In 1955 Joe Mason had a visitation ministry in a small circuit of county jails in Texas (USA). As inmates responded to the Gospel, the need increased for a free Bible correspondence program to help new believers in Christ become grounded in the Scriptures. The result was the establishment of Prison Mission Association (www.prisonmission.org), formed with the goal of reaching prisoners for Christ and helping them study God's Word rightly divided.

Although PMA's primary focus is on America's inmate population, it became apparent that not all of their students were incarcerated. There are also many groups and individuals not directly associated with PMA who are using their materials for prison and non-prison ministries both in and outside the USA. Bible Correspondence Fellowship is the branch of PMA that handles all English correspondence courses. Estudio Bïblico Bereano was established to minister to the Hispanic community through Bible correspondence courses. Today, their student base is drawn from nearly twenty countries spanning all six populated continents.

PMA's home office is located in Port Orchard, Washington (USA) with a regional office in Burnsville, Minnesota (USA) where Pastor Dwight Anderson is located. They have expanded their ministry by making their correspondence lessons available through e-mail and over the Internet.

The English correspondence courses on www.pmabcf.org/lessonlist.html and on www.prisonmission.org/free-bible-lessons/ (a more complete and updated link) have proven to make clear the distinctions necessary to understand the Word of God. Therefore, BadNewsGoodNews.net wants to promote these lessons through the internet.

At the same time BadNewsGoodNews.net wants to highlight the importance of the Pauline epistles for the Body of Christ. So we decided to make a shorter version of the lessons in which in principle only these epistles are being used. With permission of PMA, both the shorter and the original version are listed here below. The shorter version has also been translated into Dutch.
The lessons about the Pauline epistles itself have been put together and can also be found here below with the original version at the right.
The paper size of the lessons at the left is A4 (210mm x 297mm) and the paper size of the original lessons at the right is letter (215,9mm x 279,4mm).
See here below some sample questions about Romans chapter 1 with the answers in red.
                 

Most images/photos in the lessons come from the internet and they are free to use. Other photos have been taken by ourselves or we received them. Bible illustrations are © Sweet Publishing (www.sweetpublishing.com) and made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License, available online at www.distantshoresmedia.org/resources.

The course work is divided into several sets of lessons. Some of these correspond to a particular book of the Bible, others refer to a certain topic. Each set varies in the number of lessons.

Each lesson has questions for you to answer. Send us your answers if you want and we will check them. This might take time, so please continue with the next lesson.

A memory verse is given with each lesson. Memorize the most important words of these verses because you will find them a valuable aid in knowing the Word of God and presenting it to others.

Before starting each lesson, pray to God to enlighten your heart and mind that you may understand the truths to be studied.

Tell your family and friends about this bible course!