A MOUSY QUIET PRINTER I met at a meal last week texted me a strange note earlier this week. In it, he refused to print a Bible I never asked him to print. “Good morning Steve, I have decided to not move forward with you on the Casual Bible paraphrase. I have discussed with a…
SAVED BY THE BAKER. These are the perfect peanut butter cookies, warm and perfectly served to me in a timely manner—when The Casual English Bible® website was driving me up the western wall. I’M NOT GOING TO WAIT and write this later. I’m writing it now, while it’s happening here at The Casual English Bible.®…
SHORT AND SWEET AS A SONG. Because it is a song. Silent Night. Here’s the video link: Silent Night. It has a been day or two since I’ve put together a Christmas video for you. Here’s another. This one’s personal. My daughter, Becca Eck, sang this for a new Christmas album that she and some…
I JUST LOST JEREMIAH 5 TODAY. I’m supposed to be paraphrasing that chapter right now. But I’m one-hour into working with tech support, trying to solve a mystery. (It took 2½ hours.) I wanted to know why I got an alert this morning that says someone named Norma has just gained administrative access to a…
I GOT A PAINFUL EMAIL at 5:35 this morning, after the election. It was from a lady who has been helping support The Casual English Bible® this year. She and her husband were deeply upset about the presidential election result. I was up because I hadn’t gone to bed. I dozed off for an hour…
DANIEL WASN’T IN A LION’S DEN. It was more likely just a hole in the ground—a cistern for storing water. Cisterns in that dry land were often empty and sometimes used to store supplies such as grain. But it seems the Persians in what is now Iran used it at least some of the time…
WITH A BIG ELECTION ALREADY UNDERWAY, I thought it might be a good idea to see what the Bible says good leadership looks like. Nearly half the nation is bashing the other half over how to vote in what may become the most consequential election of our lifetime. Not because the issues are any more…
The following funny Bible verses and surprising Bible quotes come from The Casual English Bible® (TCEB). It is an easy-reading paraphrase rather than a word-for-word translation, so the language may sound different from the Bible you usually read. Click any verse reference to read the full chapter and see the passage in context.
ONCE UPON A TIME I wrote jokingly that I’d have trouble with the Sermon on the Mount if Jesus had the squeaky voice of Deputy Barney Fife from the “The Andy Griffith Show.” Then an old friend of mine said Barney’s take on the Jesus line “Go and sin no more” might work just fine:…
AI WILL PUT ME OUT OF BUSINESS, someone told me recently. They’ll write better easy-reading Bible background books than my Complete Guide to the Bible. They’ll create a Bible paraphrase that’s more helpful than (TCEB) The Casual English Bible.® They’ll build better 3D-style Bible maps. If AI (Artificial Intelligence) does that, I’m toast. My only…
THERE’S ONE MAP people want to see more than any of the 900 we have so far at The Casual English Bible® (TCEB). Sodom and Gomorrah. Not surprisingly, given human nature, they want what they can’t have. They want to see two towns the Bible says were burned off the planet 3,000 years ago or…
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