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For months I have enjoyed Amy Carmichael’s daily devotional Edges of His Ways on my PDA. The selections are penetrating and comforting expressions of the author’s genuine experiences of the Lord. Olive Tree has now added three more books by this endearing writer — If, Mimosa, and Gold Cord.

As a young woman called by the Lord, Amy Carmichael journeyed from Ireland to India around 1900. Born out of her many years of abiding in Christ in faithful service to the people of south India, a community of believers called Dohnavur Fellowship thrives to this day. Amy’s many books reflect her rich faith and love for the Lord and His Body, wrought through the fires of suffering.

If is a series of pithy conditional sentences that cut to the heart of what it means to be a Christian. This little book is all about the real essence of Calvary love, reminiscent of 1 Corinthians 13. As readers, we would do well to take each small portion and ponder it, confessing our lack of this genuine love and asking the Lord to be our All, as only He can be.

Mimosa is a the remarkable true story of a young Hindu girl who visited Dohnavur with her father and older sister, and, despite only a few minutes time in fellowship with Amy and others, received a personal revelation that God is love. For years little Mimosa had no further contact with Amy and Dohnavur, and she didn’t even know that the God she served and loved had a name, Jesus. Carried by God’s love through experiences of persecution, ostracism, toil, and personal loss, Mimosa grew closer and closer to her Lord; then, finally, as a grown woman, mature and wise, she returned to Dohnavur and told her story, to the astonishment of Amy and the rest. This book is so touching, and the story so beautifully told, that I have had trouble keeping a copy because I always want to give it away for someone else to enjoy.

Gold Cord is the story of Dohnavur Fellowship. A gold cord, in contrast to wood, hay, and stubble, is Amy’s symbol for the bond of love that unites this group of believers and, according to the author’s hope, extends to her readers.

I trust you will enjoy all of these wonderful writings by Amy Carmichael.

Did you ever wish someone could take you back to Bible times to view in detail the lives of outstanding figures in the Scriptures, like Moses, David, and Paul? F. B. Meyer has done that, and Olive Tree is happy to announce the publication for your PDA or smartphone of three new eBook Bible biographies by this outstanding writer and dear man of God. These include Moses, David, and Paul, and there are more on the way.

Having thoroughly enjoyed all of these books, I can’t say enough about how much I benefited from reading them. Every point the author makes is rooted in the Bible, and yet I found myself saying frequently, “I never thought of that before!” Surprisingly vivid descriptive details are interwoven with the narrative. Relevant historical elements are pointed out to enhance understanding.

Most importantly, though true biographies, these books are devotional in character. They draw a reader’s heart to Christ, and they help explain our experience of the Lord as it is portrayed in the lives of Moses, David, Paul and the other characters that surround them. It is not too much to say that these books are life-changing, for one comes away with a sweeter, deeper appreciation of the love and sovereignty of God viewed again and again in the lives of these saints.

If you’re a familiar customer of Olive Tree’s, then you have probably found that we offer a wide range of Bible study tools that you can install to your Palm or Pocket PC device and take with you so you can study the Word anytime, anywhere. One of the newest additions to our commentary collection is the Bible Knowledge Commentary. A new favorite among Olive Tree users, we wanted to make special mention of this commentary for all those interested in staying abreast of the ever-growing collection of study tools available.

The Bible Knowledge Commentary is a useful tool for a wide spectrum of Bible students, from the beginner, who will find it easy to understand and easy to use, to the advanced, who will find it consistently thorough and reliable. The readable style, combined with careful scholarship, make this a Bible study aid its users will add to their “most-used” shelf of books.

~ K

Topical study, though only one of many fruitful Bible study methods, is among the best ways to enrich our understanding and enjoyment of the Scriptures. To read as much as you can of what God has to say on a biblical subject is well worth the investment in time and effort.

One of the most helpful tools in this regard is Torrey’s New Topical Textbook, which brings together in simple outline form the major Bible passages on hundreds of important topics. Using this tool on your handheld device enables you to have a second window open for viewing the verses as you explore a topic. I am very glad to have this rich source of topically organized Bible references on my PDA, and I have begun to enjoy the blessing of spending an evening exploring a subject like Sanctification, Sin, the Blood of Christ, Grace, Redemption - there are hundreds to choose from.

To read Torrey’s inspiring introduction to this work is to be infused with desire to dig into God’s word. “The topical method of Bible study,” he says, “is simplest, most fascinating, and yields the largest results . . . It was Mr. Moody’s favorite method. It fills one’s mind very full on any subject studied. Mr Moody once gave several days to the study of ‘Grace.’ When he had finished he was so full of the subject that he rushed out on the street and going up to the first man he met he said: ‘Do you know anything about Grace?’ ‘Grace who,’ the man asked. ‘The Grace of God that bringeth salvation.’ And then Mr. Moody poured out upon that man the rich treasures he had dug out of the Word of God.”

Torrey goes on to say, “That is the way to master any subject and get full of it. Go through the Bible and see what it has to say on this subject.” This is made easy by having Torrey’s topical study tool on your PDA or Smartphone. That which at one time would have taken days or even months to accomplish can be done in a few hours of concentrated reading and study. What a blessing it is to have Torrey’s New Topical Textbook to aid us in understanding the truth and coming to know the Person and Work of Christ revealed in the Bible!

Our engineers aren’t the only ones getting excited about the new Pocket PC features - our beta users are getting excited too! Here’s what one of our customers had to say…

I had been a user of another PDA Bible Software product until being introduced to the Olive Tree BibleReader through purchasing the New Oxford Annotated Bible for my PPC.  I immediately liked the interface and then found the wide range of original language tools available.  I have since bought several English translations, two versions of the Greek text, and the “Little Kittel” Theological Dictionary.  I have also regularly loaded the beta releases and have appreciated the increases in both functionality and ease of use.  This [latest] update is incredible.  Kudos to whoever developed the second toolbar.  I can view full screen and still have easy access to the functions I commonly use with a pull-down bar that only shows when I want it.  This is great!  Love this build!  [This] second toolbar is just the latest step forward in molding the application interface to match the way people use the software.  What a concept!

So - if you’re a feature lover, get ready for the new Pocket PC reader, or get a sneak peak with the beta reader today!

~ K

This is such an exciting time at Olive Tree Bible Software for software feature lovers like me. We have been adding new features to most of our BibleReaders. The latest BibleReader we released in beta with new features is the Pocket PC BibleReader. I am so thrilled about our new Pocket PC features that I decided to switch to Pocket PC as my personal device.

We added full screen mode to the Pocket PC BibleReader. Full screen mode lets the BibleReader take control of the entire screen. When in full screen mode none of the precious little screen space is wasted on the toolbar and title bar. However, unless you have lots of shortcuts defined that you can remember, being in full screen mode by itself is only good for reading since it has no toolbar. So we added a collapsible secondary toolbar. The secondary toolbar is displayed when the BibleReader is in full screen mode (as well as when it is not in full screen mode). When you just want to read you can collapse the secondary toolbar to maximize the text on the screen. Then when you want to do more in-depth Bible study, take notes, add bookmarks, highlight, etc you can un-collapse the secondary toolbar. What is even better about the secondary toolbar is that you can customize it to have just the buttons you want on it. For example, if you do a lot of highlighting you can add a lot of highlighting buttons. You can even decide where you want the secondary toolbar to be placed. So if you make a lot of use of landscape mode you may want to put the secondary toolbar on the right hand side.

Another exciting feature that we added to the Pocket PC BibleReader is the bookmark popup. Accessing and adding bookmarks is now faster and easier! For those who have multiple bookmark files you can now quickly change the bookmark file from the bookmark popup. For example, this will let you easily switch between a set of bookmarks you may have created for sharing the gospel and your bookmarks from last Sunday’s sermon.

As if this wasn’t enough, we also added the navigation history to Pocket PC. Now you can pull up the history to see where you have been and quickly return to a passage you were previously reading.

You can download the latest Pocket PC reader here. I hope you are as excited about the Pocket PC BibleReader’s new features as I am!

Stephen