This week’s sponsor is christianaudio.com. “The mission of christianaudio is to shape Christian hearts to think and do right. We are in the business of making contexts in which Christians can think properly about God, themselves, and the world. We believe that spiritual growth occurs within the framework of proper beliefs - the contexts that allow Christians to go about enjoying God and serving others.” I have met the guys behind christianaudio on several occasions and have always enjoyed their kindness and their desire to serve the church.

This week’s sponsor of Free Stuff Fridays is Shepherd Press. Shepherd Press is a ministry dedicated to publishing solid, biblical books and material. They are likely best-known for publishing material by Ted Tripp (including Shepherding a Child’s Heart) but they also publish material by a variety of other authors. I have yet to find a Shepherd Press book that was not worth reading.

One of the more unique products they offer is a series of commentaries designed for children (titled Herein Is Love). These are written by Nancy Ganz and are based on Sunday School material she has taught for many years at Ottawa Reformed Presbyterian Church where her husband, Richard, serves as pastor. I have been to that church many times and count both Rich and Nancy as friends. In fact, I remember sitting in Nancy’s classes when I was just a boy.

Today Shepherd Press is offering as a prize five sets of these commentaries. Each of five winners will receive Genesis (in a brand new second edition), Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers.

D.A. Carson (who knows a thing or two about commentaries) says these volumes are “Interesting and very competent … a major contribution!” Here is an introduction to Genesis:

This book is truly wonderful. It has captured parents and children with creative, gripping, and beautiful portrayals of what truly happened in the beginning. The beginning books of the Bible are essential to our understanding of God’s redemptive story. The author of Herein Is Love creatively focuses our attention on the events that bring this story to life. The series has the richness of well-written literature and the depth of understanding inherent in a commentary. The result is a series of books whose details live and sing. They help parent and child understand the Christ-centered Word, and they are enjoyable reading for both. Your own faith will be strengthened while reading to your children, and your children will be encouraged, lesson by lesson, to believe in the Lord Jesus.

These books are an ideal addition for any library—personal, home or school. They are great for reading to your children and I’m willing to guarantee you will learn a few things yourself along the way.

Rules: You may only enter the draw once. Simply fill out your name and email address to enter the draw. As soon as the winners have been chosen, all names and addresses will be immediately and permanently erased. Winners will be notified by email. The giveaway closes Saturday at noon.

Enter here:

This week Ligonier Ministries is offering 50 (count ‘em 50!) prizes. Each of the 50 (!) winners will be given a year-long subscription to Tabletalk Magazine (or a subscription for a friend, neighbor, hairdresser, family member, etc if the winner happens to already be a subscriber).

Tabletalk is a tool that helps you grow in your knowledge of God and in your love for His Son and His people. Each month is packed with more than 60 pages of focused, practical Bible study and insightful commentary by today’s top Christian thinkers. Over the years, Tabletalk has been recognized for its excellence through several awards. Today, people all over the world read Tabletalk on a daily basis. The magazine is regularly found in seminary libraries and churches throughout the country. Many credit Tabletalk with helping them maintain a solid life of study and prayer.

Click here If you would like to view a sample issue.

Please note that it will take 6-8 weeks for your first issue to arrive.

Rules: You may only enter the draw once. Simply fill out your name and email address to enter the draw. As soon as the winners have been chosen, all names and addresses will be immediately and permanently erased. Winners will be notified by email. The giveaway closes Saturday at noon.

Enter here:

Well, another Free Stuff Fridays is upon us. This week’s sponsor is Evangelical Press, a non-profit publisher whose mission “is to place sound Christian books and sound biblical teaching within reach of as many people as it can across the world.” Today they are offering to place a brand new book with five readers of this site. The prize they are offering is the newly published Who Made God?: Searching for a Theory of Everything. This is a 304 page hardcover book that goes head-to-head with today’s popular new atheists.

The author is an esteemed scientist (just check out the list of letters that follow his name: Professor Edgar H. Andrews BSc, PhD, DSc, FInstP, FIMMM, CEng, CPhys.) who is Emeritus Professor of Materials at the University of London and an international expert on the science of large molecules. Says the publisher, “If you’ve been waiting for a really effective riposte to the ‘new atheism’ of Richard Dawkins and others (or even if you haven’t) here it is - gently humorous, highly readable, deeply serious, razor sharp, and written by an internationally respected scientist. Who made God? dismantles the arguments and pretensions of scientific atheism and presents a robust biblical theism as a positive, and altogether more convincing, alternative.”

The book has already been widely praised and looks primed to make a splash. You may like to read more about the author and his work at whomadegod.org. “A book written by a distinguished scientist about the existence of God, which has chapter headings like ‘Sooty and the universe’, ‘Steam engine to the stars’ and ‘The tidy pachyderm’, has to be different. It is. Addressing profound questions of science, philosophy and faith with an amazing lightness of touch, Edgar Andrews exposes the pretensions of the ‘new atheism’ of Richard Dawkins and others, blending incisive arguments with gentle humour. As Fay Weldon writes, the result is ‘Thoughtful, readable, witty, wise …’”

Rules: You may only enter the draw once. Simply fill out your name and email address to enter the draw. As soon as the winners have been chosen, all names and addresses will be immediately and permanently erased. Winners will be notified by email. The giveaway closes Saturday at noon.

I am away on a retreat today but am leaving behind a new edition of Free Stuff Fridays. This week it is sponsored by Desiring God, a ministry that probably needs little introduction. The mission of DG “is to produce and distribute resources that spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.”

And today they want to distribute some of those resources to you! They are offering five great prize packages, each of which will contain the following items:

• When I Don’t Desire God DVD
• God is the Gospel DVD
• Don’t Waste Your Life book
• The Complete Romans Series audio DVD
• Desiring God

So go ahead and submit your name if you’d like to win this great prize!

Rules: You may only enter the draw once. Simply fill out your name and email address to enter the draw. As soon as the winners have been chosen, all names and addresses will be immediately and permanently erased. Winners will be notified by email. The giveaway closes Saturday at noon.

Where does the time ago? Another Friday has come and with it another edition of Free Stuff Fridays. This week’s sponsor is The Good Book Company and they are giving away three great prizes—Starter Packs of Christianity Explored.

There are many ways of introducing people to Jesus, but the principle behind Christianity Explored is to keep it simple and let the Gospel tell the gospel. Its a short, informal course based in Mark’s Gospel that helps people answer three questions that cut right to the heart of Christianity: Who is Jesus? Why did he come? And what does it mean to follow him? As Mark’s Gospel is opened and explored, Jesus walks off the pages of Scripture - and powerfully into people’s lives.

There are five good reasons for using a Gospel to tell the gospel:

1. It allows Jesus to do as much of the talking as possible!


2. People who start their Christian lives by exploring the Bible, learn to rely instinctively on God’s Word throughout their lives.


3. The gospel is the way we start the Christian life and the way we keep going. So Mark’s Gospel is just as challenging and inspiring for Christians as it is for non-Christians.


4. Exploring all of Mark’s Gospel means that people hear the whole gospel - not just the edited highlights, or inoffensive bits!


5. There is power in the word of Christ (Rom 10:17).

Dr John Stott says about the course, “What I welcome about Christianity Explored is that, in taking us through Mark’s Gospel, it emphasizes truths which are often neglected - like the gravity of sin, the centrality of the cross, the sufficiency of grace, and the necessity of repentance.”

And Michael Horton of Westminster Seminary adds, “Combining evangelistic passion and evangelical commitments, one need not choose between relevance and faithfulness with Christianity Explored. It represents the best example I know of for effectively reaching non-Christians without diluting the message.”

I have 3 Starter Packs to give away, each worth $149.99. That includes: 3 Leaders’ Guides, 9 Study Guides, a copy of How to Run the Course and the DVD; everything you need to get a Christianity Explored course up and running in your church, community group or latest evangelistic outreach effort you are planning.

Rules: You may only enter the draw once. Simply fill out your name and email address to enter the draw. As soon as the winners have been chosen, all names and addresses will be immediately and permanently erased. Winners will be notified by email. The giveaway closes Saturday at noon.

We’re back with another edition of Free Stuff Fridays. This one is sponsored by Zondervan, a company which I’m guessing needs little introduction. They are offering five copies of a brand new book and one that is just beautiful. The Inklings of Oxford is a coffee table kind of book that focuses on “C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Their Friends.” Written by Harry Lee Poe and featuring the photography of James Ray Veneman, it asks, “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to walk this medieval city’s narrow, winding lanes in the company of such giants of Christian literature? Let The Inklings of Oxford be you tour guide to Oxford and its environs.”

Here is the publisher’s description of the book:

Oxford’s fabled streets echo with the names of such key figures in English history as Edmund Halley, John Wycliffe, and John and Charles Wesley. Of more recent times are those of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the other members of the renowned literary circle to which they belonged, the Inklings.

What would it be like to walk this medieval city’s narrow lanes in the company of such giants of Christian literature, to visit Magdalen College, where Lewis and Tolkien read aloud their works-in-progress to their friends, or the Eagle and Child pub, the Inklings’ favorite gathering place?

The lavish photography of this book will introduce you to the fascinating world of the Inklings, matching their words to the places where these friends discussed—and argued over—theology, philosophy, ancient Norse myth, and Old Icelandic, while writing stories that were to become classics of the faith.

The Inklings of Oxford will deepen your knowledge of and appreciation for this unique set of personalities. The book also features a helpful map section for taking walking tours of Oxford University and its environs.

You may also wish to see this brief video or look at this PDF sample.

Rules: You may only enter the draw once. Simply fill out your name and email address to enter the draw. As soon as the winners have been chosen, all names and addresses will be immediately and permanently erased. Winners will be notified by email. The giveaway closes Saturday at noon.

After a one-week hiatus, we are back with another edition of Free Stuff Fridays. This week’s sponsor is Bardin & Marsee Publishing and the prize they are offering is a mite unusual. They have offered up six copies of The Waterproof Bible. Now this is the kind of product that might lead you to immediately roll your eyes; but hang on for a moment. The Waterproof Bible is simply a Bible that is, well, waterproof. Available in the NIV and KJV, it is regular-sized Bible but one that you can take with you anywhere. The pages are very difficult to tear and, as you’d expect, you can drop it in the ocean and it will be just fine. The copy they sent to me shipped already-wet just to prove that this Bible truly is not going to get soggy.

Here is Bobby Bardin’s story of how he came to see the need for a waterproof Bible:

As a believer in Christ and one that has always loved to be in God’s creation exposed to the elements, I have often desired to have my Bible by my side for reading here and there. My exploring has led me to mountain tops, river banks, sandy beaches, misty valleys, and hot springs, and has caused me to become soaked to the core while backpacking or paddling. I hate to admit that my Bible has not made it with me on many of these occasions for the sake of protecting it and because I don’t trust a plastic bag not to puncture. Michael and I have been talking about how awesome it would be to have a waterproof Bible for many years now, and we have finally decided to produce it ourselves. Now we can put an end to all the worrying that we have done in the past about our Bibles and take God’s Word wherever our adventures lead.

To make this happen, Michael, Anna (my wife), and I have formed Bardin & Marsee Publishing, LLC to produce the world’s first waterproof, rugged, and tear resistant Bibles. We hope that you find heaps of enjoyment reading God’s Word in all weather environments.

Bardin & Marsee have kindly offered up six copies of the NIV Waterproof Bible for this giveaway so there will be, of course, six winners.

Rules: You may only enter the draw once. Simply fill out your name and email address to enter the draw. As soon as the winners have been chosen, all names and addresses will be immediately and permanently erased. Winners will be notified by email. The giveaway closes Saturday at noon.

Yesterday I took a trip across the continent, journeying from Toronto to Los Angeles. I am here in L.A. to speak at a conference a bit later on in the day. I’ve decided to try not to adjust to the time change and, therefore, am going to bed ridiculously early and getting up ridiculously early. Of course it probably won’t much matter in the end since I am taking the red-eye home. Nevertheless, I caught myself mumbling a little bit yesterday, complaining about the length of the flight which clocked in at just over five hours. And then I realized that I was traveling 2500 miles in five hours and that any complaining about such a fact just proved me to be an idiot. I repented and enjoyed the flight which, come to think of it, seemed like just about the fastest five hour flight I’ve ever sat through.

I digress. Today is Friday both here and at home and that means it’s time for another Free Stuff Fridays. And this week we’ve got a good one. It is sponsored by Eternal Perspectives Ministries. Eternal Perspective Ministries is a Bible-believing Christ-centered nonprofit organization with two goals: to teach the principles of God’s Word, emphasizing an eternal viewpoint; to reach the needy in Christ’s name, calling attention to the needs of the unreached, unfed, unsupported, unborn, unreconciled and untrained. It is headed, as you may know, by Randy Alcorn whose books you may well have run into in the past.

This week I’ve got five prizes to give away. Each prize is a signed copy of Alcorn’s latest book, If God Is Good. This book is actually not even on sale yet as the street date is next Tuesday. It is a nice big 500-page hardcover that provides a very thorough look at what the Bible teaches about evil and suffering. I’ve already read it through and highly recommend it (and, in fact, will print a review of it next week). Here is what the publisher says about the book: “In this captivating new book, best-selling author Randy Alcorn challenges the logic of disbelief, and brings a fresh, realistic, and thoroughly biblical insight to the issues these important questions raise. Alcorn offers insights from his conversations with men and women whose lives have been torn apart by suffering, and yet whose faith in God burns brighter than ever. He reveals the big picture of who God is and what God is doing in the world—now and forever. And he equips you to share your faith more clearly and genuinely in this world of pain and fear.”

Rules: You may only enter the draw once. Simply fill out your name and email address to enter the draw. As soon as the winners have been chosen, all names and addresses will be immediately and permanently erased. Winners will be notified by email. The giveaway closes Saturday at noon.

Free Stuff Fridays is an opportunity to give away some great resources and today I’ve got some I think you’ll love. This week’s sponsor is Moody Publishers. Moody has offered up five prizes, each of which will contain three brand new books: Words From the Fire by Al Mohler, The Reason for Sports by Ted Kluck and Undefiled by Harry Schaumburg.

Here is a brief description of each of the books:

Undefiled: “Amid the chaos of cybersex, impersonal sex, adultery, homosexuality, and sexual dissatisfaction in marriage, Undefiled calls readers toward a new kind of sexual revolution. Sexual impurity creates a vicious circle, one that springs from misconceptions about Christ and further taints our understanding of Him. Yet another circle is available to men and women trapped in sin, a circle of sexual redemption.”

Words from the Fire: “Whether you suspect they’re in the Bible or recite them in church, you’ll find this eye-opening look at the Ten Commandments pivotal in your relationship with God. Why? Because His commandments reveal life’s meaning and clarify the importance of our relations with others. When God spoke from the fire on Mt. Sinai, He showed His love and mercy by steering us from self-destruction. He also prepared our hearts to live for his glory.”

The Reason for Sports: ” Written in the vein of Rick Reilly (Sports Illustrated), Chuck Klosterman (Spin, Esquire), and David Foster Wallace (A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again), The Reason for Sports will both entertain and shed light on some of today’s most pertinent sports issues: race, drugs, hero worship, and more - all through a biblical lens.”

Rules: You may only enter the draw once. Simply fill out your name and email address to enter the draw. As soon as the winners have been chosen, all names and addresses will be immediately and permanently erased. Winners will be notified by email. The giveaway closes Saturday at noon.