Tag: News

Quick Update on the World’s Other “Words on…” Blog (and its New Co-Author)

BD KAVAJ case
Yay for co-authorship! (Image via Brian Davidson)

 

I’ve had fun getting the new Words on the Goods off the ground the last couple months. This site’s sister blog now has its first co-author, Brian Davidson. I’m excited about the possibilities having multiple writers opens up.

Words on the Goods focuses on reviewing high-quality, high-utility gear, as well as the best productivity and life management apps.

Here are a few highlights from recent weeks:

Find Words on the Goods at www.wordsonthegoods.com. If you scroll to the bottom, you can sign up to follow or subscribe to the blog.

 

 

This week’s blog sponsor is MailButler, the feature set you always wished your Mac Mail had (and that I’m glad mine does). Find out more about it here or download and try it free here.

My Writing Week at Collegeville Institute in MN

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A few weeks ago I had the privilege of attending “Apart, and Yet a Part,” a writing week at Collegeville Institute in Minnesota. (I am at far right in the image above.)

Here‘s a short write-up of the week. And here is a full description of it. Days were ours to structure as we liked–for writing, reflection, walking or running around on the beautiful grounds of St. John’s University.

The people at Collegeville Institute were fantastic. The cohort of fellow writers was a smart, kind, and sensitive group of souls. The writing coach, Michael McGregor, helped me immensely. I can’t say enough good things about the week away.

My progress was more in the realm of quality (conceptual breakthroughs) than quantity (sheer word count). I’m working on a project that I might share more about on this blog down the road. (Though this article and this one offer a hint.)

What a week! I’m looking forward to hopefully taking advantage of future offerings at Collegeville.

 

 

This week’s blog sponsor is MailButler, the feature set you always wished your Mac Mail had (and that I’m glad mine does). Find out more about it here or download and try it free here.

Baylor University Press: 50% Off All Pre-2015 Titles

 

Baylor University Press Sale

 

Baylor University Press is currently offering 50% off all their backlist titles for grad students. (Though unlike previous sales, a .edu address is not required, so others can use the code, too). Two BUP titles I’ve reviewed at Words on the Word, that are both eligible for the sale, are Luke: A Handbook on the Greek Text and Malachi: A Handbook on the Hebrew Text (reviewed here and here). You might also consider Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus or †Rod Decker’s Greek Handbooks on Mark.

The sale is good from today through Sunday, June 12. If you use the discount code “BJUN” you can order at a 50% discount!

Baylor Press’s page for the sale is here.

Birth Announcement!

WotG

 

It’s a blog!

I’m pleased to announce the birth of Words on the Goods:

Words on the Goods reviews high-quality, high-utility gear. Writers, audiophiles, tech lovers, and people who actually say EDC out loud will love it here. We bring you in-depth and practical write-ups with hi-res images of the best notebooks, pens, speakers, leather cases, apps, devices, and more.

We’re up and running, and actually have been for some time. Here are a few highlights of reviews from the first couple weeks of its life:

I’ll continue to post occasional product and app reviews here at Words on the Word, but will focus my posts here more on my own writing, sermons, tools for preachers, biblical studies, church life, and the like. If you were always here for the goods, you should go to Words on the Goods and subscribe (bottom left of any page). I’m the sole writer at the moment, but that’s fixin’ to change.

If you like giveaways, go here and enter for a chance to win a 3-pack of some sweet Word. Terrain notebooks.

New Commentary Series: T&T Clark International Theological Commentary

Joel ITC

 

Users of technical and original language-oriented commentaries are familiar with the International Critical Commentary series. The publisher of ICC has just announced the new International Theological Commentary series.

The publisher’s description of the series is as follows:

The T&T Clark International Theological Commentary (ITC) offers a verse by verse interpretation of the Bible that addresses its theological subject matter, gleaning the best from both the classical and modern commentary traditions and showing the doctrinal development of Scriptural truths.

A companion series to the long-running International Critical Commentary (ICC) the ITC bears all the same hallmarks of scholarly rigour and excellence. The two series will be published alongside each other with the ITC’s focus being on the theological significance of biblical texts.

The series editors are Michael Allen and Scott R. Swain, both of Reformed Theological Seminary. The books sport a high price tag, like the ICC counterpart–the just-published Joel volume is $94 in hardback. (A bit cheaper on Kindle.) You may wish to ask your local library to get these volumes so you can check them out.

Learn more about the series here.

New Teen Daze Music! New Teen Daze Music! New…

Teen Daze Célébrer

I’d never heard of Teen Daze before last August. His/their Morning World was one of my favorite new releases in a very long time.

Today I received an email that there is more Teen Daze music. I’m listening to each of these mini-releases, song by song. The feel of the lead single “Célébrer” is pretty different from Morning World, even different from his other more synth-heavy stuff. But it’s pretty sweet.

Here–I’ll just quote a chunk of the email/press release, since it hyperlinks to all the songs. Enjoy!

After releasing last year’s full length, Morning World, Teen Daze has announced that 2016 will see the release of several new, dance-oriented singles.  The first, Célébrer, is already available to stream and download.  Along with the single, you can dive into the first episode of Célébrer Radio, a new, hour long mix series, featuring 60 mins of upbeat dance music.

In other new release news, Teen Daze has contributed a new song to the latest alaya. compilation.  The serene, spacious track, Narrow Road, Too Deep, was created in several different countries and was inspired by “cyclonic weather in Northern Australia, the great new age artist Laraaji, and humid days exploring the labyrinth of Hatsudai, a neighbourhood in Tokyo.”

On top of all of this, there have been two new Teen Daze remixes that have dropped in the last two months.  Check out the dreamy rework of Japanese Wallpaper’s beautiful song, Forces, and the dance floor-ready edit of Drake’s Hotline Bling.

Feb. 8: Happy International Septuagint Day!

International Septuagint Day

 

Today, February 8, is International Septuagint Day. Happy LXX Day! So read yerself some Septuagint today, in Greek or English.

A few more links to explore:

A Modest New Year’s Resolution (8 Minutes a Day)

2016 writing

 

Of my too many New Year’s resolutions, perhaps the most important one is to write at least eight minutes a day.

You might have noticed a lot more posts with the “writing” tag since the fall. Much of my writing recently has been by hand. Though, make no mistake, I still feel most agile and fluent with a keyboard.

So far I’m 4-for-4 with eight minutes a day! There’s plenty of 2016 left for me to change my mind, lose interest, give up, etc. But I have already found an eight-minute-a-day habit easier to keep up than other daily goals I’ve set for myself in the past.

Another resolution that hurts a lot more but takes just as little time: 50+ push-ups a day. I hope to work up to 100 by spring.

You Read It Here First: 2016’s Word of the Year Will Be…

My wife taught the word to me. And then I saw it in a super-nerdy, super-awesome Bible software forum I frequent. The word is…

Grok

That’s right. Grok. It will be 2016’s Word of the Year, I predict… or if the world isn’t ready, 2017, for sure.

 

NO.
NO. Grok, not Gronk.

 

Here’s how I saw it in the Accordance forums:

Working with the Help system and especially the Training components, I was able to make sense of the approach Accordance takes.  In my two previous rounds with the Demo in 2014 and early 2015, I just did not grok the system. Bottom line: Time with the Demo and the training tools and the December discounts enabled me to build a package that nicely does what I have always wanted Bible software to do….

(I commended this user for such a fluid use of the word.)

Oxford defines it thus:

Understand (something) intuitively or by empathy: because of all the commercials, children grok things immediately

My 15 seconds of Google research for this blog post (just kidding, it was three minutes) tells me that the word comes from an early 1960s sci-fi novel by Robert A. Heinlein, called Stranger in a Strange Land.

It’s a Martian word in that book. But if an emoji can win Word of the Year, why not a non-human word? Feel free to comment below if you grok what I’m talking about.

2015: Hundreds of Books, Thousands of Apps Reviewed!

I wasn’t going to post this, but then realized I’ve done this same sort of post every year since Words on the Word began–which was 2012! Blog years are like dog years, so I officially consider this blog really old.

It’s a little cheesy, but WordPress.com compiled a 2015 report for Words on the Word.

 

Click here to read it

 

Here are a few fun facts from the report:

  • April 9 of this year was the blog’s most-visited day ever (4,081 hits). This was the post
  • My longest streak was 12 days of blog posts in a row in mid-July
  • This post from 2012 (though a bit dated now in its specifics) is still the most popular one
  • I reviewed 382 books but have 2,153 still to review; I reviewed 823 apps but still have 6,321 more app reviews to write
  • The above bullet point is untrue
  • I asked, Is 2 Samuel 7 About Jesus? and quite the discussion ensued!

Click here to read the full report. A guaranteed cure for boredom and maybe even insomnia.