Ministry on the inside

     Answers to every need in God's book, behind bars.

One of the biggest challenges to ministering in prisons and jail is the limitation on what can bring into the facility.  Usually, you are limited only to your bible.  That being said, the minister is faced with many difficult situations behind bars.  

So I started writing bible references to key issues of faith and life on the inside (blank) pages of my bible.  Now years later, there are 17 blank pages filled with scripture references.  I have not counted them all, but surely it is safe to say there are hundreds.  Here’s what a page looks like:

At a recent bible study, the suggestion was made that I put these all together online.  Well, after some diligent compilation, I think it is ready for publication.  Each of the SEVEN LINKS below will take you to another section of bible references.  Of course, these lists are constantly being expanded and revised. Your input and feedback would always be welcome. 

Of course, I must start with the HELP IN TIME OF NEED offered on the cover of ever Gideon bible distributed.  Answers to life's biggest issues - right there before my eyes - continuing to work for others today scribbled in the back of my ministry bible.  

When accepted by faith, Christ puts His Holy Spirit within the believer, compelling and enabling a powerful new life, with certain CHARACTER AND VIRTUES as described in Scripture.

Our relationship with God grows as we accept his SPIRITUAL STANDARDS for our life by faith.  While his spiritual standards can be described as the whole body of Scripture, as well as the urging of the Holy Spirit, the biblical foundations like the Ten Commandments and Sermon on the Mount offer a bible-based bedrock foundation for Christian life. 

God seeks to be relevant to your life through his word, offering PRACTICAL PRECEPTS for all life could throw your way.  The following precepts offer biblical guidance for many common dilemmas faced by man.

The bible has ANSWERS FOR TODAY's problems, with God-sized solutions for real-life situations ranging from every day anxiety to major life decisions like abortion and same-sex relationships. Where to find help for  LIFE SITUATIONS, from being afraid or defeated, to feeling overcome, sick or worried and much more.  

The Christian faith is formed from many DYNAMIC DOCTRINES, which occur throughout Scripture in many different ways and situations.  Insights and growth in faith can be gained as individuals read and understand these doctrines, which of course begin with God’s greatness and man’s helplessness without God. 

No Reserves. No Retreats. No Regrets.

No Reserves. No Retreats. No Regrets.

"Do not put out the Spirit's fire." -- 1 Thessalonians 5:19

William Borden's life

Quotations taken from Borden of Yale, by Mrs. Howard Taylor, Moody Press, Chicago

NO RESERVES

     In 1904 William Borden graduated from a Chicago high school. As heir to the Borden family fortune, he was already wealthy. For his high school graduation present, his parents gave 16-year-old Borden a trip around the world. As the young man traveled through Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, he felt a growing burden for the world's hurting people. Finally, Bill Borden wrote home about his "desire to be a missionary."1
     One friend expressed disbelief that Bill was "throwing himself away as a missionary."
     In response, Borden wrote two words in the back of his Bible: "No reserves."
     Even though young Borden was wealthy, he arrived on the campus of Yale University in 1905 trying to look like just one more freshman. Very quickly, however, Borden's classmates noticed something unusual about him and it wasn't that he had lots of money. One of them wrote: "He came to college far ahead, spiritually, of any of us. He had already given his heart in full surrender to Christ and had really done it. We who were his classmates learned to lean on him and find in him a strength that was solid as a rock, just because of this settled purpose and consecration."2
     During his college years, Bill Borden made an entry in his personal journal that defined what his classmates were seeing in him. That entry said simply: "Say 'no' to self and 'yes' to Jesus every time."3
     Borden's first disappointment at Yale came when the university president spoke in a convocation about the students' need of "having a fixed purpose." After that speech, Borden wrote: "He neglected to say what our purpose should be, and where we should get the ability to persevere and the strength to resist temptations."4 Surveying the Yale faculty and much of the student body, Borden lamented what he saw as the end result of an empty, humanistic philosophy: moral weakness and sin-ruined lives.
     During his first semester at Yale, Borden started something that would transform campus life. One of his friends described how it began: "It was well on in the first term when Bill and I began to pray together in the morning before breakfast. I cannot say positively whose suggestion it was, but I feel sure it must have originated with Bill. We had been meeting only a short time when a third student joined us and soon after a fourth. The time was spent in prayer after a brief reading of Scripture. Bill's handling of Scripture was helpful. . . . He would read to us from the Bible, show us something that God had promised and then proceed to claim the promise with assurance."5
     Borden's small morning prayer group gave birth to a movement that soon spread across the campus. By the end of his first year, 150 freshman were meeting weekly for Bible study and prayer. By the time Bill Borden was a senior, one thousand of Yale's 1,300 students were meeting in such groups.

NO RETREATS

     Borden made it his habit to seek out the most "incorrigible" students and try to bring them to salvation. "In his sophomore year we organized Bible study groups and divided up the class of 300 or more, each man interested taking a certain number, so that all might, if possible, be reached. The names were gone over one by one, and the question asked, 'Who will take this person?' When it came to someone thought to be a hard proposition, there would be an ominous pause. Nobody wanted the responsibility. Then Bill's voice would be heard, 'Put him down to me.'"6
     Borden's outreach ministry was not confined to the Yale campus. He cared about widows and orphans and the disabled. He rescued drunks from the streets of New Haven. To try to rehabilitate them, he founded the Yale Hope Mission. One of Bill Borden's friends wrote that he "might often be found in the lower parts of the city at night, on the street, in a cheap lodging house or some restaurant to which he had taken a poor hungry fellow to feed him, seeking to lead men to Christ."7
     Borden's missionary call narrowed to the Muslim Kansu people in China. Once he fixed his eyes on that goal, Borden never wavered. He also challenged his classmates to consider missionary service. One of them said of him: "He certainly was one of the strongest characters I have ever known, and he put backbone into the rest of us at college. There was real iron in him, and I always felt he was of the stuff martyrs were made of, and heroic missionaries of more modern times."8
     Although he was a millionaire, Bill seemed to "realize always that he must be about his Father's business, and not wasting time in the pursuit of amusement."9 Although Borden refused to join a fraternity, "he did more with his classmates in his senior year than ever before." He presided over the huge student missionary conference held at Yale and served as president of the honor society Phi Beta Kappa.

     Upon graduation from Yale, Borden turned down some high-paying job offers. In his Bible, he wrote two more words: "No retreats."

NO REGRETS

     William Borden went on to do graduate work at Princeton Seminary in New Jersey. When he finished his studies at Princeton, he sailed for China. Because he was hoping to work with Muslims, he stopped first in Egypt to study Arabic. While there, he contracted spinal meningitis. Within a month, 25-year-old William Borden was dead.
     When the news of William Whiting Borden's death was cabled back to the U.S., the story was carried by nearly every American newspaper. "A wave of sorrow went round the world . . . Borden not only gave (away) his wealth, but himself, in a way so joyous and natural that it (seemed) a privilege rather than a sacrifice" wrote Mary Taylor in her introduction to his biography.10
     Was Borden's untimely death a waste? Not in God's perspective. Prior to his death, Borden had written two more words in his Bible. Underneath the words "No reserves" and "No retreats," he had written: "No regrets."

Portions based on material in Daily Bread, December 31, 1988, and The Yale Standard, Fall 1970 edition.

Chronology / Dates

·         November 1, 1887 -- birth

·         1904 -- High school graduation (Chicago)

·         1905 -- Round-the-world trip

·         1909 -- Yale graduation

·         December 17, 1912 -- Sails for Egypt on way to China

·         April 9, 1913 -- Death in Egypt

Nicene Creed (With Scripture References)

The following statement of faith, known as the Nicene Creed, was first adopted by the early church fathers in the middle-eastern town of Nicaea in A.D. 325.  

Today, this statement of faith is affirmed by all those attending orthodox Christian churches; Roman, Greek, Catholic or Protestant.  

While we believe that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ offers the only path to eternal life, we can affirm this statement of faith with Scriptural truth, and through it grow in our knowledge of our Lord and Savior.

Nicene Creed

I believe in one God,[1] the Father almighty,[2] maker of heaven and earth,[3] of all things visible and invisible.[4]

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,[5] the Only Begotten Son of God,[6] born of the Father before all ages.[7] God from God[8], Light from Light,[9] true God from true God,[10] begotten, not made,[11] one in being with the Father;[12] through him all things were made.[13]

For us men and for our salvation [14] he came down from heaven,[15] and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,[16] and became man. [17] For our sake he was crucified [18] under Pontius Pilate,[19] he suffered death [20] and was buried,[21] and rose again on the third day [22] in accordance with the Scriptures.[23] 

He ascended into heaven [24] and is seated at the right hand of the Father.[25] He will come again in glory [26] to judge the living and the dead [27] and his kingdom will have no end.[28]

I believe in the Holy Spirit,[29] the Lord, the giver of life,[30] who proceeds from the Father [31] and the Son,[32] who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,[33] who has spoken through the prophets.[34]

I believe in one,[35] holy,[36] catholic [37] and apostolic [38] Church. [39]

I confess one baptism [40] for the forgiveness of sins [41] and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead [42] and the life of the world to come. [43]

Amen.

SCRIPTURE REFERENCES

1. Mark 12:29, 12:32, Ephesians 4:6

2. 2 Corinthians 6:18

3. Genesis 1:1, Revelation 4:11

4. Colossians 1:16, Hebrews 11:3

5. 1 Corinthians 8:6, Ephesians 4:5

6. John 3:16

7. Colossians 1:15, 1:17

8. John 1:1-2

9. John 1:4, 1:9, 2 Corinthians 4:6, Hebrews 1:3

10. 1 John 5:20

11. John 1:14

12. 1 John 1:5, John 8:12

13. John 1:3, 1:10, Colossians 1:16, 1 Corinthians 8:6, Romans 11:36, Hebrews 1:10

14. Matthew 1:21, 1 Thessalonians 5:9, Colossians 1:13-14

15. John 3:13, 3:31, 6:38

16. Luke 1:34-35

17. John 1:14, Hebrews 2:14

18. 1 Peter 2:24

19. Mark 15:15

20. Matthew 27:50

21. Matthew 27:59-60

22. Mark 9:31, 16:9, Acts 10:40

23. Luke 24:45-46, 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

24. Acts 1:9

25. Mark 16:19, Luke 22:69

26. Mark 13:26, John 14:3, 1 Thessalonians 4:17

27. Matthew 16:27, 2 Corinthians 5:10, 2 Timothy 4:1, 1 Peter 4:5

28. Hebrews 1:8, 2 Peter 1:11

29. Acts 1:8

30. John 6:63, 2 Corinthians 3:6

31. John 15:26

32. John 16:7

33. 2 Corinthians 3:8

34. 1 Peter 1:10-11, Ephesians 3:5

35. Ephesians 4:4

36. Ephesians 1:4, 5:27

37. Matthew 28:19, Acts 1:8

38. Ephesians 2:20

39. Matthew 16:18, Romans 12:4-5, 1 Corinthians 10:17

40. Ephesians 4:5, Galatians 3:27, 1 Corinthians 12:13

41. Colossians 2:12-13, Acts 22:16

42. Romans 6:4-5, 1 Thessalonians 4:16

43. 2 Peter 3:13, Revelation 21:1