Issues: The People's Bible

November's running out and I'm contemplating to get some more of this month's interesting deals. I'm on and off with The People's Bible NT - nearly bought it today but put it back to 'saved for later'. There's only the slightest tip to make me buy it. I just found what it was: This is lacking Dynamic Pricing. Note that the larger Northwestern Publishing House bundle it's part of does have Dynamic Pricing (even with the All / New To You resource list box).

If the website were to offer me credit for the 2 of the 16 resources I already own, I'd buy. Promise. And I even offer a product page bug on top of my dollars: I counted thrice and always ended up with this bundle consisting of 16 volumes, not only 15 (see red box).

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Comments

Gabe Martini (Faithlife)

Dynamic pricing should now be enabled for this collection.

NB.Mick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/783680#Comment_783680

Dynamic pricing should now be enabled for this collection.

Yes it is - and the product page error is fixed, too! Thanks a lot for the great and fast reaction!

mike

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/783712#Comment_783712

How good is this set?

NB.Mick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/783728#Comment_783728

"Good" is obviously something very much depending on your measurement criteria. This set is not a technical commentary, but directed at a lay audience, maybe what some call a "devotional" or "pastoral" commentary. It comes from the WELS, which means a theologically conservative as well as Lutheran position is to be expected.

To give you a bit of flavour, this is the commentary on two verses from John 3:

John 3:4–6

4“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”
5Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.

To Nicodemus, Jesus was talking in riddles. He could hardly mean that a person must undergo a second physical birth. Nicodemus seemed to have sensed a deeper meaning, but what was it?
Jesus again emphasized the solemn truth of his response: “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.” The new birth, said Jesus, is from “water and Spirit,” not of the water and of the Spirit as two separate experiences. Water and Spirit work together in the new birth. Jesus was speaking of Baptism, through which the Spirit works saving faith.
Jesus’ words echoed the cry of John the Baptist: “Repent!” “Be baptized!” “The kingdom of heaven is near.” (See Matthew 3:1, 2; Mark 1:4.) They revealed what had to happen for Nicodemus to find the answers he sought with his nighttime visit.
We need this heavenly rebirth to enter God’s kingdom, or even see it. As Jesus said another time, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). God’s kingdom is God’s rule of grace in our hearts. Through Baptism the Holy Spirit connects us with God’s ruling love. He works a new birth, a birth that makes a person a child of God and a member of God’s kingdom. The apostle Paul said the same thing when he wrote, “He [God our Savior] saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5).
Two births—one is physical and one spiritual. One is flesh born of flesh, the other spirit born of Spirit.
All of us alike come into this world outside of God’s kingdom. Contrary to what some teach, infants begin their lives under sin’s condemnation. As Job once said of our physical birth: “Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one!” (14:4). And Paul years later said, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature [flesh]” (Romans 7:18). We can only conclude with David, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5).
Babies may look as pure as spring water, but the source is polluted. A thousand physical rebirths cannot change that. But there is a water that purifies, the water that brings with it God’s Spirit. As Ezekiel prophesied of the LORD: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean …. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you …. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees” (36:25–27). The Spirit works the new birth through the water of Baptism.

Gary P. Baumler, John, The People’s Bible (Milwaukee, WI: Northwestern Publishing House, 1997), 49–51.