About OpenScripture.Today

This website is a work of love by Sterling Hanenkamp. For years, my father-in-law has sent out a scripture of the day. This is a legacy I'm proud to be a part of and one I wish to continue.

Why it matters

The foundation of my beliefs and practice are rooted in scripture.

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

Matthew 7:24-27 (ESV)

I believe many things and, I hope, that those things that I believe are all found in, refined and improved by, and in all ways traced back to scripture in one way or the other. I believe the scriptures have been provided to us by God so that we can know Him, follow Him, worship Him, and spread knowledge of Him to all the peoples of the world. All the questions that matter are answered in scripture.

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Deuteronomy 29:29 (ESV)

And not only do these words the foundation of what I think and believe, they form the basis of how I live, work, and act. No matter what I do, that action should be informed by my beliefs coming out of scripture. I help those around me, I serve my brothers and sisters in Christ, and I show love to strangers. I go to church weekly, I worship God, and make attempts to spread the gospel as I am able. It's not enough to believe, but I must do as well.

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV)

Therefore, I want to know scripture intimately and one of the ways I have found to do that, is to explore a section of it every day. I start my day each morning with a passage from scripture. My father-in-law's scripture of the day has been a great help in this and now I'm providing my own as well. I hope that others may find this useful in a similar way.

How the verses are curated

This begs an obvoius question: who picks the passages on this site? I do. I am still refining my methodology and will revise this section as I get more practice at this. Here are my loose guidelines right now:

1. Variety. I want to know all of scripture. I don't want anything left out. Popular Christianity too often sticks to familiar memorized passages, short and easy to remember, and often aimed at self-help. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but it can lead to a very limited undertsanding of who God is. "For God so loved the world..." (John 3:16) This is true, but we must not neglect "Who can stand before [God] when once [his] anger is roused?" (Psalm 76:7)



2. Length. I do not want to present a verse of the day. This is a scripture passage of the day. A verse of the day gives you a single passage and fails to give you a broad understanding of what's really intended. Popular Christianity loves to get out a verse and bash it into whatever shape suits the purpose. For example, a favorite today is "I can do all things through him who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:13) This verse is frequently used in the opposite sense Paul intended. I want to convey that each verse exists in a fully context to discourage this kind of misuse.
3. Variety. Back to this. I try to pull a verse from a different section of scripture every day. Right now I'm using some classic categorizations of scripture to do this, but I'm working on some better ways to select scriptures each day. As such, I'm not going to explain this ingredient more fully for now.
4. Coverage. I haven't gotten there yet, but I'm planning to do the math to ensure that the entire Bible is covered by this site in some amount of time. I don't know what's practical yet with the length of passage typical here (usually around 30 verses). However, whether it is two years or three years or five years, it is my intention to cover the entire Bible with passages here in some period and probably cover the New Testament twice in the same period.

What I believe

For this section I am going to remain pretty vague on issues impacting anything but the importance of scripture. Rather than delving into an exposition of where I stand on things like creation or end times, I want to lay out some important aspects of scripture itself.

Scripture is true

When I say scripture is true, I mean that it is True in the absolute sense. God given us his thoughts and intentions in the words of men using language and metaphors we in your extremely finite limitations can understand. There do exists some challenges, but nothing that can't be reasonably dealt with.

Scripture is sufficient

When I talk about sufficiency, I mean two things:

1. Full Coverage. Scripture provides an answer to all questions that pertain to what we need to live a virtuous life of service and stewardship in every area.
2. Full Authority. Whatever scripture says is the final authority, with the caveat that the intent of a passage must be interpreted in its context.

The important point is, if I have a question of any sort that matters, I should be considering what Scripture has to say on the subject and how that applies to whatever it is I am contemplating.

Scripture is plain

Popular Christianity will often say, "I read the Bible literally." I don't say that because the term "literally" is, as like to say, literally one of the most misused words in the English language. Instead, I say:

The meaning of scripture is plain.

Jesus and the other writers and speakers in the Bible used metaphor and simile. These should be understood symbolically. However, when the Bible speaks the facts plainly, it meant the facts plainly as stated.

Scripture is complete

There are not now nor will there be any new scriptures. The Bible is a completely manifestation of God's revelation and we don't need or seek more whether in the form of a so-called modern prophet or in the writings of someone claiming to be a modern prophet. Jesus, the Creator of the Universe, and his followers have now given us all we need.

Scripture is harmonious

Scripture is not, as some might claim, riddled with contradictions. It is generally claimed that contradictions exist between scripture and reality and between scripture and scripture. However, I haven't seen a contradiction yet that did not have a short and reasonable counter-argument. Most of these so-called contradictions are either trivial (e.g., one gospel says two were present and another say four) or category errors (e.g., mixing different aspects of salvation together as if they were the same aspect).

The purpose of imagery

Along with selecting a verse to place on this site every day, I also select the imagery. I do this with far less care than the scripture. Sometimes, I try to find something that is linked to the passage. Other times, I just pick something at random. And most of hte time, the link between the imagery and the scripture is tenuous at best. However, I love photography and I find the images on this site to enhance my experience and that's all. I always make sure to attribute the photos and hope that the photos enhance your experience and morning grounding similar to the way it helps me.

My future plans

I have lots of plans for this site. Here are a few ideas in brief, in no particular order:

• Better tools for sharing the scripture of the day. (Linking to the site is currently to whatever the site shows that day, not to any particular scripture).
• Tools to allow others to help support the work I'm doing here in various ways.
• A tool for creating your own scripture links with your own selected photography.
• Possibly support for additional translations, especially in other languages.
• I would love to make tools to add a hymn or psalm or song of the week or other things to aid with personal worship.
• I would like to develop tools to aid daily prayer.
• I am working on some tools related to this site for developers in my today project.

A personal plea

Please enjoy the site. Please read your Bible. If you do not read the word daily, make time. It matters. If you do not attend a local church, please find one that has not neglected the preaching and reading of the Word and go every week. You will be better for it.

May God bless you and keep you and lead you in His good will. Amen.

Cheers.