Review of Duolingo Language App

Lately, I have been using the Duolingo Language App for studying the languages Spanish and Greek. It’s an app on your phone or computer for practicing foreign languages when you have a little bit of time to kill. I had initially shied away from doing the Spanish because I already speak a lot of Spanish, but I was happy to find out you can do a placement test that puts you deep into the course. A lot of it was still review for me, but the app goes really advanced on the grammar, and there was a lot of vocabulary I didn’t know. After using Duolingo for just a few weeks, I felt a lot more confident speaking Spanish, so I definitely got something out of the course. I finished the entire course in Spanish, meaning I turned the whole “tree” gold and got the trophy.

Duolingo was beneficial for me as an intermediate Spanish speaker, but it’s also great for absolute beginners. Even if you are advanced, it is worth taking the placement test and just blowing through the course to increase your vocabulary and fill in any gaps in your knowledge.

Most language learning apps cost money once you get past the first few beginner level lessons, but with Duolingo, you get the entire course for free. I use the app an iPhone, but it is available for Android phones as well. There are a couple more fun features on the iPhone versus the Android version, but there’s really not that much difference since the words and grammar you are learning on the language tree are identical in both interfaces.

One of the best things about Duolingo, is that the course is broken down into such small parts. Each lesson takes only about four minutes. If you do it on a computer it goes even faster since you are typing on a regular keyboard. I can finish a lesson on the desktop in about 2 and a half minutes. You can set a daily goal for yourself, and the app will remind you to practice and keep track of how long of a “streak” you are on.

Progress sharing allows you to see how your friends are doing, so the accountability factor helps encourage you to stay with it. The app is updated often, so by the time you finish the course, there could be some new vocabulary or new features to keep things interesting. Over time, your language tree deteriorates if you don’t keep repeating the lessons. This is because Duolingo keeps track of how long it has been since you have gone over certain vocabulary and grammar concepts. Spending a few minutes each day to make sure you keep each skill “golded,” will ensure that you retain your current level of fluency.

Using the Duolingo app feels like you are playing a game since you are earning points called “XP” and working for jewels called “lingots,” which you can spend to get various extras in the course. Other than keeping your tree gold and earning points and jewels, you are also working to reach a higher level and increase your fluency percentage, which are stats displayed on your dashboard. I’m still working on turning the Greek tree all the way gold while doing a little work each day in Spanish to maintain full golding in that language. I give Duolingo an A+ due to its ease of use and the fact that it’s free.

Here's a sermon called "Greek: the Language of the New Testament"

Review of Weight Watchers Program

Recently I decided to get more serious with my long distance running. When you run long distances you don’t want to carry any extra weight, so I decided I needed to drop about 25 lbs. I did the Weight Watchers program for about two months, and in that time, I lost 24 pounds.

With the Weight Watchers plan, not all calories are created equal. It is a points-based system that basically punishes you for unhealthy eating by counting unhealthy foods as more points. If I have a healthy snack that is 300 calories, it uses a lot less points than if I had eaten 300 calories worth of unhealthy food.

There are both daily points and weekly points, which gives you a lot of flexibility. Let’s say you are going out to eat with friends and you don’t want to be really austere in that situation. You can order whatever you want (within reason) and just tap into “weeklies.” You can type the name of the restaurant into the app, and it tells you exactly how many points each menu selection at that restaurant will cost you. You are allowed that special meal, but you’ll be paying for it by not eating as much for the rest of the week.

Another thing I really like about the plan is that all fruit is free, meaning it doesn’t cost you any points. When you run out of points or maybe just have a craving for sweets, you can fill up on fruit. Even bananas are allowed, which might be good news for people who have been on other diets that don’t allow much fruit at all.

Drinks use up a lot of points, so you will quickly get in the habit of drinking water with every meal. Eight ounces of milk is like seven points, so these days, I’m only drinking about one glass of milk a week as a special treat. Avoiding caloric beverages is the key to losing weight. Even if you don't sign up for Weight Watchers, keep in mind that most people will lose just by cutting out sweets and drinking water with every meal.

I enjoy exercising, so when I did the W.W. program, I was exercising about two hours a day. Other people do this program without exercising at all, and the diet works for them as well, but I like that you can buy yourself extra points by doing a lot of exercise.

Even after you’ve achieved your goal weight, you can keep it off without keeping track of points as closely. This is because after a while you get in the habit of eating the same way you did while on the plan. I’m still kind of following the principles I learned while I was on the program, and I’m able to easily maintain my current weight that way.

My wife has the “internet only” account, which includes the mobile app, and I basically piggy-backed off of her account by finding out the points for various items and keeping track of what I ate with a pencil and paper. Also, she is my personal chef, so a lot of times she would just serve me my meal and tell me how many points it was.

I really recommend purchasing the app though since it is much easier to keep track on the go when you are using the actual app. Just pay the $20 a month for the internet only account, which is really all you need. You’re probably going to save that much anyway when you stop buying sodas or whatever.

I hate gimmicks, but this diet is not a gimmick. It’s a balanced diet where nothing is completely off limits, so it makes for a very sustainable lifestyle in the long term. Also, it encourages you to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. I can’t say enough good things about this healthy, user-friendly diet. 

Here is a short video on why you should drink only water if you are overweight.

Review of Rosetta Stone Navajo Language Learning Software

I recently went through the Rosetta Stone Navajo course, and overall I was pretty happy with it. Keep in mind, the Navajo language software is not available on the main Rosetta Stone Website. You have to go to a special website called Navajo Renaissance to purchase it because is a special edition and part of Rosetta’s “endangered language project.” One of the cool things about Rosetta Navajo is that the course uses custom photographs that were actually taken on the Navajo reservation instead of the same pictures that are used in the other language courses.

It costs 75 dollars for a one year subscription on the website, which is a better option than actually buying the software for over 200 dollars. It’s going to take you a lot less than a year to go through the program anyway. It is easy for me to say that this is the best program for learning Navajo since it is virtually the only one. There are very few apps or even books that teach Navajo, and the ones I’ve seen aren’t very good. Unfortunately, there just aren’t a lot of people interested in learning Navajo.

Why Navajo?

Even though I enjoy learning foreign languages as a hobby, I stayed away from Navajo at first for a couple of reasons. Number one, it’s a dying language, and number two, I was told it is very hard for a white person to learn without having grown up with it.

The reason I am tackling it now is that our church started the project of making a Navajo hymn CD as a way to reach out to the Navajo people. In the process of recording that CD, I started to pick up what some of the words meant. At first, I was casually studying the language just to make sure I was pronouncing the words correctly when I sang, but after a while, I started to realize that learning to speak Navajo might actually be doable. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a hard language, but it’s not as impossible as some people make it out to be.

One of the reasons I am interested in speaking Navajo is that we have several Navajos in our church, and Lord willing, we will end up with a lot more through our soul-winning efforts on the reservation. When we knock doors on the “rez,” we offer people a free Navajo hymn CD and then present the Gospel. Even when people speak both languages, it is always a great icebreaker when you speak with people in their own native tongue. Not many young people speak the language anymore, but Navajo people my age and above often speak both English and Navajo. I’m in my mid-thirties, and my age seems to be the cut-off. There are even some very elderly people who speak only Navajo, so the language is definitely still relevant.

Going Through the Course

Learning a language through Rosetta Stone isn’t as easy as they advertise, so you do need to put in some hard work. You can’t just go through the program one time. That won’t be enough. Here’s how I went through it:

On the first pass, as long as I was able to get a checkmark instead of a red X, I would continue to move forward in the course rather than getting hung up on trying to get a perfect score. Once I got a few units into it, I went back and did it again, trying to get a better score. I found that I had to go through everything at least three times, having a higher standard for myself each time through. After the third pass through each part of the course, I made flashcards for the really hard stuff that I still wasn’t grasping, so I disagree with Rosetta’s claim that you won’t have to do any rote memorization.

Helpful Tip

One mistake I was making with the Rosetta interactive software is that when it beeped I would speak immediately. I didn’t realize at first that it was counting my pronunciation as wrong because it was cutting off the first part of what I said. It turns out, you have to wait until the thing turns green instead of talking immediately after the beep. Once I figured that out, the speaking portion of the lessons went a lot better for me.

What Next?

Overall, the Rosetta Navajo software is great, but one of the downsides is that you are tied down to a computer. Rosetta Stone has a mobile app for other languages, but unfortunately, the Navajo course is not as portable in that way since it is only available on the computer. Another negative is that there are only two levels instead of five like they have for the big languages.

Now that I’ve finished Level 2, I’m not sure what to do next. The course is very effective, but it didn’t teach me everything I need. What I’m doing personally to further my education in the language is continuing to talk to people on the reservation as well as participating in a local Navajo language meetup that I organized myself using meetup.com. I am also watching some videos from a Youtuber called “Daybreak Warrior,” which have proven to be very helpful. Learning Navajo is a worthwhile endeavor if you live in Arizona or parts of New Mexico near the Navajo Nation, and I recommend the Rosetta Stone software as the way to get started.

Here is a sermon on reaching the Navajo Nation.

Extra Name "Cainan" in Luke 3

Sometimes critics of the King James Bible will bring up the fact that certain names are left out of genealogies, but what we need to remember is that every genealogy is making a point. Skipping certain names in a genealogy does not take away from the truth of that genealogy. Instead of getting tripped up, just ask yourself what’s the purpose of each particular genealogy, and that will help you understand why people have been skipped in certain instances.

Matthew 1

The point of the genealogy in Matthew 1 is that Jesus is the King of the Jews. In this genealogy, there are some names that were skipped. The people who were skipped were more obscure men that for whatever reason, God left out. It says there are 14 generations from Abraham to David, 14 from David until the carrying away into Babylon, and 14 from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ. We know that it wasn’t exactly 14, but perhaps a few names of wicked or otherwise insignificant people were left out to make it easier to remember those three “14’s.” This is known as a "mnemonic" (something to help you memorize something). None of that changes the fact the genealogy accomplishes its purpose of proving that Jesus was in line to be king of the Jews.

Begat vs. Son of

In some genealogies, even though one person did not directly beget the next person in line, the word "begat" is still used. To beget means to generate (which is related to the word gene) or to bring into existence. When the Bible skips someone, you can still say that that person was begotten of his grandfather because the grandson is a direct genetic descendant of his grandfather.

Sometimes a genealogy will just say, “was the son of.” You can be a son without being begotten. For example, you could be adopted and be a son. You could even be a son-in-law and be considered a son. There is a difference between being a begotten son and just a son.

You might be wondering how Jesus is begotten since he has always existed. According to Acts 13:33, Jesus was begotten on the day that he was raised from the dead, so when God the Father raised up Jesus from the dead that was a "begetting." Jesus was generated by being brought back to life. When we get saved we are also begotten of God in that way because we are "regenerated" or "begotten again."

Other Skipped Names

When we look at each genealogy of Moses and Aaron, it does not give us a complete genealogy. It will mention only four generations when they were there for around 400 years. Those genealogies were just to tell where certain people came from-- whether they were the sons of Levi, whether they were Kohathites or Merarites, etc. Then, when you go to 1 Chronicles, you’ll find a more complete genealogy.

Luke 3

In Luke 3, it says that Joseph was the son of Heli, who was actually his father-in-law, but we know from the genealogy in Matthew that Joseph was literally begotten by a guy named Jacob. The purpose of the genealogy in Luke 3 is to show a physical genealogy of Jesus all the way back to Adam. Joseph, Mary’s husband, is mentioned instead of Mary because genealogies focus on men’s names, and Heli was actually Mary’s literal father.

The “Extra Name”

This next example is the one people tend to choke on. There’s a name in the genealogy in Luke 3 that is not mentioned in Genesis or 1 Chronicles. The name “Cainan” is only found in Luke 3:36. There is a reason why the Luke 3 genealogy is more inclusive. The purpose of the genealogy back in Genesis 11 was to show where various nations came from, but the purpose of the genealogy in Luke 3 was to emphasize the humanity of Christ by showing an unbroken, physical line. Therefore in Genesis, an insignificant person was skipped, whereas to make the point in Luke 3, it was essential that no one be skipped. This goes back to focusing on the purpose behind each genealogy and understanding the point that is being made in that chapter.

Atheists and Liberals

Atheists will try to use the “extra name” to discredit the Bible, but if Luke was just writing some cunningly devised fable, it would have been easy for him to just copy the Old Testament genealogy. Even most Christians would say that the genealogy in Luke contains an error, and that the Bible is only perfect in the originals. It comes as no surprise that a guy like Ken Ham teaches this since he relies on proving things with scientific evidence rather than walking by faith. Maybe Ham should spend less time looking for fossils and more time studying the Bible. Then maybe he would notice a pattern of names being skipped at times due to their irrelevance.

We no longer have the originals, and God has promised us that he would preserve his word. The KJV is the inerrant Word of God, and maybe God puts little things like that in the Bible, so that we will be required to have a little more faith.

Here is a more detailed sermon on Luke 3 that explains the extra name

Foreign Language Bibles I Recommend

I believe that the King James Bible is the Word of God without error. I am often asked about which Bible versions are best in various other languages and where to find them. I study foreign languages as a hobby and have done a lot of research so I have the answer to some of those questions.

Spanish

When it comes to Spanish, I highly recommend the 2010 Reina Valera Gomez. The 1602 and 1909 Reina Valera are also good translations, but I think the 2010 Reina Valera Gomez is the best one. What you want to stay away from is the 1960 version, which is more on par with corrupted versions such as the New King James and the N.I.V.

Fortunately, the RVG 2010 is easy to find online. Just Google it. Framingtheworld.com now offers a small pocket New Testament that’s a Reina Valera Gomez for the more affordable price of five dollars. FWBC give out thousands of these for free since we just want to get them into people’s hands.

Portuguese

The Trinitarian Bible Society, which is an excellent resource for foreign language Bibles, sells the Almeida Corrigida Fiel version in Portuguese, which is a great translation. They also sell a parallel Bible that includes the English KJV side by side with the Portuguese.

Greek

Trinitarian sells the Greek N.T., which is the Textus Receptus. People like Gail Riplinger have wrongly claimed that this book has over 50 discrepancies. I fact checked this myself by looking up every instance mentioned in her book and comparing the Greek New Testament side by side with the KJV. As it turns out there are only two minor typos in the Greek. The first one is that they accidentally left out the word “Amen” at the end of Ephesians. I fixed this by writing the word Amen in myself with a pen. The other error is that in one place in Acts it says "word of the Lord" instead of "word of God," which is obviously not a huge difference. The rest of Riplinger's "discrepancies" were mainly outright lies and fabrications on her part. If you are looking for a Greek N.T. that is accurate, Trinitarian Bible Society has it. They also sell the Hebrew Old Testament.

Romanian

I highly recommend the "Fidela" Bible, translated by independent fundamental Baptist missionary Brian Nibbe. Before this translation, the choice was between the corrupt Westcott & Hort based Cornilescu Bible and the Romanian Orthodox Bible. I opted for the Orthodox Bible because it was at least translated from the Textus Receptus, but most Baptists used the corrupted Cornilescu Bible. Now that the Fidela Bible is available, it's a no brainer.

German

Unfortunately, I’ve never really been able to find a great German Bible. Martin Luther’s version is several hundred years old, but he did not believe in a literal translation method. The Martin Luther Bible that the Trinitarian Bible Society puts out is a little better. It was improved in 1998, but it still has a few issues. The 2000 Schlachter Study Bible from Switzerland is probably only a little better than the Martin Luther translation.

French

There is a French Bible translation done by David Martin in 1744, which is probably the best option in French. I found this Bible recently for sale on Lulu.com. I believe the New Testament sells for about 12 bucks and the full Bible is a little over $30. There’s also another older French version that came out before a lot of the modern changes took place, and that one is called the Ostervald New Testament.

Other Languages

If you go to Trinitarian’s website they sell a lot of great older Bibles that line up with the King James. For example, they have the 1637 Reformation Dutch Bible, the Polish New Testament from the 1600s, and an Arabic New Testament called the Van Dyke. For just one dollar, you can get the Gospel of John in Turkish. Maltese and Armenian New Testaments are just five dollars each. The Gospel of John in Telugu, an Indian language, is just one buck. I even found a Nepali New Testament and a full Bible in a language of Zimbabwe.

Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer for every language. For example, in a lot of the Scandinavian languages, the old versions are out of print. There’s a great Norwegian Bible version that’s still out there, but I don’t know where to buy it. It is also hard to find the old Hindi Bible and the older Japanese Bibles anymore. As a general rule, if you go back to at least the 1800’s, people had the right Bible, but the old Bibles are often rare and not available online. In some cases, they are out of print but may still be available in electronic form. I’m not saying the Bibles I mentioned are the only good ones. I’m just giving you the information I have and trying to point you in the right direction on how to find the best translations.

If you know of any other good foreign language Bibles, let me know in the comments. 

Here is a link to the sermon "Two Problems with Modern Versions of the Bible"

AIDS Free Christmas Revisited

There has been a lot of buzz on the internet lately claiming that I have preached that people should “kill all gays by Christmas.” Anyone who has listened to any of my preaching would know that this is not true. First of all, I don’t ever use the word “gay,” so that should be the first clue that this quote did not come from me. Second of all, I have consistently preached against violence, vigilantism, or taking the law into one’s own hands. I have never preached that we as Christians citizens should physically harm anyone because the Bible makes it clear that we do not wrestle with flesh and blood, but that our battle is a spiritual battle. Third of all, the comments that I actually made (not the twisted version reported on liberal websites) were made over 3 years ago in November of 2014. I still stand by every word I said and would readily preach the same sermon again, but to set the record straight, this is old news.

If anyone wants to hear what I actually preached, they could watch the entire sermon from November 2014 entitled “AIDS: the Judgment of God.” The sermon is available on YouTube and on our church’s website. What I actually taught was that the law of God calls for homosexuals to be executed by a righteous government. This teaching is found in Leviticus 20:13:

“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”

This is quite different from me telling people to “kill all gays by Christmas!” It is not our job to carry out this righteous judgment, but it is God’s command for government to enforce laws against homosexuality. This is not a radical belief. It is actually the traditional Christian view. In the early days of our nation at the Massachusetts Bay Colony, homosexuality was punished by death. Homosexuality was illegal in all 50 states until less than 60 years ago. The last laws against homosexuality were repealed in 2003, which is pretty recently.

The teachings of Leviticus 20:13 are reiterated in the New Testament, where Romans 1:32 speaking specifically of homosexuals states:



“Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”

The New Testament states further in the book of Jude:


“Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”

I could go on and on, but the point is that our church is simply believing and preaching the teachings of the Bible. Anyone who does not agree is welcome to go to a different church or tune in to a different YouTube channel. We have the freedom to follow our conscience and freely exercise our religion regardless of what is deemed politically correct in 2017.

Here is the link to the sermon "AIDS: the Judgment of God"
Here is the link to a more recent sermon "Without are Dogs"

New Family Portrait