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 form 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 obvious 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 understanding 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 formed 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 has given us his thoughts and intentions in the words of men using language and metaphors that we in our extremely finite limitations can understand. These are the very words of God, written by men, and no mistakes or errors were when they were written.

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 this: if I have a question of any sort, I should be considering what Scripture has to say on the subject and how that applies to whatever it is I am contemplating. On many matters, scripture does not speak directly, but provides principles from which the answer to the question can be answered and sometimes the answer is something to the effect of, "Do what you will in the freedom of Christ."

Scripture is plain

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

The meaning of scripture is plain.

Often, writers of scripture wrote exactly what they meant in a literal sense. However, the various writers and speakers in the Bible also used metaphor and simile and sarcasm and mockery and jokes and puns and lots of other literary devices. These should be understood symbolically in their original senses. In nearly all cases the Bible speaks the facts plainly so the facts should be accepted as plainly as stated.

Scripture is complete

There are not now nor will there be any new scriptures. The sixty-six books of the Protestant Bible are a complete set. This constitutes the complete manifestation of God's revelation. We do not need nor do we seek more revelation whether in the form of a so-called modern prophet or in the writings of someone claiming to be a prophet since the death of the last eyewitness of Jesus Christ. Jesus, the Creator of the Universe, and his followers have 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., talking about two passages that according to their own context are discussing different topics and comparing them as if they are talking about the same topic).

Other writings are valuable

Do not hear me saying that only the Bible provides useful information. If that were so, I could not build this web site as to build it I have depended on many other writings, books, and an entire education in computing, programming, software design, document design, etc. A Roman Bible, for example, contains several books that are not found in the Protestant Bible. These books are not unhelpful. The Maccabees, for example, tell us many important things about some of the history of Jews and their war of independence that occurred between the time of Malachi the prophet and Matthew, the disciple of Jesus. However, these books, and all other books may be good for growing in knowledge of the universe, art, history, physics, mathematics, humor, science, engineering, medicine, religion, drama, philosophy, and many topics, but they are secondary to the scripture found in the Bible.

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 the 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 (or however you use this site) 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.