Scripture: Matthew 16:13-16; John 20:26-28, 1 Corinthians 1: 18-27, 15:3-7.

Do you have a Kindle yet? Have you seen someone else’s? Maybe you’ve been on a subway train, on an airplane or in a waiting room and noticed someone adjacent to you reading from one.

The Amazon Kindle is a hand-held wireless device with an electronic paper display that allows you to read a book, magazine, newspaper or blog any time, any where. No cords are required. Content is delivered over Amazon’s wireless delivery system, Whispernet for free. The Kindle operates on a long-life rechargeable battery. ¹

According to the Amazon Kindle Store there are currently over 110,000 titles available for purchase. The first chapter of each book is offered as a free sample.

Order an e-book from the Kindle store and receive it on your reader in 1 minute.

New York Times bestsellers and new releases are offered for approximately $10. Classics sell for around $1.99. Subscriptions to newspapers cost between $5.99 and $14.99 per month, magazines between $1.25 and $3.49 per month, and blogs for $0.99-$1.99 per month. Access to Wikipedia is offered at no additional charge. ²

If you log on to Amazon.com on your PC and put the word Jesus in the search engine there are 260,411 results. Authors have various opinions of who Jesus was or is today. Some ignore Jesus' existence. Others applaud Jesus' role in history. Others combine words Jesus spoke with the words of other great “prophets.” One of the most popular reads right now combines Sufi and Zen anecdotes and New Testament quotes to illustrate a point.

If you were asked to prove who Jesus was from a contemporary text published in the last three years, what book would you choose to retrieve? What criteria would you use for selecting the perfect title from the Amazon Kindle store to order for your reader?

This week we begin a series of new lessons entitled “The Wonder of Jesus.” Author Roy Adams gives us the criteria he used in writing his commentary.

In the introduction of the companion book that has the same title as our Bible Study Guide, Adams tells us that he wanted to simply allow the Gospels (and the Bible as a whole) to talk to him afresh. He invites readers to do the same.

For the next 13 weeks he leads our discussions from the position that he would not rely on the millions of books on the topic of Jesus already in existence. Rather he offers us room simply “to listen to the text for ourselves, without the excessive baggage of what everyone else has written, however brilliant.” ³

This week we explore what the Bible says about who Jesus was and what Jesus is to us today. We contemplate why Jesus was confused with other prominent Jewish characters. We look at the challenges to Jesus’ integrity and identity in the centuries following the New Testament era and how convinced the Bible writers were of Jesus' identity, and why? ⁴

If you are one of the fortunate ones to already own a Kindle, you can purchase the New International Version of the Bible at the Kindle price of $9.99, or the New American Standard version of the Bible for $6.99 or, if you prefer, the King James Version for 80 cents. The entire Bible will be auto-delivered wirelessly to your Kindle in 1 minute.
 

~ck
 

1.See video of the Amazon Kindle.

2.Browse the Kindle Store.

3.Adams, Roy. The Wonder of Jesus: He still Touches Hearts. (Hagerstown, Md: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2007), pp 7,8.

4.Adult Bible Study Guide, “The Wonder of Jesus”, p. 5.

 Creative Ministry Center.   www.creativeministry.org