while and do some other work that’s been waiting for me…
Topics: Christianity & Religion, Software & Technology | No Comments »