For those of you who are interested in the Bible Knowledge story and a little more info about Michael, read on!
As I was thinking back to 13 years ago, it dawned on me I really need to update our about us page and share more of the details how Bible Knowledge was started. I like to say this started more in the 90’s as Michael was really into a heavy duty seeking mode with the Lord. Michael was always highly intelligent and had an all ornothing drive when he put his mind on something.
Whether it was sports, fishing, or even looking for the right pair of shoes, he would go all out, research all he could, examine, analyze and go for it.
Yes, I did say a pair of shoes. Funny story, about 15 years ago he was looking for a good jogging shoe so he literally researched every brand, went to every custom tennis shoe store in St. Louis, would interview people, and go back and research some more. Took him 30 days to buy the “right” pair of shoes.
Now with this mentality, it was a given once he was Spirit Filled and renewed his commitment to Christ back around 1990 that he would go all out and go as far and deep with God as God would take him.
Michael had 2 great gifts. One, being able to take a topic, book, subject and pull out all the meat in there. And two, he had a gift to teach and break down topics and make it easy to understand.
We both knew God had a call on him to write but really never really knew exactly how this would come about. The 90’s was the era the internet was starting to grow and during that time, a friend of Michael’s had a vision and it seemed to refer that he would have some “underground” ministry.
What’s funny about this is we really had no clue exactly what that meant till around 2001 when we decided we needed to take this online and I was working in the telecom industry and then i realized…. the internet is nothing but pipes underground. Cyberspace isn’t out in space but below the surface. Then we thought about the vision years earlier and then saw this to make sense.
Though we started to realize we would have a website, we still waited on God’s timing to start bring this into reality.
During this time, friends of Michael, mine and others would email Michael questions which would lead Michael into these teaching articles. And that led him to start to come up with more on his own. That’s why you’ll see a person’s name on the article. That was from the original email the article came from.
I believe somewhere in late 2003 I started to really seek after knowledge of web design and that led us to believe that timing is now.
So in 2004, Michael started to organize and come up with more articles. Then the fun began. <Sarcasm> 🙂
Fun it was not, at least not for me. I am not a technical type of guy and I had to learn quite a bit that seemed to be never-ending and much longer than I ever expected. lol
Then to top it off, all of Michael’s articles were in Yahoo email and Michael was not very computer savvy and didn’t have a word processor or even knew what one was at that time. LOL
So I had to edit all the articles, line by line so they would properly work with the web design software. And you all know how long the articles are so I think I was able to do 1 per night, at best.
Sidenote… It was the grace of God that was able to get me through this. I was working a full time job and when I came home at night, the last thing I wanted to do was technical type work and the tedious editing I had to do.
I would rest for a few hours, PRAY but the strength would not come till I literally got up from my recliner, sat down at my computer and started to work. Then the power of the Holy Spirit to give me the endurance to carry on would kick in.
This little story will be an article I will do at sometime because so many people are waiting on God’s supernatural power to come upon them and sometimes God is waiting on us to act and get off our tails and take action and then the power comes.
Then after I was able to edit the articles, put them up, then came more edits and more edits. And since I had the software, I had to publish them behind the scenes because we weren’t ready to go live.
Then Michael would go back and make corrections but we would have to do this on the phone and that was another long process.
I believe it took us one full year to get everything ready.
The name of Bible Knowledge came to me in the middle of the night. I woke up out of a dead and peaceful sleep and that name came to me and I immediately got up and wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget.
I can’t recall the exact month it came to me, my guess is either March or April because it was in May of 2004 that I officially registered the domain name.
Unfortunately, someone already had bibleknowledge and they only have it to sell it at a very high price and they still have it to this day and only looking to sell it for a very unreasonable price. Therefore, we had to get bible-knowledge.com, the reason we have the hyphen.
We had a goal of getting all this done and officially went live in January of 2005. I believe we did go live somewhere early on but in order for people to find us, I had to do some technical things and that took me a few weeks so I believe our official launch into the worldwide web was in the 3rd week of January.
I believe we started with 70 articles and now have over 400 articles.
And as I sit here and type this out, it just reinforces one of my favorite scriptures,
Matthew 6:33-34, But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
I have learned the hard way to literally take it day by day. Now that doesn’t mean I don’t plan for the future because I need to have a goal and plan in place which helps me to determine what I need to do each day. But it is the results I leave up to God.
Just a year ago, I would have never thought Michael would be home with Jesus and that my focus would now be on Bible Knowledge.
My work with Bible Knowledge up to this point was taking care of the site and technical issues and I had a good system in place for that and did not take up too much of my time.
And if you would have said to me a year ago… Chris, in 6 months, Michael will be going home with the Lord, what do you think will happen to Bible Knowledge. My answer would have been… I will always keep it up and running but due to other business priorities I will not be devoting too much time to it nor looking to grow the site. I just do not have the time and I really need to focus on other business.
How funny is that answer now!!! LOL. I laugh because God obviously had other plans.
It wasn’t till around February 2012 when I suspected something much more serious than what Michael was letting on.
Actually, it was Nov of 2011 when he came to visit Tina and I but it really hit the both of us in February when he was sick for a long time and couldn’t get rid of it. So in my prayer time, it was a lot of…what are you doing, Lord??? Why do I get the sense you are taking Michael home. And when these things hit us, we don’t always know 100% it’s from the Lord or just our own mind.
I can say looking back this was different and I could never shake that feeling and the more I prayed, the stronger that became.
I didn’t get too many answers during this time, actually, I didn’t get any answers.
I know this was God preparing me for what was to come and for me to be able to handle it.
Michael and I have always been very close. We are 13 years apart but he lived at our house till I was in 7th grade and always came over every weekend to play sports with me and our neighborhood friends.
He started to take me on fishing trips when I was 6 years old and we would be out there for 10 to 12 hours every weekend. So with the fishing and the sports we always played, we had a very tight bond.
And Michael was the one that led me to the Lord and discipled me. We would spend hours upon hours on the phone having our God talks.
In the beginning, I had so many questions it was crazy. I mean 8 to 10 hours sometimes, all the way into the middle of the night.
This only led us to a closer and tighter bond. I believe we talked 5 to 7 times a week and sometimes a few times per day during the last 22 years.
So I believe the Lord had to prepare me ahead of time and I have a good understanding that eternity is our destiny and soon I’ll be reunited with him. This life is just a pass through and as James states.. our life is but a vapor.
Having this understanding, helps when you lose someone you love. It doesn’t take away the pain of them not being here but I couldn’t even imagine the pain others feel who don’t know Christ or have this understanding.
Though the Lord prepared me for this, when I got the call Michael had to be rushed to the hospital on fathers day, it was still rather shocking. I knew it was coming but the reality of it all just smacked me
upside the head.
So after Michael’s passing, I waited a few weeks before seeking the Lord on what He wanted me to do. I received my answer pretty quickly but to make sure it was from the Lord, I waited and kept praying and it became more and more obvious that Michael laid the foundation and has Michael and I always stated, it wasn’t our ministry but the Lord’s.
I thank Michael for being an incredible and faithful servant of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and being obedient to God’s calling.
Though I don’t have too many answers to exactly what the future will entail, I do know God is in full control and will trust Him with it and I will do what I believe He is calling me to do.
One day at a time!
And to recap, here is the goal of the site and our ministry…
The goal of our website will be to give you a good, solid, progressive teaching system leading you into all of the main areas of a true walk with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We will be providing you with
good, basic, bottom-line, straight-to-the-point Bible Articles and Commentary covering a wide range of topics in order to help you grow in your own personal walk with the Lord.There is no limit to the amount of knowledge and revelation that is contained in the Bible – and we will be covering a wide range of topics and issues that will be giving you real knowledge from the Bible that you can use in your everyday walk with the Lord. Many Christians have not read the Bible in its complete entirety – so they are not fully aware of all the incredible knowledge and revelation that is contained in this Book and how it can apply to their daily lives.
Once you put many of the Bible verses into their appropriate categories by subject matter – the amount of knowledge and revelation being released from the Bible is absolutely staggering!
That was written by Michael 13 years ago.
Have a very blessed and restful week,
Chris Bradley
Happy Moments, Praise God
Difficult Moments, Seek God
Quiet Moments, Worship God
Painful Moments, Trust God
Every Moment, Thank God