The Precious Seed Web Site

The Precious Seed web site was rebuilt and relaunched in July 2005. It has been the desire of the trustees to develop a searchable archive of written ministry based upon the articles that have appeared in the magazine over the years. We are conscious of the wealth of material that has been provided by the Lord’s servants and how that material has been a blessing to previous generations. Those who possess back copies and the relevant indexes will know how much expositional, devotional and practical teaching there is to be enjoyed.

Now, after some extensive work in developing the framework, this is becoming a reality and the archive is developing. At the time of writing it contained all issues from 2000 to 2005 and issues from 1968 to 1974. These issues provide brief expositions of different Psalms, some Pauline epistles, including the Pastoral Epistles and Peter’s Epistles. There are articles of a devotional character on the Person of the Lord both as typology, His titles and in aspects of His earthly ministry. There are also many articles that deal with practical aspects of Christian life as well as our responsibilities in respect of recent Government legislation and regulation.

The real power of the new site is that it gives the user the ability to search through the growing archive of material. The search facility finds the search word or phrase in the title of an article and also has the facility to find a mention in the body of the article itself. For example, searching for the word ‘Galatians’ reveals articles on the New Testament book as well as occasions when the epistle is referred to in articles, such as that by J. M. Davies, ‘We Want Equality’, published in volume 23 issue 6 in 1972. Once the appropriate material is found it is easy to copy and paste selected extracts or the whole article into your own notes.

Apart from the search capability there is extensive indexing that allows articles to be accessed by either title, issue, category, series or author. From any one of these submenus material can be viewed by selecting the appropriate letter of the alphabet. If you want to find an article about a particular organization, such as the Lord’s Work Trust, you can select the category index and choose ‘Organizations’. It really couldn’t be simpler!

Further magazine issues will be added to the site as time permits and, as with any good Internet site, it will be worth visiting it regularly to see how things are developing. We already have the full text of Day by Day Bible Characters ready for uploading so that we can provide a ‘daily devotional’ at the click of a button. There will be additional ‘web only’ material, not previously included in the magazine, which will take a variety of different forms using the benefits of electronic formats such as MP3. Finally, there will be a shopping facility to enable you to purchase Precious Seed publications through the web site.

All these developments take time and expertise but it is the desire of the committee to make available to as wide an audience as possible the benefits of the work of the magazine in the study of the scriptures to this generation in a format that is accessible to the widest audience. We would seek your prayerful and practical support for this exercise. Please send us feedback from those of you that use the Internet so we will be able to adapt and develop material with the objective of encouraging the study of the scriptures and the practise of New Testament principles.