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Revelation Study Resources

February 4, 2017 / Joseph Ginder / 0 Comments

These are the books specifically on the Revelation of Jesus Christ that I have been using lately. I always use Logos Bible software with general resources like interlinears and Greek lexicons and word study. But these are the books specifically on Revelation that I am using these days.

Revelation for Everyone – N.T. Wright

This is the one book on Revelation to get if you only read one, or if you want to read it devotionally day-by-day. Wright has a very informed and balanced perspective and writes (in the Everyone Series) at a popular level for regular folk. He is an excellent communicator, scholar, and pastor.

The Bible Project

The Bible Project is just about the best thing in biblical literacy since sliced bread. These guys offer really good video summaries on books of the Bible along with many other free resources for students of the Bible. I can’t recommend their stuff highly enough, particularly for the internet-oriented crowd. Check it our yourself, and refer your friends to this resource. Here are their two excellent 10-minute videos on The Revelation of Jesus:

And here is The Bible Project in-depth podcast series on The Day of the Lord. It’s really excellent.

Discipleship on the Edge: An Expository Journey through the book of Revelation – Darrell W. Johnson

This book, based on a sermon series Darrell Johnson gave in Glendale, CA some years ago, is the one I am using to help me structure my 2017 sermon series and gauge how much background material to include. I appreciate Johnson’s care in study and exegesis and his passion. He’s an excellent preacher.

Revelation: Four Views – Steve Gregg

If you want to understand the range of reputable views or interpretations of Revelation, this is the book to get. Gregg did a major service for those of us who want to study the range of perspectives side-by-side. His book has proven to be extremely popular with pastors and students and is in a second edition now. I highly recommend this book when you are moving beyond casual study. Or even if you just want to understand the major perspectives

Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Following the Lamb into the new Creation – Michael J. Gorman

Not too long, very balanced, and recommended by many. Darrell Johnson recommended it.

The Theology of the Book of Revelation (New Testament Theology) – Richard Bauckham

Bauckham did not write this as a commentary, but to explain the theology of the Revelation. Very helpful.

Revelation: A New Covenant Commentary – Gordon D. Fee

This is a somewhat more academic commentary that is quite good.

The Book of Revelation, New International Commentary on the New Testament – Robert H. Mounce

This is one of the top commentaries on Revelation. As a volume in the New International Commentary on the New Testament, it is based on the Greek text; however, knowledge of Greek is not required to get a lot of benefit. For serious students of the text. I look here for help with difficult issues.

The NIV Application Commentary: Revelation – Craig S. Keener

This is another highly-regarded commentary that focuses more on providing possible application of the text for today’s Christian. I find Keener’s perspective helpful.

Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John and the Praying Imagination – Eugene H. Peterson

This book by Eugene Peterson is organized thematically. It is not a verse-by-verse commentary at all, but is about understanding the Revelation.

The Millennial Maze: Sorting Out Evangelical Options – Stanley J. Grenz

This is not strictly a book on Revelation at all. It’s about evangelical perspectives on the end times. It’s older than Gregg’s book above, but was one of the first resources that helped me, well, sort through the maze of millenniums. It’s an IVP book written at a level that a college student can easily read.

The Book of Revelation, New International Greek Testament Commentary – Gregory K. Beale

This is another top commentary on Revelation, focusing on the Greek text. Really good and pretty academic. It’s useful even if you don’t know Greek. It’s not my first resource, but rather for reference when I’m digging.

Sarah Williams talks on “Sex in the Post-Modern Story”

February 3, 2017 / Joseph Ginder / 0 Comments

“The problem of sexual confusion in our culture, which is huge, is not going to be solved by the reassertion of power.” Thus says the wise and learned Sarah Williams in these talks given at Corban University, which I cannot recommend highly enough. Williams is a first-rate scholar and does us a great service in explaining the world from which our present day came and how we got here, with regard to how we think of people and sex. I don’t know much about Corban University; but Sarah Williams I have read and listened to quite a lot over the past couple of years, to my great profit. Such great free resources are not so easy to find! This one is top notch.

Sex in the Postmodern Story, Part 1
Sex in the Postmodern Story, Part 2
Sex in the Postmodern Story, Part 3

The Bible Project

February 3, 2017 / Joseph Ginder / 0 Comments

The Bible Project is a project that brings me great encouragement. It is high quality, crowd-funded and unencumbered for re-use. It is just an all-around great general resource for followers of Jesus who want to learn and help others learn God’s story from the Bible. Here’s a link to The Bible Project from which you can learn all about it and start using the resources it provides.

Staying at the Bottom and the Edges

November 10, 2016 / Joseph Ginder / 0 Comments

[Jesus] demands of his first followers a living witness to a simple life on the edge, because once you are at the visible center, once you are on the top, you have too much to prove and too much to protect… The only free positions in this world are at the bottom and at the edges of things. Everywhere else, there is too much to maintain – an image to promote and a fear of losing it all – which ends up controlling your whole life.

– Richard Rohr, in Dancing Standing Still; Healing the World from a Place of Prayer

We Don’t Need Either One

October 13, 2016 / Joseph Ginder / 0 Comments

Judah got in a lot of trouble for depending on Assyria to protect them from the Israel/Aram coalition. And then Judah got in a lot of trouble for looking to Babylon to protect them from the Assyrians. Later, Judah got in a lot of trouble for depending on Egypt to protect them from the Babylonians. And so it goes.

People of God, vote for whomever you can vote with a clear conscience and then stand by without shame as a leader without being an embarrassment to God. But remember: #WeDontNeedEitherOne

There is no candidate running who will usher in the kingdom of God or prevent its coming.

Finally, Isaiah 30:1-3 is apropos:

Woe to the obstinate children,â€
declares the LORD,
â€œto those who carry out plans that are not mine,
forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit,
heaping sin upon sin;
who go down to Egypt
without consulting me;
who look for help to Pharaohâ€™s protection,
to Egyptâ€™s shade for refuge.
But Pharaohâ€™s protection will be to your shame,
Egyptâ€™s shade will bring you disgrace.
[NIV]

Un-Common Words from A Commonplace Book

October 5, 2016 / Joseph Ginder / 0 Comments

Alan Jacobs, in his review of The Complete Words of W. H. Auden in the September/October 2016 issue of Books & Culture quotes an entry from a book written late in Auden’s life entitled A Certain World: A Commonplace Book:

Let me close with one more reflection by Auden, one of the longest in A Certain World, from the entry on “Friday, Good”; it exemplifies the wisdom and acuity of mind that this great man possessed, even in the somewhat diminished last years of his life:

Just as we were all, potentially, in Adam when he fell, so we were all, potentially, in Jerusalem on that first Good Friday before there was an Easter, a Pentecost, a Christian, or a Church. It seems to me worth while asking ourselves who we should have been and what we should have been doing. None of us, I’m certain, will imagine himself as one of the Disciples, cowering in an agony of spiritual despair and physical terror. Very few of us are big wheels enough to see ourselves as Pilate, or good churchmen enough to see ourselves as a member of the Sanhedrin. In my most optimistic mood I see myself as a Hellenized Jew from Alexandria visiting an intellectual friend. We are walking along, engaged in philosophical argument. Our path takes us past the base of Golgotha. Looking up, we see an all-too-familiar sight – three crosses surrounded by a jeering crowd. Frowning with prim distaste, I say, “It’s disgusting the way the mob enjoy such things. Why can’t the authorities execute criminals humanely and in private by giving them hemlock to drink, as they did with Socrates?” Then, averting my eyes from the disagreeable spectacle, I resume our fascinating discussion about the nature of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.

Yow. I think that’s all too often how we walk through life. Or we look for miracles while creation proclaims all around us.

This is Not Social Discourse

November 16, 2015 / Joseph Ginder / 0 Comments

I’m not a particular fan of Bill Gates. However in this interview of Bill Gates from the Atlantic, Gates quite reasonably expresses the need to increase the rate of development for new energy sources (by a lot) because of climate change with less drama and more sense than is found in most such comments.

The interesting thing to me is that this article has created quite a buzz. But the buzz is not about the central ideas of the article. It’s about Bill Gates sidebar comments that he doesn’t think the free market is good at every kind of technological advance or every allocation of resources. The buzz is that Bill Gates is against free markets and has come out as a socialist!

Whether the article is meritorious on its own terms or not, this is sheer and utter nonsense. It prevents actual discussion of substance because the discussion is hijacked by hot button political issues. What Gates actually said isn’t being discussed. His comment on free markets is the only thing.

And that is where our public discourse is today. It’s so ridden with land mine hot button issues that you can’t even discuss anything. And if you happen to miss one of the mines and some interest is offended, they throw you and all your good ideas and labor away because of the one thing you said that made you an offender. That’s a recipe for permanent social adolescence. One can make no mistakes (if they are mistakes) or we’ll replace you with someone else who hasn’t done anything we could possibly be upset about. That’s no way to live.

Miracle or Sign?

March 20, 2015 / Joseph Ginder / 0 Comments

Paraphrasing a question from Susan Ramos:

In Luke 23:8, Herod is hoping Jesus will do something impressive so he can see it. Sometimes this is translated that he wanted Jesus to do a “sign” and other times that he wanted Jesus to do a “miracle”. You said that many recent translations are using the word “sign”. Could you explain please?

In the Bible, the Greek word sÄ“meÃon is usually translated these days as sign or wonder. Jesus was doing signs that pointed to the his identity as God. Herod wanted to see something spectacular – what we would call a miracle, even though Luke is careful to use the word “sign”. I’m not a Greek scholar and should let others handle explaining translation issues, but the reason I pointed this out was that I heard one translation in our reading use the “miracle” language and others use “sign”.

There are some significant ideas tied up in the choice of translation. In modern times, say, since the scientific revolution, nature has often been conceived as a big machine with regular workings. Atoms and molecules interact, chemical reactions take place, physical bodies move, and these workings take a regular order that can be described and predicted (if one knows enough). So, for example, it was predicted in advance that the today sun would shine directly on the equator of the earth (vernal equinox) and that there would be a solar eclipse visible over parts of northern Europe. There wasn’t anything miraculous about it even though a solar eclipse is very rare.

The concept of miracle came to be that sometimes God reaches into this big natural machine and does things which are not explained by the workings of nature and that cannot be predicted from natural knowledge no matter how much one knows. In this context, a miracle has no natural explanation. God has interrupted the regular working of nature and inserted a cause of events from outside of nature: God Himself. That is a technical definition of “miracle”. Sometimes people mean this when they say “miracle” today and sometimes they mean something less precise.

This division of things into “natural” and “miraculous” can be misleading from a biblical standpoint. In biblical teaching, God is responsible for creating and maintaining (upholding) the regular working of nature. For example, see Colossians 1:17. From a Christian perspective, it is because God is a powerful, intelligent, orderly god that nature has its order and can be studied and its working understood and even predicted. Nature and its regular working is an act of God. Every day; every moment. If God chooses to act in a way that is not his regular pattern then this would be what we might call a “miracle”, but it would not be any more or less that God was responsible for it than he is responsible for the regular working of the world.

OK, so what makes something a sign? It means something in God’s revelation of himself to us. For example, God could do what we would call a “miracle” down deep in the depths of the earth – say moving a rock that he intends to have some effect far in the future. It wouldn’t be a sign for us because we don’t know anything about it. God could cause the events of nature to coincide so that the eclipse today took place just as a Christian saint was passing away and by his Spirit speak to those attending the death of the saint and it be a sign for them. Nothing miraculous took place, in the sense that the working of nature was not interrupted and the eclipse took place exactly and for the physical reasons that humans understand, but the timing of events could make it a sign for those who trust God and hear from his Spirit.

For another example, what if God caused a strong wind to blow and divide the sea so that Israel could escape from Egyptian chariots? What if the wind could be explained by the weather patterns of the day and a low pressure system in the right place at the right time with the force of the resulting wind so strong that it made a dry passage appear in a way that has a natural explanation? Does that make it any less a sign that God has acted to save Israel? I think not. But we don’t know the explanation for the wind except to say that it was from God. And we thank God for it.

Finally, some might use the word “miracle” in a different way to mean that something unexpected happened. They might say that God’s timing of a naturally-explained wind or eclipse was a miracle. I get what they mean. It might not be a miracle in this technical sense, but I get what they mean. God did something that impressed then and that was perhaps even a sign for them.

When God provides for you, you may decide to call it a miracle if you want to. We know where the credit goes, don’t we? Whether there is a natural explanation or something happened that interrupted the natural flow of cause and effect, God gets the credit for blessing us. It comes as a sign of his goodness. Many people use the word “miracle” in this way. However, it is good to understand the more technical usage and why modern Bible translations use the word “sign” when that is more appropriate. God is behind natural events and miracles. There is nothing without the great “I am”.

Follow up… Is it a miracle when God answers prayer? I would say it is not necessarily a miracle in the technical sense. I believe God is outside of time as humans experience it and can see all of time at once in his perspective. If that is true, then God could hear your prayer today and act at the creation of the world to bring about the answer to your prayer through natural events with no need for any miracle; because God is outside of time and Lord over it. At least that’s what I think – that God can see all times at once in His knowledge of everything, also known as omniscience.

“We are all thieves”

June 11, 2014 / Joseph Ginder / 0 Comments

In his Journal, George Fox quotes Margaret Fell:

And so he went on, and said, “That Christ was the Light of the world, and lighteth every man that cometh into the world; and that by this light they might be gathered to God.” I stood up in my pew, and wondered at his doctrine, for I had never heard such before. And then he went on, and opened the scriptures, and said, “The scriptures were the prophets’ words, and Christ’s and the apostles’ words, and what, as they spoke, they enjoyed and possessed, and had it from the Lord,” and said, “Then what had any to do with the scriptures, but as they came to the Spirit that gave them forth? You will say, ‘Christ saith this, and the apostles say this’ but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of the Light, and hast thou walked in the Light, and what thou speakest, is it inwardly from God?” This opened me so, that it cut me to the heart; and then I saw clearly we were all wrong. So I sat down in my pew again, and cried bitterly: and I cried in my spirit to the Lord, “We are all thieves; we are all thieves; we have taken the scriptures in words, and know nothing of them in ourselves.”

What do I run on my Nexus 5 in May, 2014?

May 13, 2014 / Joseph Ginder / 0 Comments

I received a Nexus 5 for Christmas and retired my Samsung Galaxy S2. It has no SD card slot, but has 32gb built in. So far, the space has been enough – though I fill it to 27 or 28 gb pretty easily. Most of that is audio teaching and books that I really could keep somewhere else most of the time. I have had no reason to root or run anything other than the latest Android from Google. That’s the beauty of the Nexus line! I get the latest Android quickly. That’s a huge benefit, in my experience. The performance of the phone is so good and the screen so nice that I’m finding I rarely use my Nexus 7 tablet. Another really nice feature is the wireless charging. After having so much trouble with micro-USB connectors growing finicky in the past, I really like just being able to lay the phone down on a charging pad. I keep one for nighttime charging and one by my desk at work. The camera is quite good, too. The Nexus 5 is an excellent phone: as good today as the Nexus One was compared to the competition when it was new… maybe better!

As I wrote before… I started using Android when the G1 came out and have never looked back to my blackberry or to Windows Mobile. I have T-Mobile unlimited everything service. (Actually, my data is throttled after 2gb… I mostly use wi-fi and have not seen a need to upgrade to more high-speed data.) It’s cheap and T-Mobile phone reps are pleasant and helpful to talk to. Neither AT&T nor Verizon can make these claims today. (When I talk to their reps on the phone, my blood pressure is up for a week.)

T-Mobile service works well for me most of the time, but not on Balboa Island or other neighborhoods where mostly well-to-do people live. Evidently rich people don’t use T-Mobile, so T-Mobile coverage is often sketchy in higher-income neighborhoods. It works great where I normally hang out, though. (Note: it didn’t work so well in South Dakota, and AT&T roaming access had a low cap that I exceeded quickly. I really hated that.)

So, what do I run on my phone and why? Here’s the list as of May 13, 2014.

Air Droid – This app lets me connect to my phone as a web server using a web browser. I can get files from it, copy files to it, install apps, and more. Nice. However, the file browser does not handle large lists of files in one directory very well; it is far too slow. I find that I have been using file managers on my phone and an FTP server more than Air Droid. Still installed, though.

Amazon Kindle – I use my phone as my kindle. It works well enough to read books on my phone.

Amazon MP3 – This would be a waste for me save for the Amazon Cloud Player features. It is nice to be able to store music in the Amazon cloud and play it anywhere. I have the unlimited audio track storage service from Amazon.

America’s National Parks – An info app.

APG – There are certain files on my phone that I don’t want others to be able to read – like files that have personal data in them that would be useful for identity theft. So, I encrypt them. This is a tool that does that. You can encrypt your entire phone file system, but I think that would be so invasive that it would be self-compromising. This allows me to pick and choose so that stuff I protect is really protected without slowing down access to other stuff.

Audible – I am an audiobook junkie. Folks who say reading is not the same as listening are right. I usually do better listening, even though I love to read. Good for the gym and for walking. And driving.

Authenticator – This is a way to use the Google two-factor authentication system for many other security purposes. It is not useful unless you use stuff that supports it. My ISP supports it and I use it.

Barcode Scanner – Scans bar codes. Useful for many things, but I don’t use it as frequently as one might expect.

Battery Solo Widget – For displaying battery status on a home screen.

BatteryGuru – If you have a SnapDragon processor, you probably want this. It learns how you use your phone and then configures the system to conserve battery life. I have found it to be effective.

Beautiful Widgets and Beautiful Widgets Animation add-on – Very nice home screen information display. I use it for time and weather and battery status with nice appearance. This hasn’t changed much in several years. But I have not found a better alternative.

BeyondPod – This is an excellent podcast app. If you listen to regular podcasts, consider it. I paid for the unlocked version.

Bible – This is the Android app from Logos. I use it almost exclusively for Bible study. I have some Kindle bibles, also. Logos has deep features but doesn’t do simple reading well since Libronix 3 on the PC.

Bible Gateway – This is a nice fast lightweight app for Bible reading. I find it is crisper and easier to bring up quickly than the Logos app. So I use it for simple Bible reading.

Camera Zoom FX – This is a highly-rated camera app for Android that purchased to overcome the weak cyanogenmod camera app. However, the Nexus 5 native camera app is fine, so I don’t use it any more. Still installed because I paid for it, just in case.

CamScanner – This is a convenience app that packages up using your camera to capture images of receipts and labels and business cards and so on. It straightens, crops, processes, and turns them into nice images in a pdf. The images and pdf can be shared gmail and and other means. I use this to capture handwritten notes, nutrition info from labels, and any written material I want to save and not have to carry with me on paper. It’s quite nice for straightening and flattening pictures of flat things taken with weird perspective.

Carbon – This is the Twitter app I use.

Circa – a news reader that I rarely use.

Chrome – The Chrome web browser for Android phones. I use this almost all the time now, after recent performance improvements. The time I don’t use it is when I need flash, as when watching Amazon video. (Amazon, why not have your video app on Android? This is silly.)

Clojure – A Lisp for your phone. How cool is that?

ConnectBot – I am geeky enough to need an ssh client on my phone. If you know what that is, this is a good free version.

DashClock Widget, Moon Extension, Sunrise Extension, Battery Extension – This is a good lock screen display widget plus modules that I use.

DMAC Screen Lock – This is a widget that you can put on your home screen to turn off the screen and lock your phone. It’s much nicer than finding the power button.

DropBox – Cloud storage app.

Duolingo – I’m kind of sort of attempting to learn some Spanish.

Easy Screenshot – This is an app that lets you capture what’s on the screen of your phone and save it as a picture.

Earth – Explore the earth using Google’s software.

Elixir 2 and various add-on modules – Excellent window into everything on your phone. High nerd appeal. I install some of the extra modules; but not what requires rooting (so far).

Email My Texts – Does what it says. It’s a way to backup or save your text messages.

ES File Explorer – An excellent file system browser with root capability and good SMB support for network browsing.

EverNote – I am using this as my standard way to take notes and save them. I don’t like that it is not integrated into the rest of my filing system. But it is very good. Still considering where this goes long term. I think Google should buy them and integrate it with Google Drive instead of pursuing Google Keep.

EveryTrail – Cool software that allows you to download maps of hiking trails to carry and access from your phone. Also capable of tracking hikes and saving the tracks in the cloud.

ezPDF Reader – I want to read PDF files. This was my solution. So far, so good.

Feedly – a news aggregator – but I don’t read it much

Fing Network Tools – an excellent tool for exploring LAN’s. Wish it were this simple on my PC!

FIOS Mobile – Verizon finally found someone who can write an adequate Android app. Previous versions were very frustrating. This one is so much better it has reaching OK status.

Firefox – I only use this for flash content. That’s all. Rarely used these days at all.

First Aid – An info app that is a first aid guide.

Flickr Folio – the new Flickr app may be slick, but it doesn’t let me set the title, description, tags, and album of photos to upload as easily as this app.

Flickr – nice for looking at Flickr, but not as nice as the old version for uploading.

Flickr Mobile – Another Flickr app that I am experimenting with.

FlightAware – nice app for tracking flights

FlightTrack – Easy real-time flight tracking for all the flights that matter to you. Not free.

Friend Locator – Share locations between friends.

FTP Droid – An FTP server for Android. Works well and does fast file transfer. I use the paid version.

FX – This is the best file manager for Android now. SMB access works well.

Gas Buddy – Find the location and price of gas nearby.

Gmail – Indispensable. I recommend the two-factor authentication for Gmail and Drive, but only if you take the time to understand it in advance. Be sure and get the emergency access codes for your account if you set two-factor up, even if you don’t know how to use them. And be sure and set up an emergency contact number for backup delivery of access codes. If you ever need them, you will be very glad to have them. Also, you should find a way to backup your messages locally. I use Mozilla Thunderbird.

[NOT] Go – I have removed all things from Go. They were free and worked pretty well, but became too invasive with too many messages trying to sell me things. The invasive messages require me to dismiss them, too!. So, no Go. Gone. Not missed.

Google Drive, Docs, Sheets – Google Drive is very convenient. This is usually better than using it from the web browser; at times the web browser can display tables that the app cannot.

Google Sky Map – Cool map of the sky… “Where’s Orion’s belt again? Oh, over there.”
Google Voice – Stop using your phone service’s voice mail and start using Google Voice. It will transcribe your messages and email them to you. T-mobile’s visual voice mail is problematic; I gave up on it.

GPS Status – A way to find your GPS coordinates.

Groupon – I don’t like the app for anything except saving the offers I purchase and showing them to vendors.

GPS Share – Decide to share your location with other people of your choice. “Where are you? I’m HERE! (send location)”

Hacker’s Keyboard – You too can type like a programmer! If you ever want to run emacs or its ilk on your phone, you need this. If you never heard of emacs, then you probably don’t need this. It’s kind of a full function keyboard instead of the stripped down keyboard for texting and data entry.

HBO Go – If you have HBO, you can watch HBO programs and movies on your phone. On demand. Cool. I login with my Verizon FIOS ID.

History Here – An app that lets you find sites of historical interest wherever you are. Great for history nerd vacationing.

iBird Pro – Want to know what that bird is in your North American yard?

Instagram – Easily share pix on social media sites. Very popular, but has limitations.

KD Collage – Make those photo collages on your phone. This is an OK app for that.

KeePassDroid – This is a password keeper that supports Android and Windows and more. It provides a good way to keep track of your passwords and use different passwords for your various logins.

Kingsoft Office – the free version reads Office docs on your phone – but without editing.

Lookout – This was the best security software for Android when I needed some and checked it out thoroughly, which was years ago. Still working well. It scans apps for safety. It can track down your phone from the web when it is lost and lock it or wipe it clean if it is in someone hands who shouldn’t have it. It also does backups; but I don’t use it for backup.

LoseIt! – a calorie tracker

Maps – Google Maps is great. Who needs a separate GPS? This is one of the best features of a good Android phone.

Meridian Player – This is a good media player. No EQ. Great features and stability for people who have their own media files and want to manipulate and play them. Updated frequently.

Messaging – I don’t like using Google Hangouts for text messaging. So I loaded this.

MoboPlayer – plays the most video formats of any video player I know of.

Ol File Manager – This file manager was required in order to select files in some other app. I don’t use it otherwise.

Photo Grid – Make photo collages on your phone. Lots of features. Works very well. I use this one.

Pinterest – Occasionally I use this app instead of the web browser.

Pixlr Express – A reasonable picture editor.

PowerAmp – This is a really nice audio app. I find that I use different apps for different listening or watching contexts. This allows me to resume one context while leaving another context in place. I listen to audio on PowerAmp. Then I can stop and watch video on Meridian. Then I finish listening to audio on PowerAmp from where I left off without searching. This should just work in one media app! Context is lost too easily. Poweramp gives much of control over the sound. I purchased the full version.

QuickPic – Fast gallery replacement for viewing photos. Not so necessary in the latest Android but habits die hard…

RadarNow! – A weather radar app. That is all.

Screen Filter – If you use your phone at night and want it to be less bright, use this.

SlingPlayer – Watch your Slingbox on your phone.

Smart Tools – Measuring tools for your phone. Very cool to play with. Useful? Hmmm. Soft of, if you don’t need precision. “It’s about 12 feet to that wall over there.” But it has a nice LED flashlight feature.

Snapseed – This is my preferred phone editor on Android.

StopWatch & Timer – Just what it says it is.

Storage Analyzer – a good tool for figuring out what files are using up your memory.

Study Bible – A Logos study Bible

Subsonic – I am such a nerd that I run a freeware subsonic server on linux to serve my entire library of audio and video. This is the client for Android. So why do I use the Amazon Cloud, you ask? I do. But, redundancy. (FYI, you must restart the linux server with a cron job every few hours or it will go belly up and stop responding.)

Swype + Dragon – Was the best keyboard for Android. Now I’m having problems with freezing. The stock keyboard swipes now, so less critical. Until it starts working better, I’m using stock.

Sygic – This is navigation software from eastern Europe. Cheaper than other offline alternatives and works OK. I prefer Google Maps and Nav when available, but they are not operable offline. Yes, I know about downloading Google maps for offline access. That’s nice, but not good enough.

SystemPanel – A very nice app backup and management tool. Somewhat redundant with Elixir. Will also do app backup.

T-Mobile My Account – check how much you’re using your features. The health status of your phone is junk; it assumes you are a dweeb.

Tape-a-Talk Pro – Record extended audio with this app.

TextWarrior – Geeky test editor. Not super fast, but works well enough for me to search files and update my text file notes.

TiVo – This is the remote from my Tivo. Very nice. Not from the Tivo company; not free.

TVFoodie, TVFoodMaps – This is how you remember and find all those cool places to eat that you saw on the Food Channel. It is easier than the web.

Tumblr – Micro-blogging app. I have it but have not started using it.

TuneIn Radio – For listening to radio broadcasts over the internet.

US Army Survival Guide – another info app

USB Host Diagnostics, USB Stick Plugin – trying to use external USB sticks from my phone.

Ustream – a Ustream client. I watched the Mars Curiosity landing coverage from NASA using this, for example. And this is how you check what is going on in the LBFC sanctuary on Sunday.

Wifi Analyzer and Wifi Connector Library – I maintain wifi networks. I like being able to find out what is happening in wifiland around me. And so…

Wunderground – a nice weather app – lots of info.

Yahoo Weather – another nice weather app. Pretty.

Yelp – Find good places to eat.

YouTube

Zoom Camera Pro – Another replacement for the weak Cyanogenmod camera that I paid for but don’t use much any longer.

Expressions of Faith