An Invitation - Come in April

AW Tozer writes: "The facts are that God is not silent, has never been silent. It is the nature of God to speak.

"The second Person of the Holy Trinity is called the Word. If you would follow on to know the Lord, come at once to the open Bible expecting it to speak to you. Do not come with the notion that it is a thing which you may push around at your convenience. It's more than a thing; it is a voice, a word, the very Word of the living God."  (from The Pursuit of God)

Statues at St.Anthony's Retreat Center

Come to The Springs Retreat for prayer and reflection and let the Living Word strengthen you as you contemplate the mystery of Good Friday and the Wonder of Easter Sunday.

Let Jesus enfold you in His love (God demonstrates His love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us).

It is the experiential knowledge of the Savior's love that will quiet your anxieties and fears, give you deep physical rest, and restore your soul as you enjoy the beauty of His creation.

Hear Jesus, the Living Word of God, inviting you to come away from the demands of your life so that you can spend a few days with Him.

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Receiving, submitting, praying

“Having the Bible, defending and celebrating the Bible instead of receiving, submitting to, and praying the Bible, masks an enormous amount of non-reading.” (Eugene Peterson, Eat this Book, 140). One of the wonderful aspects of the The Springs retreat is that we have time to really receive the Word.

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The Word

Reading the Scripture puts solid food in our mouths, meditation chews it and breaks it down, prayer obtains the flavor of it and contemplation is the very sweetness which makes us glad and refreshes us.” Guigo the Second, 12^th century monk.

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NET Bible

I've been looking for a new Bible for almost a year and I just found one that I really like. It's the New English Translation (NET) available free online if you want to download and print the text yourself -- or you can buy the Reader's Edition for about $50 in genuine leather, with great satellite maps, a very readable font, and companion CD with all kinds of information. There are a few notes at the bottom of each page but not a lot -- I like that for devotional reading. I can go online and get all of the notes (70,000) if I want more information. I also like their mission -- to get the 2 billion people who speak English around the world a free Bible they can download.

On their website http://www.bible.org/ they have a huge array of bible study resources and the free, downloadable NET Bible. Scholars are saying that it is the best phrase for phrase translation available today. I'm really enjoying it.

From Bible Study magazine, Nov&Dec 2008:
"the NET Bible was published in 2005...At times it is more accurate than the NASB, more readable than the NIV, and more elegant than either. It is clear and eloquent, while maintaining the meaning of the original. In addition, the notes are a genuine gold mine of information, unlike those found in any other translation. The NET aims to be gender-neutral. The NET Bible is the Bible behind the bibles. It's the one that many modern translators use to help them work through the original language and express their meaning in literate English. I would highly recommend that each English-speaking Christian put this Bible on their shopping list." Dan Wallace, professor of New Testament Studies and Greek at Dallas Theological Seminary and founder of the Center for Study of New Testament Manuscripts which offers free images of New Testament manuscripts online at http://www.csntm.org/.

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