A flurry of activity shows me that not everyone who wants to be a part of the “Verse of the Day – Plus” learning community from its outset realised that they needed to sign up today at the special launch price of just twelve pounds. You will still be able to sign up after midnight today (Friday), but only at the regular price of twenty five pounds. The launch offer is less than half the regular price and includes an extra bonus session of the Daily Bible Reading Workshop, looking at concordances. That’s just one pound ($1.40) per month, a tad over 3p (7c) per day for all the added value that we will bring to help you read and understand your Bible and to be able to share those thoughts with an on-line learning community.

A few people wrote to complain that they didn’t want to pay for their Daily Bread. We understand that and heaven forfend that we would charge anyone for access to the text of the Bible, or be trying to get people to pay for the Bible being delivered to them. There are any number of free and very usable Bible reading programs out there, offering verses and sometimes a little commentary. Please don’t let us take you away from something with which you are comfortable.

We are making a very modest subscription charge for the extra scholarship that we are bringing to your study and reading, for access to material drawn from our scholarly library, for our years of experience in writing and commenting on the biblical text, for a guided and, we hope, inspired path through the Bible in bite-sized pieces with commentary, scholarship, further study suggestions and questions and a challenge or application, for an audio transcript so that you can listen to the lesson each day as well as read it, and for access to and membership of a learning community who are all working with the same material and can discuss questions and concerns, to share and discover how the Bible and its Author are speaking to you.

We need enough people in our initial community group so that there will always be people reading and commenting, sharing and talking; so that the community dynamics work and that people won’t be rolling around in an empty room. This is why we are offering such a significant price reduction for our foundation members, to assemble a group of enough critical mass, although we hope the group will soon grow as we share what the group is doing, how the L-rd is speaking and the learning we have done together, with friends, colleagues, acquaintances at church or congregation. We can all do this and so help the group to grow and be a blessing to an ever widening circle of believers.

So if you had reservations about the subscription fee, didn’t understand how the group was going to work, or perhaps hadn’t realised why signing up now was important, can I gently nudge you to think about popping along to the sign-up page and getting that done before midnight so that we can start with a good and robust group on Monday morning. We need you to make it work! Here’s the link again:

Verse of the Day – Plus Sign-up

Wishing you Shabbat shalom and a pleasant evening and weekend, and hoping to see you for our first reading on Monday morning,

Jonathan and Belinda
—
Rabbi Dr Jonathan Allen PhD CEng
Director, Spreading The Word – Online
To come off our mailing list at any time, simply hit reply to this email and send us a little note to explain and we’ll take care of it right away. You can see our privacy policies here.

Today is the day when we need to close the special launch period for our foundation members of “Verse of the Day – Plus”. We’re still getting hits on the videos and the two samples of VOTD+ material have been read (and re-read) by thousands of people. Some of you have obviously been sharing the links and material with friends as we have had many ‘outside’ readings. The size of the learning community is gradually growing, but today is the last day to take advantage of the launch price and the bonus video offer. You can still sign up until midnight here:

Daily Bible Reading Sign-up

Over on the blog we’ve had some really interesting comments and questions showing that the learning community will be thinking and growing together as we we allow the text of the Bible challenge us. Ann has actually been to the site where Herod watched Herodias’ daughter dance and then made his rash vow; you can read her comment here:

Daily Bible Reading Sample #2

Patricia and Diana also ask some important questions to stretch our faith and practice. Why not follow the link and join in the conversation today?

All the comments and email we have had have been so encouraging, I just know that VOTD+ is going to be such a blessing. I’m really looking forward to starting with our first set of regular readings on Monday. It would be great to see you there.

Philip sent me an email to ask whether my comments about vows would be altered by Leviticus 5:4-6, where it says:

If anyone utters with his lips a rash oath to do evil or to do good, any sort of rash oath that people swear, and it is hidden from him, when he comes to know it, and he realizes his guilt in any of these; when he realizes his guilt in any of these and confesses the sin he has committed, he shall bring to the LORD as his compensation for the sin that he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat, for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin.

I think the key here is the words, “it is hidden from him”. A rash vow that is made entirely by accident, possibly not even knowing that one is making a vow, that is later discovered, may be repented of and forgiven. Notice that it is not without cost – compensation is required and confession of sin. I also think that this provision did not apply in Herod’s case: his vow was in a very public place and, had he wished to do so, he could have instantly recanted and admitted his mistake. But he clearly chose not to do so for the sake of his image and reputation, so went ahead with the murder of John the Baptist. At that point, it was not an unknown sin and the above procedure was no longer available.

Isn’t it fascinating to see what happens when we start discussing the Word – how it stretches us and challenges all of us together as we wrestle with the words and meanings. Do join us – this is a perfect example of how the dialogue should work and bless us all.

If you haven’t already done so for yourself, or think of someone else who you know would benefit from this project, you can sign up today by just clicking throught the link below:

Daily Bible Reading Sign-up

We’re looking forward to seeing you in the “Verse of the Day – Plus” community.

Jonathan and Belinda
—
Rabbi Dr Jonathan Allen PhD CEng
Director, Spreading The Word – Online
To come off our mailing list at any time, simply hit reply to this email and send us a little note to explain and we’ll take care of it right away. You can see our privacy policies here.

It’s now the third day in the “Verse of the Day – Plus” launch period following the four-part Daily Bible Reading Workshop. We’ve had nearly a thousand views for the Workshop videos and are so blessed that there has been so much interest. We pray that you – and everyone else – who watched have been able to get something personally for yourself from the video material. The format worked really well and we’ll be using the same style to look at some more Bible Study ideas later in the year, when we’re getting ready for a weekly in-depth study program.

This is just a short video to let you know how the launch is going and to remind you that the launch period ends on Friday at midnight (UK time). So you’ve got just three days more to join us in the VOTD learning community. We’re so looking forward to starting with our first daily reading on Monday.

I hope you found yesterday’s VOTD sample useful – lots of people read it and I even had our hostess for dinner last night quote it back to me. There will be another sample in tomorrow’s email so that you can make a thorough assessment of how helpful it could be for you. Do feel free to pass it on to anyone else who you think might find it useful, so that we can include as many people in the community from the start.

So please go ahead and watch the video for a few more details about what is happening and then make a comment on the blog or send me an email to let me know what you think.

Click on the link below to go to the update video:

Daily Bible Reading Workshop Update

Jonathan and Belinda
—
Rabbi Dr Jonathan Allen PhD CEng
Director, Spreading The Word – Online
To come off our mailing list at any time, simply hit reply to this email and send us a little note to explain and we’ll take care of it right away. You can see our privacy policies here.