Ok, we’re seminarians and we love books. I don’t often recommend books here as I’m sure you already have a backlog of books on your “to be purchased” list. However, I came across this amazing resource that is at an amazing price and thought it was worth sharing.

Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament is edited by D.A. Carson and G.K. Beale and is a comprehensive commentary of EVERY old testament reference in the new testament. For every reference there is a detailed explanation of the context from which the verse appears in the Old Testament, as well as its use and implication on the New Testament text. It is a truly amazing resource.

Now, the really sweet deal is that I found it at BUY.com for $31 (List is $54)… but wait, it gets better… if you use google check-out and it is the first time you’ve ever used it then you save another $10! That means you can get this amazing resource for $21. Worth every penny and then some if you ask me.

So, if you’re interested, check it out:

Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament Leading evangelical scholars provide comprehensive commentary on every quotation, allusion, and echo of the Old Testament that appears in Matthew through Revelation.

I did my taxes online last night using TurboTax. Honestly, it wasn’t too bad. In the past I’ve always gone to a CPA since I had my own business, was a minister, and other crazy tax issues… however, this year with the move I decided to just do it myself since I didn’t have a CPA in our new town. The decision worked out quite well. TurboTax had a great interface and guided me step by step… best news of all… REFUND!!! I really didn’t see that one coming.

If you haven’t filed yet, remember you only have 4 more days!!!

So, one thing that all seminarians should know is that you have some GREAT tax breaks available to you. Here is the IRS publication (always fun to read) on how you can get a deduction from your education expenses. Essentially, you can deduct up to $4000 of “Tuition and fees required for enrollment or attendance at an eligible postsecondary educational institution, but not including personal, living, or family expenses, such as room and board.”

Besides that deduction there is also a Lifetime Learning Credit available. Now, I’m not a CPA so I don’t really understand the relationship between the two options you have, however, I know that you can’t take both of them… That is why it is really great to use a CPA or a program like TurboTax. You simply plug in the information and it determines what is best for your situation.

So, if you haven’t done your taxes, get on it! And remember to take advantage of the tax breaks your education provides you.

I’m a mac geek and it makes me mildly ill to have to launch windows on my mac in order to run my bible software, Logos. However, I am happy to announce that Logos has opened their Alpha release of Logos for Mac to the public. Now, the catch is that you already have to have a version of Logos in order to get the free download, so everyone who doesn’t already have it, I’m sorry.

For the rest of us, you simply need to go to www.macbiblesoftware.com and download the file. Once you download and install libronix you need to install your version of Logos (instructions are on the site). Once you have it installed, simply insert your original Logos disk and copy all your unlocked resources into the resource file… then you are rolling Logos in true Mac style!

Oh happy day! Any other Mac and Logos users out there?

Happy Valentines Day. I got you a gift… but truth be told, it is a re-gift. But I still think you’ll love it.

I give FULL credit to Chad over at Outside is Better for this wonderful re-gift. Be sure to visit his blog and thank him for making all our lives easier.

Open the wrapper and what do you see:

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself.

This is a plugin that even Vintage Notes fan can love! Check it out… You bibliography will never be the same again!

BUY THIS BOOK!

It only costs $2.50

This book is for you.

“Before and above being learned, a minister must be godly. Nothing could be more fatal, however, than to set these two things over against one another. Recruiting officers do not dispute whether it is better for soldiers to have a right leg or a left: soldiers should have both legs… in your case there can be no ‘either - or’ here - either a student or a man of God. You must be both.”

The book, by B.B. Warfield is only 15 pages long, but it will serve as a constant reminder of your duty as a theological student.

I received this book as a gift from a very dear friend, to whom I owe a great deal of gratitude and so much more.

I’ve spent years trying to find the best way for Just a Gal and I to manage our money. While I’d like to think that I had the noble motives of being the best steward of the gifts God gave us, the reality was that most of the time I was just trying to figure out how we could pay the bills every month and have money left for food.

When I first began I simply had some paper and a pen. I’d record expenses (which were very few early on) and kept tabs on where money was going and upcoming bills. As expenses grew this method became too time consuming and I transfered to an excel spreadsheet. I would manually enter our expenses and could easily generate some graphs, charts, and reports to help us see where money was going.

After about a year of using excel I realized that I wasn’t a very good programmer and that my formulas were typically wrong. I tried out Microsoft Money and a couple other computer programs. At the end of it all the one things I noticed is that none of them really helped us to create a budget and stick to it. Instead of helping me budget, all these programs helped me to simply see, after the fact, where all our money went.

It was around this time that I discovered Mvelopes Personal. What set Mvelopes Personalapart from every other piece of financial software that I tried was that it actually took your budget and helped you stick with it.

Here’s how it works:

First, you determine how much income you bring in each month. Next, you create a REALISTIC budget that keeps you under the amount of money you make (spend less than you make… what a novel idea). Each budget item gets its own electronic envelope. Now, whenever you get paid you take the paycheck and divide it up amongst your envelopes, funding them until they each get the amount you have budgeted for the month. Now, as you spend money throughout the month you simply mark the expense in the appropriate envelope… once the money is gone from the envelope, stop spending… it is that simple.

The approach seems so simple to me, yet I have never seen a program close to Mvelopes Personal on the market.

Mvelopes Personal will login into your bank and credit card accounts and automatically download your transactions… so, keeping up with your expenses is as easy as drag and drop. Also, it is all online, so you can access it from anywhere.

Now, yes, Mvelopes Personal does cost you money… but for me, I finally realized that I needed something more to help me make and keep my budget. Since we started using Mvelopes Personal 2 years ago we’ve been able to truly manage and steward our money.

If you’re interested, give it a shot… it is a free 30 day trial, so what do you have to loose?

Trying to decided if God is calling you to seminary or not can be difficult. While you could give the magic eight ball a try, there is probably a better way to determine what God is calling you to do.

For me, I found Finding the Will of God by Dr. Bruce Waltke to be tremendously helpful. While I already knew a lot of what Dr. Waltke had to say, it was refreshing to be reminded that I was on the right track as I sought to discern God’s will.

In the book Waltke reminds us that God is not some conman trying to hide his will from us… Rather, God is our loving father and his will is probably easier to discern than we sometimes think.

Waltke spends the first 1/4 of the book bringing correction to what he calls “Christian divination” that appears to be nothing more than what every pagan does when trying to conjure the will of the gods.

After his professorial/pastoral rebuke, Waltke offers biblical council on how we can rest assured that we are hearing and following our glorious and loving father.

Incredibly practical and biblically based, I often recommend this book to friends and family who are struggling to make big decisions.

If you’ve never heard of the Christian Classics Ethereal Library you are missing out on a truly great, FREE, resource.

The Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) seeks to build up the church by making classic Christian literature widely available and promoting its use for edification and study by interested Christians, seekers and scholars. The CCEL accomplishes this by selecting, collecting, distributing, and promoting valuable literature through the World Wide Web and other media.

The CCEL is truly amazing as they have hundreds of classics all digitally tagged and available to read online and/or download in numerous formats. Every time I go to the site I am amazed at the efforts of the project… with a few clicks of the mouse I can have access to the church fathers, both well known and obscure.

This is a great site that everyone should have bookmark.

Enjoy.

The other day we got a comment from Eric in our 6 ways to save money in seminary post about a book meta search site called addall and I was reminded that it is almost time to go book shopping. One of the great joys of being a seminary student is the opportunity to build your library… it is also a great challenge since books aren’t cheap. So, I’m going to share with you how and where I shop for books and hopefully you’ll share your tricks and tips as well.

Step one for me when shopping for my seminary books is to make a master list of all the books I need for the semester. Much like Santa, I make a list and check it twice… but mostly to make sure that I haven’t missed any as I shop. I typically do all my buying online, so having the list ensures that I don’t miss a book. The list is also helpful since it is rare that one site will have all the books I need. So, as I purchase a book I can check it off the list.

Step two is an easy one for me. I go to www.wtsbooks.com. Over the years I have found that WTS has some of the best prices online (95% of the time beating amazon). The kicker with WTS is in the shipping… $5 FLAT RATE (UPS Ground) no matter how many books you buy! See, shipping is going to typically be the kicker on many sites… you always need to keep in mind that a) shipping will be expensive or b) shipping will be slow. I don’t like either of those, so WTS gets bonus points in my book.

Step three is to consult the list and see how many books I have left. Now, I typically go to amazon on my second round of shopping for three reasons. First, amazon has a huge selection of books and, remember, when you buy across less sites you cut down on shipping costs… so knowing that I can get most all the remaining books I need in one spot is nice. Second, amazon typically has really great prices… not the cheapest all the time, but they are usually competitive with other sites (WTS excluded) within a couple dollars. Third, if you have amazon prime then 2 day shipping is free (free shipping is NICE! Also, if you don’t have amazon prime, just ask around and find a friend that does… or you can wait the 10 days for “super saver” free shipping). The fourth and final reason I use amazon is that I am an amazon associate which means I get a percentage of all sales generated off anyone who clicks one one of these amazon links… however, more so, if I use the link and then go buy something, then I get a percentage (I think up to 6%) back on my purchase. So, in all, amazon is just a good second stop.

Step four is for the books that WTS and amazon don’t carry. Typically, there is some obscure book that a professor wants you to get that neither of these places carry. In this case, the biggest time saver is to go to your seminary’s store. If it is on a professor’s syllabus, you can usually be confident that it is on the shelf at your seminary’s store.

Using the above plan, this is how my upcoming semester turned out:

WTS: 8 books = $135.20 (w/ $5 shipping incl.)
Amazon: 5 books = $90.06 (w/ free shipping incl.)
Seminary: 3books = $56.57 (w/ $11.45 shipping incl.)

Note: Yes I had my seminary ship my books… I live 20 minutes from campus, so it is a time/gas saver… and I might be a little lazy…

Ok, I found this about 8 seconds ago and was so interested that I had to post about it.

Apparently this company, Chegg, rents college textbooks. The cost to rent for a semester is about 55-65% off the list price. Now, yes, I think you should buy all your seminary books and keep them as a resource for the rest of your life and then pass them along to someone when you die… However, if money is tight, this might be a good solution.

I did a quick search for “systematic theology” and it returned 213 results. So, it looks, at first glance, that they would have the books you’d need. Also, I found that if you use the code: Rent4Spring you can get a 5% discount.

Finally, as you might notice in the ad, they’ll plant a tree for every book you rent… so that is always nice.

As for book renting… I don’t know… if anything it is interesting. Your thoughts?