1. Have a good Bible.

Every Christian needs a good Bible that they can easily read and enjoy. A translation such as the English Standard Version (ESV), the ESV Study Bible is very well done, or the New International Version (NIV) is preferable as your primary reading Bible, although there are many other translations that are also quite good (e.g., New King James Version, New American Standard Version).

2. Have some good Christian books.

If you want to build a reference library, the first book you should buy is A Commentary and Reference Survey by John Glynn by John Glynn. That book will tell you which other books are the best resources available for in-depth Christian study and anyone who is serious about studying should have a copy of this book.

3. Have some good (free) online study resources.

There are many great websites that can help you do Bible word studies and such for free. Good examples include the following, with the first one built and run by Mars Hill elder, Zack Hubert:

ReGreek specializes in word studies from the Bible 's original languages.
Crosswalk has many translations and Bible study tools.
Bible Gateway has many translations and Bible study tools.
CCEL has most of the major works from Christian history for free and a “Study Bible” feature that pulls up historical church commentary on specified verses.
E Sword has numerous Bible study tools.

4. Have some good Bible software.

If you can afford it, Bible study software provides some amazing resources and companies like Logos Bible Software are worth considering.

5. Have some good websites.

There are many great resources available for free on the web with articles, books, blogs, podcasts, vodcasts, and MP3s. The following are some recommendations:

Desiring God is the website featuring a large repository of sermons and articles from my friend, Dr. John Piper.
Covenant Seminary has a “Free Downloads” link on their front page that will enable you to listen to hundreds of hours of their class lectures on many areas of Christian study. I am grateful to my friends at Covenant who have given the church such a gracious gift.
Mars Hill Church is where hundreds of hours of my teaching is available for free and has been the number one podcast on iTunes for religion and spirituality.
carm has good articles on cults, world religions, and apologetical issues.
equip.org has good articles, book reviews, and more, on cults, world religions, and apologetical issues.
www.christianitytoday.com/historyhas some great articles on Christian history and biography.
www.monergism.com has an almost overwhelming number of free articles on nearly every theological issue from a Reformed perspective.

6. Have some good community.

Most of the Bible was written to communities of people and is therefore best studied in community with other Christians. For this reason, getting plugged into a Community Group and/or taking midweek classes in addition to regularly attending a Sunday church service is essential.
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In this video Tim Keller is explaining the main ideas of his book, "The Reason for God" at the Google campus in Mountain View, California. Tim is someone who can calmly and knowledgeably share the Gospel with even the smartest most skeptical people.

I was inspired to share this with you because of a conversation I had with two very intelligent non-Christian men about God. They ask me about my Bible when I was sitting in a Starbucks, and it set off an hour long conversation about why Jesus is the world's only hope. Thankfully from listening and reading the teaching of wise Christian men, like Keller and Francis Schaeffer, I was able to answer most of their questions about God. Listen to this talk and read his book—it will be worth it.

How come no one has been as forward thinking as Francis Schaeffer in the last couple decades... This guy's amazing. Below is a video from "How Should We Then Live?"

Technorati Profile

Pastor Tim Interviews Lecrae from Mars Hill Church on Vimeo.

It's cool to see people reaching their culture for Jesus in whatever way they can. You can tell that Lacrae is passionate about seeing Jesus worshiped and lives changed. When I went to see him perform live, I felt slightly uncomfortable jumping up and down with the rest of the crowd, but, when I looked around me and saw hundreds of people praising Jesus and they were preaching the Gospel in a way the whole crowd grasped—I was amazed.

Who are the people around you that need Jesus?
What does it look like to be a comic book geek for Jesus? A Nascar Dad for Jesus? A YMCA volunteer for Jesus?

More:
Doxologist: Acoustic Jam / Hip-Hop Jam

Speaker: Mark Driscoll
Venue: Together on a Mission 2008 Conference
Location: Brighton, England
Topic: Doctrine of the Holy Spirit in Luke and Acts

In 1967 sociologist Peter Berger, published The Sacred Canopy. He argued that a culture is held together by a number of shared religious notions that form an unquestioned (often unconscious) "sacred" covering that includes common ideas of goodness, beauty and justice. For centuries Western Civilization has lived under the canopy of Christendom. But that canopy now lies in rags on the cultural floor. A new covering floats over our heads.

International travel has helped me see this. I just returned from a trip to Colombia, France and Holland. In Holland we discussed "The New Europe," which is no longer Christian. My lecture, "Neo-Paganism: Step-child of Secular Humanism," suggested that the new Europe will be either Moslem or Pagan. There I met a South African theologian who noticed how much the "native" regime in the "New South Africa" fosters ancestor worship. In France, the students agreed that Cartesian French secular humanism was breathing its last.

I received an astute email recently. "Dear Dr. Jones," it began, "you make a big distinction between monism and theism, between understanding God as the divine force within the world over against God as the transcendent Creator above it. But it seems to me," continued the note, "that Jesus was a monist, because he says quite clearly in Luke 17:21, 'the kingdom is inside of you.'"

An interview with Lee Strobel

Please enjoy this quick interview that Resurgence had with Lee Strobel, a New York Times best selling author and believer in Jesus. Apologies in advance for the interview being so short due to my lingering side effects of being a jock. Lee Strobel has just came out with a very helpful resource The Case for the Real Jesus and he does an excellent job again at investigating to the core the six major challenges today brought up against Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. You will want this book in your library.

On Thursday, May 31st, 2007, at Mars Hill Church's West Seattle campus, Pastor James Harleman gave the fifth of a five-part lecture series called "Christianity and..." James' topic was Christianity and Culture.

What is Culture?

"By the word culture, we have to understand the sum total ways of living developed by a group of human beings and handed on from generation to generation. Central to culture is language. The language of a people provides the means by which they express their way of perceiving things and of coping with them. Around that center one would have to group their visual and musical arts, their technologies, their law, and their social and political organization."

"And one must also include in culture, and as fundamental to any culture, a set of beliefs, experiences, and practices that seek to grasp and express the ultimate nature of things, that which gives shape and meaning to life, that which claims final loyalty. I am speaking, obviously, about religion. Religion—including the Christian religion--is thus part of culture."
Lesslie Newbigin

Why do we create culture?
God is our Creator and He made us creative to create culture (Genesis 1:28). The cultural mandate remains in effect even though sin has entered the world (Genesis 9:7). People create culture simply because they bear the image of God the Creative Creator.

On Thursday, May 3rd, 2007, at Mars Hill Church's West Seattle campus, Pastor Gary Shavey gave the first of a five-part lecture series called "Christianity and..." Pastor Gary's topic was Christianity and Liberalism. Listen as he lays out a little bit of history on just what Liberalism is, and what it's role in today's culture is, as well as what our Biblical response to Liberalism should be.