Here is a list of summer fruits of grace that God my Father has mercifully abounded toward me, a chief of sinners among those saved by grace.
1). First of all, my third evangelism trip to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, was the most fruitful and rewarding of all, having been built upon each past evangelism trip there. It was blessed with closer relationships with the folks from the Biblical Church of the Lord Jesus (www.ibsj.org), and the wonderful opportunity of meeting and training so many fellow Christians in evangelism. I met people again who I had witnessed to in the past, and even have been keeping in touch with David, who I met in the park while preaching under a tree as it rained. David has blessed my heart with his zeal and eagerness to learn the gospel.
I am also truly amazed at how far a little blogging has taken me. Rita Martínez and I met through blogging two years ago, and now, not only have we been able to work together in the fields of evangelism together with our churches, but we are engaged to be joined together in holy matrimony as well. This is God's gracious gift to us and the answer to many prayers for a godly partner. If it is His will, we will live to marry and labor by His grace together in our Christian calling in life.
2). After two years of vigorous study, I have pretty well grasped the Spanish language... my first foreign tongue! I still make a lot of mistakes and still have to practice a lot to pick up and learn more, but by God's grace, my dream of speaking another language has come true.
3). As my interest in languages grows, I have also found the joy of learning to read the New Testament in the language it was originally written... there are some amazing resources on the internet for learning New Testament Greek for free (see links below). If anyone is interested in purchasing learning material for NT Greek, www.christianbook.com or wtsbooks.org has a lot of affordable resources, including Greek New Testaments.
Often I would make use of such resources as concordances, Bible dictionaries and online Bible study tools, in order to find out a little more about an original Greek word used in the New Testament when studying the Bible. But those tools, as good as they may be, do not remove the limitation of not understanding Greek as a language.
One must learn grammar, the structure and order of a language, before one can fully comprehend what is being said. Learning Greek grammar can literally look like a nightmare, since it is more complex than anything I have ever seen. But with the many free online resources, one can learn a lot, as long as ardent desire and dedicated determination continue to flow through one's veins into the brain... for if this inertia stops, all else may very well be hopeless!
1). http://greattreasures.org is a translation website that gives you a lot of essential information about the words of the New Testament. Just select a Koine Greek translation that contains word information or parts of speach, for example, use the Tischendorf (with parts of speech) Greek translation. You can then select parallel translations in any other language, including many good English ones.
2). http://ntgreek.net NT Greek is a free, easy-to-follow beginner's course in New Testament Greek, with lessons.
3). http://www.ibiblio.org Little Greek 101: Learning New Testament Greek is very easy to understand and helpful for anyone interested in NT Greek.
Well, there are many more resources out there, but these are good for anyone seriously interested in learning to read the New Testament in Greek.
~ Penn, a seriously guilty sinner, mercifully saved and justified by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
