"To love the Lord our God is the heartbeat of our mission, the spring from which our service overflows. Across the street or around the world, the mission still the same: proclaim and live the truth, in Jesus' name!" Promise Keepers CD
Howdy there! In this section I will thank some people without whom this program would not be possible. This program is dedicated to my loving brother, Brent Kollmansberger.
First and foremost, I would like to thank The Lord, who provided us His word so that we may know Him. The Lord commanded us to spread his Word.
`Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.' Mark 16:15-18
The idea of a free Bible program was also inspired by my brother, Brent Kollmansberger. One day when I was visiting him, we were in his car waiting in line in a drive through at some fast food place. This was during the summer, and while we waited, a homeless man approached the car and offered to wash the windows for literally "anything". Instead, my brother replied, "You do not need to wash my window, but I have something for you. Meet us after we get our food." He said this because the line had begun to move. After we got our food, we met the man and Brent produced a bag. In this bag he placed two cups of dried soup and a New Testament, and gave it to the man, requiring no payment. He even pointed out the location of the Church, just a short distance down the street. I remembered that incident as I searched the web for Bible programs and found only those requiring payments of twenty or forty dollars to use. I wrote this program with that incident in mind. This program is a gift to you, made possible by God's grace. You do not need to wash my windows for it.
Another thing that I remember that inspired me to write this program was an old Bible program I used to have. I don't remember it's name, but it was a King James Version, a DOS program with a blue screen. It had Hebrew and Greek word dictionaries and cross references. It was an excellent program. A number of years ago, when I had it, it's size of 7 megs seemed huge, but it was worth it. I remember that every time I started the program, it would tell it's requirement for use: Give two copies to some friends.
Now days, the shareware Bible programs I have downloaded do little more than searches, nothing near the power of that old Bible program, and yet they demand payments. I am not against the free market at all, but it disappoints me that a decent Bible program could not be created with the sole intent of spreading the Word. Some programs are nice and powerful, but many have a strict limit to the number of days you can them before registering. Many even count them for you. I wonder if their main goal is spreading the Word or collecting the cash.
`And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.' Matthew 21:12-13
The FreeBible has a special feature that, from what I have seen, may be one of a kind. That feature is that it's free.
Many Bible programs I have seen on the Internet have very unfriendly looking interfaces. A bunch of tiny icons across the top of a gray screen may be okay for some people, but I find that it's hard to immediately know where to go to do anything. I tried to make my program as user friendly as possible, although I know there are many shortcomings.
I would also like to thank my parents, who purchased the expensive Visual Basic 4.0 Professional Edition, with which this program was made. It's advanced features were a lifesaver! Thanks! (FYI, The current version of the program is compiled with Visual Basic 5.0 Professional Edition, Service Pack 3 applied).
The InstallShield Corporation made a generous donation of InstallShield5 Professional Edition. Thanks!
And last but not least, Brandon Staggs, author of SwordSearcher97, provided me with tips for creating a faster search engine. Brandon, you're the one that gave me the key to finish this program!
That's about all for dedications and introductions. I hope you enjoy this program. If you have any ideas or comments about the program, I would be happy to hear of them. Methods of contacting me are listing under the Technical Support section.