I think the issue here is very well put by McGarvey, when he argues that we are not at liberty to “invent” new conventions, organizations, and methods (especially not changing the content of the gospel message).

He argues that it is legitimate to use the means available (which best accomplish our biblically set goals), but not parting from the methodology and precedent set in the Bible.

Here the issue would come down to the following conclusion…

We “NEED” mission boards because local churches refuse to obey Scriptures and be the sending organization that equally supports with actual follow-up of activities, money, time, personnel, etc. to complete the mission God gave us. Instead of doing the job God gave them to do, local churches have abandoned this to unbilical third parties (i.e. mission organizations) which have no scriptural warrant, and which today have taken over missions. While they divert millions of dollars into US stateside buildings and self promotions, they drain away precious scarce mission resources, personnel, and dollars into“non-missions” ministries, i.e. activities which drain but do not directly get people saved, which do not directly disciple people in a local church.

Today the majority of the money which is given in local churches to “missions” does not comply with fulfilling the great commission, i.e. it does not pay the salary of an individual that goes into another country to win the lost, nor to plant and raise up local churches. This is the great higher and better vision of mission boards than local churches.

To be involved in missions and to live from missions, every missions minister should be witnessing weekly in the street. To accept anything less is sheer hypocripsy. Why is it acceptable for a mission’s board director and office staff NOT WITNESS WEEKLY yet they demand their missionaries to do it? Isn’t hypocripsy holding (and beating others with the thing) a higher standard for others, yet accept a lower standard for one’s own self?

FOR THE DAVID COX FAMILY IN MEXICO CITY

Dear praying friends,

Seasons greetings from down south in Mexico. We are having below freezing temperatures here, so it feels like a US winter down here! Praise the Lord none of our family is sick right now.

NEWS: Erika and Gerardo are getting married. Two of our young singles (about30 somethings) have been dating and are getting married December 3rd. I am preaching the sermon and Gerado’s pastor from Los Angeles (Miguel Morales) is coming to perform the actual ceremony. We are very happy for this young family.

NEWS: We are moving into another house 2 doors down after the wedding. The present owners asked us to leave because they want to sell the house, so we were offered this new place. Please pray that we get all the details worked out as far as curtains, telephone, kitchen furniture installed, etc. before Christmas. We had to buy a stove (the old house had a stove already, but the new one doesn’t), and we have had some extra expenses this past month. We will probably wait until January or February to get everything fixed up in the new house for lack of money.

OUR CHURCH: Our church work continues going well. We have had a few families leave us, but that is not anything new. Many of the people who attend our church come from over 1 to 2 hours commute time to our church, but they come anyway because of our doctrine and stand. They find it hard after a while, and have to stop coming. One of these two families in particular were disgruntled, and because they were not coming regularly, I wasn’t asking them to participate in the Adult Sunday School, and besides that his son dated Erika, and she didn’t like him. So they decided to move on. Another family had some problems and left us in September, and since then they have moved on to another church, and now in the end of November, they have left that church and are now “church hoping”. I feel sorry and sad when our people leave us, and many come back to us after church hoping for a while, and they cannot find any good church out there.

Some of our people have also been absent sporadically because of flu and colds, and that doesn’t look to change much over the near future. I am in the process of turning more and more of the Sunday School over to the men, and helping them plan all the way into next summer. I think they like it.

OUR FAMILY: We are kind of sad as Kelsie continues studying the 11th grade of High School, because this coming summer she will pack up and go to the states for her last year, and probably study in the states if that can be arranged financially. Even so, it is sad as we realize she is growing up.

OUR HEALTH: My diabetes hasn’t advanced much (nor gotten any better), and between that and just getting old, I find myself having to take short 20 minutes naps from time to time. I still get up at 5:30 or 6:00AM and study until 11PM or midnight. Tule has osteoporosis, which causes her discomfort and pain sometimes. We are hoping that we will hear less noise in the new house, and can sleep better. We’ll see.

MY WEBSITES: I have decided to spend some time and energy in my websites, and try to get my teachings, tracts, books, sermons, sermon audios, etc. out via the Internet. I am also finding great help in some of my sites where I download books for my study. These resources help my sermon preparation tremendously.

We thank you for your financial support and prayers.

In Christ,

David Cox davidcox@davidcox.com.mx

P.S. Orlando Bible Church is now going to send out my prayer letters from there (Orlando Florida). I have been sending out regular paper letters to you from here, and it costs about $2 dollars each, and they are not getting to you. If there are people (besides my financial supporters) who want a copy, please send a letter to Orlando Bible Church requesting to be put on the prayer letter list. I still update my personal and ministry website also, http://www.davidcoxmex.com

Prayer letter for the Cox’s
in Mexico City, Mexico
October 26, 2011

Dear praying friends,

We appreciate your prayers and financial support. Life continues to fly by us so fast. Kelsie is in the 11^th grade this year, and we are trying to get her caught up, so that next year she can attendOrlandoBibleChurchHigh School. The good people there at our home church are putting her up her last year of High School, and after that, we really don’t know what she will do. She wants to continue and study pharmacy, but that is a difficult road, and there are a lot of decisions as far as where (Mexico/US, or where in theUS), and whether any school would accept her coming from home schooling and a Christian high school. As I understand it most are flooded with applications. We will have to wait and see, pray a lot, and just try to get her in wherever. Expenses are also a problem as we are barely making it as far as our living expenses, and we have no money saved up any more.

Our church continues doing well. We have had a family leave recently and that discouraged many. None-the-less, we have had counseling with several after each church service it seems, many new people. We had two baptisms last month. We continue to have new people come both from our weekly door to door work, and also from our members inviting family and friends. We grow a little, and then some don’t come all that much, and others seem to take their place, and when everybody comes we don’t have room for everybody. I am going to take the youth group for a couple of months (teen Sunday School) while our men rotate teaching through Hebrews. They are doing a good job, and some are loving the opportunity to speak, and others are not so excited, because it is a lot of work, and getting up before others to speak is part of the problem. Pray for them.

We have found another house about 2 doors down from our present house, and we should be completely moved in there by the end of the year. It is the same rent as where we are now, but the house is slightly more austere than here. The people seem nice. There is an apartment behind the house, and the elderly lady and her daughter and grandkids will live with her there, and we will share the drive-way (hopefully that’s all).

We continue to get old and tired it seems. We try not to lighten up on our labors, but be faithful to our Lord in labor as in doctrine. God continues to bless, and our book website has over 1200 free books for download (about250 inthe Spanish one). I have about 210 Spanish tracts now. I continue to get a lot of counseling emails from people around the world also (both English and Spanish). I am working on translating my literature into English. Please pray for us. We NEED your prayers!

David Cox

http://www.davidcoxmex.com/ — our ministry website

http://www.twmodules.com/ — Free book website

http://www.coxtracts.com/ — Our free Gospel Tract Website

Dear Praying Friends,

We continue to labor here in southren Mexico City in the area of Tlahuac. Our church continues to grow. We have about 50 coming Sunday mornings. I have been encouraged by a couple of things that I would like to share with you.

First of all, our Sunday services are very stable, with mostly regular folk coming, and a few visitors every now and then. We continue to see numerical growth of our people, although some folks come, drop off, and then come back. So we would have probably 80–90 if all of them came at the same time. That is a worry for a pastor, because we don’t have that many chairs, nor really space to put people. We have talked about using a video camera and having a TV or projector in the other space with an “extended auditorium.  Please pray for that.

Another encouraging thing is that I have started a Sunday School class on 1Peter, and I have divided up each chapter in 2, and assigned it to one of 8 men. These men of ours are taking their turns teaching, and they did this last year when we went to the states, and it worked then. Now it is working a bit better. I have been very pleased at the clear Bible exposition of these men’s classes. The Lord willing this will be our regular Sunday Class program from now own, even though it will change books of the Bible we study from time to time.

I am also encouraged that we have had sometimes up to 20 people in Wednesday prayer meeting, which is excellent in my opinion. We are studying Types and Symbols in the Bible right now, and I am writing a short book on this (in English and Spanish) which I will post when I have finished preaching through it. Our people are interested in learning and that is good. We pray for a half hour first, and then we have the class.

Also our websites continue to grow. A Spanish speaking sister called from Miama yesterday to talk with me, and said that she is in charge of the women’s ministry. They are having a meeting next month for the women and were looking for material for that meeting. One of the ladies stumbled upon my website, and my book, The Dress of the Christian Woman, and they both read it and loved it. They said that is exactly their position on women’s dress, and she asked if she could print up copies of it and give it out at that meeting. They plan on having 200 women there!

I constantly get emails about my writings and websites, some good and some bad. The ones that disagree with me are less than those who agree. It would seem that most Christians and churches out there are starving to death for good Bible teaching. I am glad that these people find good use for my writings and teaching. God has laid it on my heart to try and translate my Spanish writings into Spanish (which I will publish here on this website), and the tracts on my coxtracts.com website. At present I only have 12 of 200 of my tracts posted, and I have probably 50 translated. So I am working on that in between other demands.

I would ask special prayer for Jessica. She is the niece of one of our families. They took her in as their daughter because her parents left her with her grandmother, and left for the United States as illegals about 4–5 years ago. The poor girl has problems with being abandoned (who wouldn’t), and she has run away. Gabby and Rustico, her aunt and uncle, have heard rumors of her working in a hotel somewhere near, but they cannot locate her. Please pray for her safety, and her repentance that she would return.

We also continue to go out on door to door evangelism and visitation each Saturday morning. We have seen Satan attacking this also, with our faithful personal workers that go out with me each Saturday being attacked. One family, the Robert Perez family, has had many problems with their son David’s health. In is having dialysis 3–5 times per day (liquid in his stomach), and that has caused serious problems in the time that they go out with us. Likewise Gabby was a very faithful regular, and this with Jessica has also caused her to get discouraged about witnessing. Things have been kind of on the lean side as far as workers over the last few months. I continue to pressure our men to come, but most work on Saturdays, so it is very difficult for them.

We would also ask special prayer for Conception and her son Fernando. He has taken a very rebellious turn, and refuses to come to church, and is very worldly. He has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Syndrome, and Conception is trying to help him. He is about 15. Conception’s “husband” left them when Ferndando was born, and basically they just lived together for a few years until Ferndando came along. Again, the rejection feeling has caused another person to stray from God. When people don’t do their duty before God towards their spouse, their children, etc. it has a ripple effect of cursing and problems.

Finally I would like to ask for your prayers about our financial situation here. Our financial problems grow worse and worse each year. We have a church or two that stops supporting us each year, and from a high of 25 churches, we are now about at 17. We probably should have 50 churches supporting us, and most “normal” missionaries have close to 100. Our church here on the field has undertaken to do what they can to help us with our support, and they are giving between $100 to $200 a week to us, and to undertake all the expenses of the church and its ministry here. This helps us greatly, but frankly, we need more financial supporters. This situation will continue to grow into long term problems because we just barely live from month to month. First of all we need your prayers, and then we need your help if you can recommend individuals or churches to help us with our financial situation. Lastly, if it is possible for you to send a regularly monthly donation, or even a once in a long time single donation, it would help.

In Christ,

Pastor David Cox

Her migraine headaches have left her for the most part, and the doctor seemed to think they were a product of her appendicitis, and were not permanent. She still has problems at times traveling, and coming home from the hospital she threw up. So she still has some motion-sickness related problems.

Please continue to pray for her health. She is very thin, and the doctor ordered some vitamins to help her on that front. Please also continue to pray for us, because we do not have health insurance, so we had to pay this $2,500 dollars out of pocket, and we have about $2400 paid so far.

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In our recommendations, I would like to recommend to all the good Christian women out there to review the list of recommendations below. I have included here some good books about women and by women.

All of these books are free, and can be downloaded from these links below. The only thing you need is the free Bible software program, TheWord, from http://www.theword.net. Make sure you download the Bible program first, and then you can download and install any or all of these books.

Good Books by Christian Women

• Amy Carmichael — God’s Missionary
• Amy Carmichael — His thoughts said… the Father’s Thoughts said
• Amy Carmichael — If
• Amy Carmichael — Ponnammal Her Story
• Kay Daigle — God’s Design for Building your Marriage
• Susan Fitkins — Holiness and Missions
  (She is holiness)
• Rosalind Goforth — How I know God answers Prayers
• Jesse Penn-Lewis — War on the Saints
• Hannah Whithall Smith — Everyday Religion
• Hannah Whithall Smith — The Christian’s Secret to a Happy Life
• Hannah Whithall Smith — The God of All Comfort

Good Books on Christian Women

• Francis Augustus Cox — Female Scripture Biographies Vol 1–2
  (She is no relation to me, by the way)
• John Angell James — Female Piety
• John Angell James — The Widow directed to the Widow’s God

Good Books on Women’s Issues and Interests

• Anonymous — All the Children of the Bible
• J.W. Byers — Bible Humility
• Robert Smith Candlish — The Prayer of a Broken Heart
• Oswald Chambers — My Utmost for His Highest
• John Wilbur Chapman — The Secret of a Happy Day: A Quiet Devotional Time
• John Wilbur Chapman — The Power of a Surrendered Life
• John Angell James — A Help to Domestic Happiness
• William Law — The Spirit of Love
• Frederick Brotherton Meyer — Cheer for Life’s Pilgrimage
• Frederick Brotherton Meyer — Prayers for heart and home
• Multiple — Guide to Premarital Counseling
• Charles E. Orr — Helps to Holy Living
• Charles E. Orr — How to Live a Holy Life
• Richard Strauss — In God’s Waiting Room
• Richard Strauss — Marriage is for Love
• Richard Strauss — Confident Children and How they Grow
• Richard Strauss — Getting along with each other
• Richard Strauss — How to really Know the Will of God
• Richard Strauss — Living in Love
• Richard Strauss — When two Walk together

Also, see my bookshelf on Missions: Missions and Missionaries Bookshelf

In a couple of months from now I will try to update this page with more women’s books. Please post a comment if you find this page helpful.

P.S. Happy birthday to me (webmaster, David Cox). Today is my birthday!

• Horatius Bonar — Bible Thoughts and Themes: The Gospels
• Horatius Bonar — Bible Thoughs and Themes: The Old Testament
• Horatius Bonar — 43 Poems
• Hannah Whithall Smith - Every-day Religion, or The Commonsense Teaching of the Bible
• Charles E. Orr — How to live a Holy Life
• Charles E. Orr — Helps to Holy Living
• Oswald Chambers — My Utmost for His Highest
• J. Wilbur Chapman — The Secret of A Happy Day: Quiet Hour Meditations
• Amy Carmicheal — Figures of the True

From time to time I will be adding to this list (the above are not all the books in the devotional section). Please check my website and look on the side bar “Modules by Topic”, and there under “By Topics” area under “Devotional”.

We are slowly gathering a very good library for your spiritual benefit.

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Some General Considerations

Is it legal?

Probably one of the least thought of questions in book hunting is if it is legal. This issue didn’t really exist until the Internet. Today you can get all kinds of copyrighted books via the Internet. The question you should ask yourself, is not if you can obtain the book, but can you obtain the book legally.

Granted that the copyright laws are a tangled mess that probably the lawyers and judges hardly understand them, and between them, they fight as to what is legal, but basically the rule of thumb is, if it was written after the “safe” date (which in 2011 is around 1922, then it is okay. The other factors are if it was renewed (which you will have to investigate the copyright laws to know this), and if it is copyrighted and the author grants his or her permission to be distributed for free.

But it is a consideration that should be examined seriously by every Christian. You wouldn’t steal a typewriter to write a sermon, because God wouldn’t bless your creative efforts if you sin in the process. Likewise no books can be good for a Christian spiritually if he sins in obtaining it.

How much do I have to invest to use it?

This is another question that needs to be addressed. Why does a thick theological book cost so much? You can invest a week or two’s salary for some of these commentary sets. Why? Even if you have that kind of money, is it wise Christian stewardship to keep this Christian book industry draining the blood of Christians constantly?

Kindle’s and the like. These devices come on the market to “fill a niche”. The real niche they are filling is that book publishers cannot economically print books anymore. They have grown into an industry that prints a normal book for 1 or 2 dollars and then turns around and sells that book for $20, claiming that they have expenses. Their “expenses” are the overhead that they want (a million dollar complex rather than renting some warehouse) and advertising, where they spend money hand over fist with no real returns to their business. In other words they waste great amounts of money in the latest, the greatest, and in personal pleasures as a business.

Now that those 1 or 2 dollars have turned into 5 or 10, they cannot make 1000% gain on their money, and electronic texts are making their warehouses burst with unsold books.

Kindles, iPads, Android tablet PCs, and the rest of these devices that are coming out are making it possible to put a library of thousands and thousands of books on something the size of 2 dozen sheets of paper. The problems here (that I see) are (1) they are charging for these books, which means you have to calculate the cost of the device plus the cost of the book. (2) the books remain in the system, “their” property, not yours. When Apple or Kindle wants to put an App or book, they flip a switch and you no longer have an accessible copy of your book. (3) As the formats change, you pay more. Upgrading is good except when it is frequent, not feature-rich, and costly, (and is solely the company’s possession). This makes your investment in a book nebulous. Are you paying for a book to read it only once?

Ruppert Murdoch, the king of content (he owns several media giants), has said that his vision of the future is that every time a person reads a book, watches TV or a movie, that should have to pay again. You never “own” anything, you just pay for the rights to read it once. Thankfully Congress hasn’t conceded everything to him yet. You still have rights when you purchase a book.

The most important aspect is the cost. How much should you pay for a book? This element should be carefully weighed. The value of the book should be measured by its value to you. Good books can be had for free, so why pay outrageous amounts for paper books?

How long will the work last? When you buy a book in a pdf format (for example). The book never physically wears out, and you can make copies to protect against loss, so this is an important consideration also. Paper and ink books get old, and sometimes water damage, mildew damage, and even worms eat their merry little way through your book. How do these things affect the “wiseness” of your investment?

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What is the format of the book?

Electronic or Paper and Ink

Very simple both have their advantages. You need to weigh both sides, and not “make a policy” for or against one or the other.

Paper and Ink Books. These are “old school”, but most of the older generation would better use and get better understanding from a paper and ink book. There are possibilities of deterioration from an old book, but you don’t erase the contents of a paper book by passing a magnetic over it, and I have yet to see the hard disk crash or a virus destroy a paper book.

Electronic books. The problem with paper books and the older generation is that at some point, your eyesight becomes worse, and reading a lot with a magnifying glass isn’t pretty. You can get a very large monitor and still read an electronic book. Moreover, you can also text search an electronic book very fast and accurately. What you can do as far as finding things in an electronic book is heads and shoulders above any paper book.

Programs like TheWord allow you to search every single book in your library for a particular word, phrase, etc, as well as doing complex searches that would simply be impossible in a paper book, and even if you could do these searches in a paper book, it would be very time consuming.

One of the main disadvantages of electronic books is the format that you have to use to read them. Paper and ink books “lend themselves” to notes in the margins, and electronic books don’t. Also in studying and using heavily a paper book (like your Bible), your mind actually memorizes where on the page a certain text is. Electronic texts defeat and ruin this.

At the same time cross referencing, defining hard, little understood words, linking to deeper explanations, and other such things are very easy to do in electronic texts, and impossible almost in paper and ink books. (Physical size versus price becomes a restricting factor in physical books.)

Is it complete?

I don’t like to purchase an incomplete book. To me, any book without a table of contents is incomplete. Also the book is incomplete in my view if the book doesn’t tell me something pertinent and useful about the orientaton of the author. I want to know who he was, his background, and his doctrinal orientation.

Who wrote the book?

Was he/is he a Christian?

The first and most important consideration for buying or obtaining a book is who was the author. Sometimes it is extremely important to know at what point in his life did he write that particular book. Sir Robert Anderson was Brethren at the beginning of his ministry, and he changed to Presbyterian. Henry Paul Newman was an anglican priest writing many tracts and works against Catholicism, and he got involved in the Oxford Movement to return the Anglican church into Roman Catholicism, and eventually he left the Anglican church and rejoined the Roman Catholic Church and was finally beautified by the pope. Wouldn’t it be important to know where in all that mess of theological movement he was when he wrote a particular work? Arthur Pink was a dispensationalist Baptist that changed to heavily Reformed Calvinist position, and towards the end of his ministry, he didn’t even attend any church because he thought all organized religion (i.e. formal churches) were of the devil. Theodore Austin-Sparks was Baptist, and got involved in the Deeper Life movement of the Holiness Movement and left the Baptist name altogether, calling himself an “ex-Baptist”.

All of this points up the need to know the spiritual relationship of the author with God, and his doctrinal orientation. When you look at a book, consider who wrote it before you consider what is in it.

What doctrinal and denomination orientation did he have?

Most of the time, authors write from their own heart, their own personal perspective, and their own perspective. Knowing that perspective beforehand is very important in making wise decisions in getting a book. I have on my website a large range of theological perspectives, from Catholic to Baptist to Brethren to Presbyterian, from Arminian to Calvinist-Reformed.

Having studied many different groups, it is important to remember that a person’s personal relationship with God (his salvation status) is something that is dependent on his understanding and having saving faith in Jesus Christ, not necessarily the church he attends or the names by which he calls himself. I would like to be able to say that all Baptists are saved, and only read or buy books written by Baptists (if you can find them because the entire range of books written by Baptist is so small as to almost be non-existent). I could even expand on that to say only books written by Independent, Fundamental Baptists. But having personally known some (which what I think) are unsaved Baptist preachers on a dictator control the world insanity benge, others which don’t have a clue as to what salvation is much less spirituality, and having read books by people that according to their denominational affiliation, I would say they have to be unsaved, but I actually reading their books, they express a very devout seriousness and impartiality in studying the Bible and presenting true information, or even a real insight that most other people pass over without ever noticing. So my conclusion is that there are some good stuff in books by people that would make you raise your eyebrows when you know their affilitation and orientation.

Truth is truth, and we can only judge what is true by how it corresponds correctly and neatly with divine revelation. When an author grasps a divine truth, study the Bible verses he uses, his logic as his unwraps those verses and explains them. Judge his logic and deductions from Scripture, not his orientation at that point. When you have finished reading his work, then check what is his doctrinal orientation and affiliation, and then see if he has shown heavy bias or prejudice against or for on that basis of his doctrinal orientation and affiliation.

Good valid observations are valid even when made by the worst of people.

Did his religious bias and prejudices show in his book?

Thayer comes to mind here. Thayer’s Greek Lexicon is a standard in most Seminary Greek classes (at least in years past). Thayer (and equally Barclay) were Universalists. I loved Thayer’s Greek Lexicon out of the several that I had in seminary, and one day when I was a pastor and new missionary here in Mexico City, I started doing some “basic Bible studies” to try to understand better and deeper what some of the basic concepts and words we use all the time, but just assume we know their meanings. I started a study on the word “God” in the whole Bible, and with my new (first ever) computer with a Bible program (CompuBible back then) I started going through every verse in the Bible that had the word “God” in it. During that study I got out my lexicons and I checked Thayer. In the definition for “theos” (God) he says “mistakenly attributed to Jesus Christ.” I was floored.

By that time I had done probably 40 Greek and Hebrew Word Studies, and in the Greek I used Thayer a lot, and I never saw anything that I would consider prejudice or bias, until this one. I read the introduction and preface to the lexicon and recognized the Unitarian identification of Thayer. That introductory material is very important to read before using a book. You get to know the author there, and that can mean all the difference in the world.

To be honest and fair, I think both Thayer and Barclay has a lot of good material. Just don’t believe everything you read when crossing their doctrinal bias or you will be led astray.

Was the author a woman?

I am not a sexist, in the sense that all women are inferior. But I am a biblicist, somebody who holds the Bible as literal, true, and as my spiritual authority.

1Cor 14:34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but [they are commanded] to be under obedience, as also saith the law. 35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

1Tim 2:11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. 12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. 13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

It is obvious that the Bible teaches that women are not to teach, usurp the authority over a man, but rather they are to be in silence. I understand this teaching as not conflicting with women as teachers of good things (Titus 2:3) to children and youth, and the elder, wiser Christian women are to teach the younger inexperienced women (Titus 2:4). On that basis, I think it is perfectly correct that a woman teach children, youth, and other women, but never is it correct for a woman to teach men. In so doing they usurp the obligation and duty of men to teach men and mixed groups.

From that biblical position, I take it that it is unbiblical and unwise to follow a woman teacher of men. When men are present, the godly woman will be silent. My personal conviction is that a woman bible teacher (of men or mixed groups) is simply a rebellious woman who should not be followed.

Having said all of that, books written by women must be carefully dealt with. I have books by women on my website, but I would recommend them only for women to read and study. Basically at this point, the two authors that come to mind are Jesse Penn-Lewis and Catharine Mumford Booth (wife of Salvation Army founder Booth). Both of these were in the Holiness branch of things, and Ellen White is a pure cultist (Seventh Day Adventist).

As a Pastor and Christian book author myself, I have read Penn-Lewis works to analyze them. My impression is that it is about the same quality as others in her same mindset. The errors and failings I see in her writings are the same errors in the holiness-Nazarene movement as a whole, and specifically those the Deeper Life movement (compare Watchman Nee, Theodore Austin-Sparks, and others).

More Posts in the Good Books Category

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How and Why I got involved in Christian Books

Part of my personal situation over the years has been problems with financial support. We have just never had that much, and always had much less than other missionaries we know.

But none-the-less, we have not been neglected by the Lord, and I simply cannot complain when God gives me in abundance, and I have an overweight problem. God is good to us in many ways, and always. Many people in Mexico don’t have to eat every day.

The need for reference books for the Ministry

One of the “blessings” of not having so much income has been the “problem” of good religious reference books. In seminary they tell you that you should be investing from $100-$200/month in your ministerial library. Well that was back in 1980–81, and today they are probably saying $400-$500/month. I just didn’t have it, and when the Internet came along, I started searching on it for free books.

TheWord Free Bible Software program

Today I have probably 10,000 Christian books on my hard disk, and I am slowing making them available to other people via my websites and the free Bible software program, TheWord (http://www.theword.net).

I offer my Religious Library free to everbody

I have started a website, twmodules.com for English books, and twmodulos.com for Spanish books. Please visit these websites and download all the good Christian books you want. About 98% are free, and the other 2% are copyrighted books that the program’s software programmer has negotiated rights for. He has this 2% on his website, but I have write-ups and links to where you can pay and download these books. Most of the for pay books are Greek-Hebrew books, and some modern Bible versions like the NIV if you are interested in that. I prefer the King James Bible myself. But Lewis Sperry Chafer’s massive 10 volume Systematic Theology is available for purchase as a premium module (again only 2% of these modules cost anything, but those that do are worth a look). I also have as free downloads other of Chafer’s books, Dispensationalism, Ephesians Doctrinally Considered, Grace, He that is Spiritual, Major Bible Themes, Satan, The Kingdom in History and Prophecy, and True Evangelism, Winning Souls by Prayer.

This has been a blessing for me, because I have solved my need for good Christian reference books, but in doing so, God has also given me a great ministry in helping others in the same situation to have good books at their fingertips.

At present I have about 700 free books on my site for free download. I am working through the thousands I have accumulated, and some are just not very good, others are under copyright, but the vast bulk of them are good books that I can put up for others to use.

Poor third-world preachers using the Free Bible Library

I received an email from a pastor in South Africa (they speak English there) a few years back saying how much he appreciated my website because their preacher boys are very poor. Today most countries have Internet cafes where for a few cents per hour you can use one of their computers and the Internet if you want. In most countries the schools are heavily using the computer for homework and classwork.

As such, he said he can give his students a USB Memory stick, upload the program to that drive, plug it into any computer, and they have an entire seminary library at their fingertips. “What a blessing!” he said. Today we continue to work on more and more books. On a really good week, I can upload around 50 books to the site. This new site has only been up since January of this year. I am transfering all my books from my old site (probably around 400 books) to this one, and adding new books at the same time. So far I am about half way through the old site.

Recognition of what I am doing

It has been surprising to me, but to get listed in Google search is difficult. I have read that in a good small niche market, you can expect to wait 1 year AFTER YOU HAVE A GOOD SITE UP to get on the first 10 pages.

My posts on my website get usually on the first or second page of results within 15 minutes of being posted. Although you would think this is a niche market (this particular Bible program) if you just search for the title of the book, there are hundreds of thousands of sites and pages in Christian bookstore websites with that same book, and I am usually first or second result, and usually always on the first page.

Apparently Google sees this website as an excellent value for people. Please visit the website twmodules.com and recommend it to all your Christian friends and all the people in the ministry you know of as well as pastors and missionaries. If you know of missionaries in Spanish speaking works, please recommend the spanish version of my website, twmodulos.com.

We are here to serve our Lord, not make money, and this part of our ministry has been a great blessing.

• Door-to-door evangelism
• Services averaging 40–50
• Our men preaching and ministering
• New book: “How to Study the Bible”
• Deaths in our fellowship
• 2 Baptized at Easter
• New families coming to the church

Greetings to all! We continue to work with our church here on the field. Every week we go out on Saturday mornings with our little group of faithful few (usually 3 to 6 people) in door-to-door evangelism. We usually are able to fully present the Gospel to 4–5 people each week between all of us. We can get 2–3 decisions usually, but I tell our people that we don’t count that for much until we see them coming to church, baptized, and participating with our fellowship (which is very seldom that that happens). At present we are working through a very difficult area of the city. Part of it has a lot of Jehovah’s Witness influence, and these people just will not listen. The other part are die hard Catholics. It is my observation over the years that Satan uses the Jehovah’s Witnesses false Gospel door-to-door work to harden people’s hearts to the true Gospel being preached door to door.

In our services we have about 40–50 each Sunday morning, with some Sundays we have close to 60. We slowly get new families even though some old families seem to have problems and stop coming for a while. Luis Flores comes from about 1 hour and 20 minutes away on the far north side of the city. Over 3 years ago, he saw our church on the Internet, and came to visit us, and he has been with us ever since. He is an elderly man, retired, and he preaches for us on occasion. I have given him the teens to work with on Sunday mornings. I was writing the teens’ Sunday School class, but Luis has taken this over for me, and he is doing a good job. He is finding it difficult and a challenge to work with the teens.

Gerardo came from Los Angeles (he is originally from Mexico, but returned from working in the US in March). Gerardo and Adolfo are working with the teens in a Saturday teen meeting once every 2 weeks.

God has blessed us with a good group of men in our church, and on Sunday morings we meet with about 8 of them for a short time of prayer between Sunday School and the morning AM service. Most of them want to preach, but few have the training or experience to do much. I left them preaching through the Gospel of John  from August through October last year when we went on furlough, and I am going to start 1Peter with them this summer. I have already assigned them passages, and each one will have a chance to preach one Sunday School lesson.

I am working on a book in Spanish “How to Study the Bible” in which I also go through how to make a Sunday School class, as well as how to do different kinds of studies, book study, chapter study, verse study, topic study, parable study, etc. I want them to get prepared and studying the Word to preach and teach. May God guide them and mature them through this.

This past month has been really rough on us. One of our “not so elderly” ladies has been having some physical problems, and even though she skipped a lot of services Sunday nights, and even some Sunday mornings, we did not know how serious her illness was. After a brief 1 week in the hospital Victoria passed away. The family was mostly all saved (Baptists in other churches), and I am not sure why, but they decided to have the funeral service on Sunday morning at 11AM, and wanted me to preach it. Brother Luis Ramos called me at 12:30 AM Sunday morning to tell me that she had died. At 7AM he called again and told me that after talking with a lot of the family, they wanted to have the service Sunday morning.

So we cancelled our services in our church, called all of our people Sunday morning at 7AM, and we all went cross town for the funeral service at 12AM. We had everything like in our service (except the offering), and we were able to minister to the family, and most of our people came to the funeral parlor for the service. It is very sad for all of us, and especially for brother Ramos.

That was 3 weeks ago, and now last week, another elderly lady, Alicia, also lost her husband (heart attack). We were told Saturday night at 9PM that they were in the wake in her house. We went to be with them until 11:30PM. Here in Mexico they don’t embalm people so they have the funeral usually very quickly after the person’s death. In Victoria’s case she had a lot of inflation of the stomach that last week such that she appeared pregnant, and I am not sure if that was why they wanted a quick funeral, but would guess so.

But in the case of Alicia’s husband, he was the father of one of our people, Sonya, and they left Sunday morning at 5AM for his hometown 7 hours away. Mark Antonio (Sonya’s husband) preached the funeral service out there.

So our little work suffers from the trials and tribulations of life. Luis Ramos is aching in his soul a lot these days for his wife. He asked us to come and take Victoria’s clothes and give it to the women in the church that might need what she had. He was crying when we left him. His two daughters (both married with children) live with him, and we prayed with Elizabeth, which is also having a very hard time getting through this adjustment.

Please pray for these families. They have a great tribulation to adjust to in their lives.

We also have a few new families that have been coming recently. In Easter weekend we had 2 baptisms, and it looks like we will have to have baptisms again soon with another 3–5 more. Please pray for our people as Satan uses division and gossip, as well as anything he can to turn our people against the church, the pastor, and God.

Please pray for us and our financial situation. One church in Louisville has doubled what they were giving monthly, and we great appreciate that in these hard financial times.

I am wanting to get our men to preach more in our services so that they can get experience and so that I can write more. I haven’t been able to write very many tracts nor books since last summer because of everything going on.

One final prayer request, please pray that we can get our situation with the electric company straightened out. While in the US, somebody stole one of the two light meters on our house. The electric company put and extremely high reading on both meters (9999 kilowatt hours), and it was only 1100 kilowatt hours since they built the house until August. But that produced a light bill of around $2000, and we are fighting that. We have filed a police report of the robbery, and they came and checked the remaining meter and supposedly are going to fix this, but until they do, we have this hanging over our heads. We rent and wanted to move to another house in November, but couldn’t because of this. The light company was part of the federal government, and they had two branches, and one was done away with October two years ago, and they still haven’t gotten things fixed as far as where to go to pay the bill, wand e didn’t get a light bill to pay from October 2009 through Nov 2010, and we haven’t paid since March of 2010. Last summer they finally got the new buildings up and working where you have to go to pay the light bill. We left before we knew where to go. So it is a mess, and we still owe a good bit of money from March 2010 through August 2010 (which we don’t contest that we owe that). The person in legal that was helping us fix the stolen meter told us not to pay anything until he gets it all straightened out. We go every week or two, and he asks us to give him some more time. So far they have changed the person fixing it twice, and we had to start over again each time.