Website Reviews

adailydevotion.com

The website adailydevotion.com reflects a larger shift in the way Christians and society now read their material. Although books and magazines will always have their place, there are a large number of saints that now digest their reading material almost entirely online. Although some may see this shift as a decline, it behoves us to be realistic and accommodating of the way culture at large informs itself. This website seeks to do this by providing spiritual material of a devotional and encouraging nature on a regular basis. The subtitle of the website is ‘edify, encourage, enlighten’ which summarizes its aims.

The contributors are all in assembly fellowship and are living for the Lord in different capacities. The website includes book reviews, study material, exposition and poetry and seeks to provide a varied and consistent diet of spiritual truth.

The website is attractive, accessible and regularly updated. Since many Christians, and especially those of a younger generation, now read online blogs from all over the evangelical world, it was felt that something of an assembly nature was needed. Fewer young Christians read the assembly magazines and although many magazines are now online, they are seldom in an accessible and regular format. Many Christians also seem to read in a more bite-sized manner than previous generations, evidenced by the Christian blogosphere today. This website seeks to fill that gap by communicating sound biblical truth in a relevant and accessible form. Your prayers for this work would be greatly appreciated.

[Our thanks to Huw Rees, Carmarthen, Wales, for this review]

understandingthegospel.org

As its web address suggests, this is a site aimed at providing material supportive of the gospel and those that seek to preach it, which ought to be all of us, albeit in different ways. From the opening page of the site there are six areas, each with subsections. The six main menu options are: Explore the gospel; Big questions; Life issues; Spiritual growth; Personal Stories; and Blogs. In total there appears to be thirty-seven contributors currently, made up of thirty-three men and four women. A closer investigation suggests that not all of the stated contributors have yet submitted material. However, what is there is substantial and has been written from a variety of perspectives – for example, those who are full-time gospel preachers as well as those who are not.

Apart from the range of contributors, some well-known names, some not, there is also a variety of material – mainly articles but also some videos. All the articles are catalogued in terms of the date of their inclusion and also in terms of how long they will take to read. For example, Paul McCauley’s article Has Science Buried God? (Part 2) was uploaded on the 30th April 2019 and is a four-minute read. With each article there is a short biography and picture of the author to make the whole site less impersonal. Videos can be played through YouTube, which also indicates the run time.

To give some impression of the variety of material, there are: seven articles on the evidences for Christianity; twelve articles on the Bible; six articles on creation; nineteen articles on God; five articles on evangelism; and many more topics of an evangelistic nature. For those who are saved but, perhaps, young in the faith, there are also a number of topics including a short study of the book of James as well as a nine-article series on Church truth.

It would seem that the site is growing and that a number of people have been recruited to add to its pages. Apart from providing material to confirm the faith of some and guide others in their Christian life, it may provide material for church website links, or as links to add to Christian literature for personal distribution.