My New Study Bible: Life Application NLT

Life Application Study Bible
New Living Translation

This past week I got a new Study Bible... the Life Application Study Bible in the New Living Translation. This is a hardcover copy that I won in an online contest; I actually already had a paperback personal size copy of the same thing on my shelf for a while, waiting until I had time to spend with it (I gave it away when I got this hardback copy), and my wife has had the NIV version for some time (she got it for Easter several years back). This is the first time I've really opened one up and spent quality time with it. I'm actually more impressed than I thought I would be!

For the past several years I've been a huge fan of my ESV Study Bible. I've read through most of it in my quest to read through the whole Bible in a year (which is now several months into its third year... go Ezekiel!) and learned an awful lot. The ESV Study Bible has tons of notes that give historical background, cross-references, and other supporting material to help you understand the text. I've also been using the NIV Study Bible, which contains materials along the same line (I've been reading them together, which has been very interesting... usually they have completely different supporting material, sometimes they are complimentary, and occasionally they come close to contradicting each other! But both are outstanding). The Life Application Study Bible is not like that. Certainly it has a copious amount of notes, but the study notes in this Bible are not primarily of a historical or even of a Theological nature, at least not in the academic sense. These study notes are firmly focused on one thing: showing you ways that the Bible text applies to your day-to-day life. They're not concerned so much with telling you how someone lived in the first century; they're concerned with how the Bible is telling us to live in the twenty-first century. They're very good at helping you start thinking about what the text means to your life, right now, today. I'm duly impressed!

Is this the only Study Bible I would want to have? Definitely not. Not for me personally, anyway. I'm very interested in all of that historical background and learning how different passages of Scripture interact with one another (by the way, the Life Application Study Bibles do have book introductions which provide some historical background, so it's not like they leave you high and dry). I enjoy a more academic take on the Word sometimes. I also find that I don't particularly trust the New Living Translation for serious study; it's still way too close to paraphrase for me, although it is less relaxed about fidelity to the text than the classic Living Bible, and of course almost anything is more literal than something like The Message. The NLT is more like having a good friend explaining to you what the Bible says, though, and I do kind of dig that for casual meaning. The Life Application Study Bible matches the NLT incredibly well because reading the study notes feels kind of like having that same good friend tell you what they learned from reading the Scripture passage they just told you about. For me, the overall effect is like listening to a message by a pastor who has a very relaxed style and who is very good at bringing the topics he finds in the Bible into a daily life context. I'm going to make it part of my devotional life, and I think I'll get a lot out of it!

I'm also pretty sure that it's the only Bible that I've ever seen that includes the little-known apocryphal Gospel According To Spider-Man:

(Just kidding... that's 2 Thessalonians there.)

Return of the Study Bible Junkie

A few days ago, I fed the monster. I bought not one, but two study Bibles!

Actually, to be fair to myself, one of them IS a gift.

The ESV Literary Study Bible

Apologetics Study Bible for Students, Black and Tan Simulated Leather

I promised my niece-in-law Olivia that I would buy her a nice new copy of the Apologetics Study Bible for Students; it was on sale at Lifeway so I picked it up there. It's an awesome HCSB Bible that's full of supplemental articles covering tons of issues that young people are likely to run into in college (or even in high school). How about an article on "If I Can't See God, How Do I Know He's Real?" or one about "Does the Bible Contain Errors?" or maybe "How Important Is Darwinian Evolution?" or "Aren't All Religions Basically the Same?" or "Can God Make A Rock So Big He Can't Lift It?" The answers are well thought out, logical, and meaningful. Here's a little more about this Bible:



While I was there, I took advantage of another sale that was going on... I picked up a hardback copy of The ESV Literary Study Bible for ten dollars(!) You can't beat a $35 Bible for a ten-spot, and if you read my previous Study Bible Junkie post, you already know that I was planning on picking one of these up anyway. So I saved myself some cash and picked it up early!

Am I an addict? Is this bad? Am I just buying multiple Bible so I can be smug about my Christianity? Well, I haven't bought them because it makes me feel more Christiany; I've bought them because it gives me multiple ways to learn about God's Word. I haven't read all of them yet... but I will. The old joke... the only useful Bibles are the "red" ones, because if you don't read 'em they can't help you... these will all eventually be "read" Bibles. And hopefully I'm modeling a reverence for God's Word for my children, and at the same time making a resource available for them when they are old enough to use it.

I have maybe three or four more "study Bibles" in mind that I would like to get my hands on, but I'm in no hurry to buy more of them. The ones I have will literally take me years to get through without ever reading the same one more than once (although I'll be looking at the ESV translation twice, because I have two different study Bibles with that translation) and when I run out, there will be something else new to check out... but even if I make it through all of them and study Bibles have suddenly stopped being made, we have enough Bible knowledge in just the six study Bibles in our library to start again at the beginning and learn all new stuff. In the United States of America in the year 2010 we are so blessed in the amount of sheer Bible knowledge that is available to us for very limited amounts of money. Some people graduate from seminary knowing less about the Bible than the information on my one bookshelf. What a blessing!

I'm going to go read my Bible now!

Study Bible Junkie

On Easter of 2005, everybody in my family got new Bibles.

My baby girl wasn't born yet, but my little boy was almost 5 years old at the time, and we decided that it was high time he had his own kid Bible.

NIrV Super Heroes Bible

My wife needed a new Bible too, and I had my eye on an ESV Bible (I had been a long-time NIV reader, but I wanted to switch to the more literal translation - and I've never looked back!) I had done some looking around and I had discovered what I believed (and still believe) is the most awesome kid Bible ever created: the NIrV Super Heroes Bible. Take a look at that cover: that's Moses parting the Red Sea! The Bible has forty of those incredible, comic book style illustrations of Bible "Super Heroes" like Elijah, John the Baptist, David (and Goliath), and even some of the awesome female super heroes of the Bible like Mary, Queen Esther, Deborah, and Ruth. The pictures are filled with action and humor, but are never irreverent. Perfect for getting a kid interested in looking at what's in their Bible! There are also over 200 profiles of Bible characters, written at a kid's level of understanding. (The ironic thing about these well-written profiles is that the vocabulary and sentence structure are actually harder than the NIrV translation itself is!) We bought this Bible for him partly because the translation is very easy for beginning readers. When he turns ten next week, we might think about upgrading to an NIV.

My wife Cathy picked out an NIV Life Application Study Bible.

NIV Life Application Study Bible

It has book introductions, maps, all of the regular Study Bible stuff, but the text notes on each page are focused on "How does this really apply to me? What does this mean to my life?" She actually had a tough time concentrating on the message in Church for a while because she would get distracted by the study notes! (This is the main reason I still to this day bring a more plain-jane Bible to church with me!)

That was my first brush with a study Bible... well, as a high school student I owned a New King James "Open Bible" (they are out of print now) and I really loved it a lot. As I remember, I gave it away to someone that I felt needed it more than I did. I really wanted a study Bible in the ESV translation, but at the time there really wasn't one! I went with a small ESV Compact Trutone Bible which is almost the opposite... no study notes, no book introductions, no cross-references. It actually served me very well for many years, but I still wanted a study Bible in the ESV translation.

The first ESV-translation study Bible I remember hearing about was the ESV Reformation Study Bible. I actually checked a copy out from the library, and enjoyed it quite a bit, but I was a little bit nervous that it is self-classified as a "reformation" Bible; I was concerned that the notes might be slanted toward "reformed" Theology, and I wasn't quite comfortable with joining that camp whole hog. I wouldn't at all mind having this Bible in my library, but it wasn't really "the one" that I wanted to have for my primary study Bible.

The next ESV study Bible that came out was The ESV Literary Study Bible.

The ESV Literary Study Bible

. This Bible focuses on the Bible as a book, a work of literature. This might trigger red flags for some, but really, it shouldn't. The Bible is a book. It's got characters, settings, and plots. It's also got poetry, historical accounts, and letters. The Bible is a book consisting of dozens of genres of writing, and it is valuable to understand those genres in order to truly understand the Bible. I was very interested in this Bible, but I really wanted something as my primary study Bible that would explain things like historical details, settings, that sort of thing, and this Bible focuses on the literary aspects. I wanted something that I could approach at a more basic level. I still want to pick one of these up, but it will be a future purchase.

Finally, I heard that The ESV Study Bible was coming out!

ESV Study Bible

This was the Bible I was looking for. It didn't look to be focused on one slant on the Bible to the exclusion of others, although it was conservative in its point of view. It had book introductions, study notes, cross-references, and articles about Bible topics. I picked up a sample of the Gospel of John from Mardel and read it straight through... I was hooked! I preordered a copy and picked it up on the day of release. It's my all-time favorite Bible! One of my first projects was to make my way through the book of Revelation, and I came away understanding it in a way I never understood it before. I started to see it as almost symphonic in nature, with a prelude, movements and interludes, loud sections and quiet sections. I'm a trained musical composer, so the fact that the ESV Study Bible caused me to see the Word in a way that made sense to me as a musician was a big deal!

When I decided at the beginning of this year to read my way through the whole Bible, cover to cover, of course my ESV Study Bible was at the center of the whole idea. But I never anticipated just how much having study notes to give me context and background would really help me to engage the Scripture. Reading the Bible isn't like reading the latest Tom Clancy novel; the Bible is a book that was written thousands of years ago in a different language in an ancient culture. There are things that would have been obvious to a Hebrew reader on 1,000 B.C. that just aren't obvious to an American in the year 2010. Some historical and geographical context is critical to really understanding what's going on.

I was so excited about the things I was learning in the Bible that I wanted more! I checked out The NIV Study Bible from the library to give it a test drive.

NIV Study Bible

I added it into my study times, reading the ESV text, then the ESVSB notes, then the NIVSB notes. To my surprise, the NIVSB was teaching me additional things that the ESVSB wasn't getting at! Occasionally there are notes in the two that disagree on some small point, but in general, the two simply have a different focus. This seems to be the case with study Bibles; no reference work will tell you everything there is to know about the text, so consulting different sources will often give you more insight into the passage. I bought one from CBD one day when they had it on sale (sometimes they announce one-day sales from their Facebook page), and now my Bible reading time includes two study Bibles!

A few weeks after I added the NIV Study Bible to the mix, I got a sale paper from Lifeway Christian Stores which led to another study Bible purchase. I had seen a video on the Internet talking about the Apologetics Study Bible for Students (you can view the video at that link if you like) and I was pretty impressed with the idea that a study Bible would have its focus specifically on explaining things about the Bible that people have a hard time understanding. I had seen the Web site for the (non-"Student") Apologetics Study Bible already, and so when I saw it on sale in the Lifeway flyer, I knew I needed to pick it up.

Apologetics Study Bible

The weekend of the sale at Lifeway was kind of crazy; it was a "spring sale" on the literal first day of spring, but the day before we had a freak snowstorm and there was like six inches of snow on the ground! I went anyway and picked up another new study Bible for less than twenty bucks, and it's been great. I did not try to add it into my daily Bible reading regimen (two is plenty... I could spend hours just reading notes and following links in those two study Bibles!), but this won't be my last trip through the Bible. The Apologetics Study Bible will probably be my companion on the trip next year, or the next, or the next! It was a good purchase anyway; we didn't have a full copy of the Holman Christian Standard Bible in the house yet, so it was another translation to add to our collection. The Holman translation is a good, solid translation, too... it's probably my second favorite now, next to the ESV. The NIV still holds a place in my heart, though; it's probably my #3 favorite translation.

Now that I've become a bonafide Study Bible Junkie, I have my eye on some other study Bibles.

NIV Archaeological Study Bible

I still want to pick up that ESV Literary Study Bible that I mentioned above; my plan is to buy one of those for myself as a reward for making it all the way through the Bible this year (or maybe I'll ask for it for Christmas!) A few years ago I spied an NIV Archaeological Study Bible that someone had accidentally left on the seat at church, and I leafed through it. It has full-color photographs to support the information it contains about the archaeology of the Bible. It's a beautiful Bible; although I haven't looked at one long enough to be able to report on the quality of the in-text notes, it's another one that I'd like to pick up a copy of sometime.

I've had an interest in the New Living Translation for a while, and the best way to satisfy my desire to have that translation and also to get a new study Bible would be to pick up a copy of the NLT Study Bible!

NLT Study Bible

The New Living Translation is kind of the child of the Living Bible Paraphrase from the 70s; the NLT is supposed to be a Bible with the clarity of language of the paraphrase, but with the precision of a new translation from the original languages (the paraphrase is a rewording of the text of the American Standard Version, with no reference to the original language texts. Kind of like "The Message" except from the 70s). I've briefly read some passages from the NLT and I liked what I saw; my concern is fidelity to the source texts. I'll just have to spend some time reading it to have a verdict on that. I hope to pick up this sampler of Genesis sometime and spend some time with it; it helped me get the feel of the ESV Study Bible to read a sample, so maybe that will help me with this one too! (If you don't mind reading on your computer, or if you have a Kindle or similar reader that can handle PDF files, you can download that Genesis sampler here.)

In my research about study Bibles, I ran across the NRSV New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha. I haven't actually seen one, so I'll probably want to spend some time browsing it before I buy (I expect a slightly liberal bias), but it sounds like a well-respected reference work. Plus, I would really like to have a copy of the Apocrypha in my library, again for reference. ("Bel and the Dragon?" What's that? And who is this "Susanna?" Oh wait, didn't she come from Alabama with a banjo on her knee?) Of course, I might just wuss out on that one and pick up the Apocrypha parts by themselves instead.

The Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible sounds pretty cool for in-depth study. I would probably pick it up in the New American Standard version; I already have a beautiful NASB which I carry to church, but there is certainly no shortage of KJV Bibles around here, so since those appear to be the only two choices, probably I'd go with the NASB. I haven't seen one of these Bibles yet, though, so I can't recommend it (same with the Oxford one, and others in this post that it's clear I haven't spent time using).

If you are interested in study Bibles, CBD has a Study Bible Store that you could use for doing a little bit of research on what's out there. I got my NIV Study Bible and my Apologetics Study Bible each on sale for about $20 apiece; watch for sales and you can sometimes get a fabulous deal, particularly if you're cool with hardback copies (I prefer them, actually; they seem to do better on shelves, they're generally a little cheaper, and the covers have some personality to them!) For a deal from CBD, check the Slightly Imperfect Study Bibles store. That doesn't mean study Bibles with faulty Theology, or missing the book of Esther, or anything like that; it just means Bibles with maybe something wrong with the cover or some other minor manufacturing defect. Copies with a flaw that does not detract from their usefulness, but that makes them impossible to sell as though they were new. You can often get them for 40-50% off regular price, and sometimes never even notice the flaw.

There are tons of great Bibles out there, in zillions of translations, styles, designs, colors, and sizes. I've got probably a dozen different English translations in my library (and a couple in languages I don't even speak!), three study Bibles so far, and even one with the events of the entire Bible in chronological order. I even have a metal Bible! (I haven't picked up a waterproof Bible quite yet... then again, I don't read the Bible in the swimming pool!) But all the Bibles in the World can't help you a bit if you don't read them. When we picked out those Bibles five Easters ago, my goal was to find a Bible for each of us that we would like enough to open them up and read them. Pick a version and Bible that you enjoy reading, and get into the Word. These great study Bibles can help, but if cartoons of Bible characters are what it takes to get you to open up The Book, go with the cartoons. Just get into the Bible!


Useful Links
ESV Study Bible
ESV Literary Study Bible
ESV Reformation Study Bible
ESV MacArthur Study Bible
NLT Study Bible
HCSB Apologetics Study Bible

ESV translation
NIV translation
NIrV translation
HCSB translation
NLT translation

NASB Bible Unboxing

A few weeks ago I got an exciting email... I had won a Bible! I had entered a contest run by Logos Bible Software to promote their new Web site, and they were giving away a bunch of brand new Bibles... and not just any Bibles, either. These were really NICE Bibles! I was gunning for a nice leather-bound ESV Study Bible. The one I won was a different one, though... an NASB Side-Column Reference Bible with a calfskin cover. When I started looking at the specs on the Bible, I realized that this was quite possibly a much better choice for what I wanted the Bible for... to take it to church! The cover would be durable, the translation would be VERY accurate (maybe even more than the ESV; NASB has a very good reputation for accuracy), and it would frankly be a little less cumbersome than the huge ESV Study Bible. I was PUMPED! I sent them my address at work so my new Bible wouldn't wind up spending a day sitting on my porch, and began to wait.

Today as I was warming up my lunch, a coworker asked me if I was getting Christmas shopping done early. She had seen something next to my door, and apparently I had walked right past it (if you're reading this on Facebook, by the way, click the link to see the pictures):


It turns out that there were actually two packages I was waiting for, both approximately the same size, and I couldn't wait to see which one it was. I was not disappointed:


"Black Calfskin Leather"... AWESOME!

I was dying to look at it, but I also wanted to share the experience with you, my blog readers, so I waited until after work to do my unboxing. Here's what came out of the shipping box:


My first look at the Bible itself wasn't terribly striking:


Just looks like a plain old black Bible, doesn't it?


Bibles always have plastic on them, but I don't think I've ever seen one completely sealed like this. Even with the plastic on it, though, I could start to smell that "new-Bible" smell... yay!


It's a fairly hefty Bible, pretty thick... the print is nice and big, so there are a lot of pages to fit in there. The cover doesn't look like much, but it is SO soft. You can't really appreciate the cover just by touching it... you have to open it and feel the cover on its own, between your fingers. It's very supple.

I definitely need to fill this out:


The Bible sits open comfortably right out of the box, as though it were already well broken in:


It has two ribbon bookmarks, one of which was marking Ezekiel Chapter 13 and one of which was marking 1 Samuel Chapters 21-22.

I've been slowly studying Ephesians from the ESV, so I decided I would read it first (which is what I did later):


There is an essay in the back about all of the books of the Bible:


I thought this map of the locations in Jesus' ministry was really nice:


There is also a concordance in the back.

This Bible is SUCH a blessing to me. It lists for almost $150, and most of that price is the cover (for comparison, the hardback version lists for $25). I expect the cover to basically last forever. The cover of the ESV Compact Trutone Bible that I've been carrying around is getting pretty worn after several years, and it doesn't have very many study helps. My favorite Bible for studying is still my ESV Study Bible, but this may be the last "carry-it-to-church" Bible I ever need. I can't wait for Sunday!

I've got my new ESV Study Bible!

Yesterday at lunchtime I did something not characteristic of me... I actually left my office and drove down to Mardel to pick up the ESV Study Bible I had preordered! It came shrink-wrapped, not in a box, although that matters very little (I guess it's that much less trash to carry out to the curb on Friday). The dust jacket and cover are beautiful... the dust jacket even has the ESV starburst logo (see it at the top of this page) embossed into the paper!

I got the hardback version. At first the pages seemed a little wrinkly right next to the binding, but after using it for a while they seemed to smooth out. The pages smelled all "new-booky"; I lvoe that smell. I was sniffing it all afternoon! There was an insert inside the back cover which had a scratch-off box with a code that gave me access to the online version, which is really cool although as a Web programmer and experienced Web user myself there are a few things about the online interface that I might change. Not unusable, but I think the number of clicks it takes to get to your information could be reduced. But that's material for another post, maybe!

The content itself is awesome. The colors in the pictures aren't as brilliant as they are in, say, The Holman Illustrated Study Bible, but they are still beautiful and very useful (see some samples here, but the online examples actually look more brilliant than they do in the book... maybe because of the thin Bible paper or the print process). I brought it with me to church last night and enjoyed using it during the message, although as with any study Bible, the temptation is to get absorbed with the study notes and miss part of the message!

I read some of the supplementary material too; I had already read "Introduction: A User's Guide to the ESV Study Bible" in the Book of Luke sample I got at Mardel several weeks ago, and I really am interested in the "Reading the Bible" series of articles (you can read it in the free online samples), but I didn't have time last night or this morning to read that. I did enjoy the "God's Plan of Salvation" article, which is kind of wordy and pretty detailed but ultimately a simple (and complete) overview of The Gospel. Last night before choir practice I enjoyed showing some friends the illustrations in Exodus of the Tabernacle in the wilderness, along with illustrations of the various pieces of furniture (golden lampstand, Ark of the Covenant, bronze altar, etc.) and did my best to impress a writer friend with the way the study notes and the book outlines are visually connected to help you see where you are in the overall structure of the books.

I'll probably lug the thing to church again Sunday to show a few more friends, but overall it's so thick and heavy that I'll probably mostly use it at home. Besides, like I mentioned before, I wouldn't want to get distracted from the message by the study notes! I'm seriously considering just starting from Genesis 1:1 and trying to make my way all the way through it. It'll take a while, but if my study of Luke in my sample copy has been any indication, it will be very much worth it!

Bible Of Steel

For months I've been wanting to replace my main ESV Bible with the metal "Battlezone" version. Well... not exactly replace... maybe supplement. I ride a bus to work every day, and I carry a soft pleather briefcase-y thing with me. In my bag I carry whatever books I might be reading, a clipboard and paper to write on, my lunch (usually a piece of fruit and noodles in a cup), and maybe some other stuff. The lunch and the clip part of the clipboard can be especially harsh on the paper and cover of a soft-covered Bible.

So I was riding the bus this morning, looking over my new metal Bible (the pages are paper, by the way... it's just the cover that's metal!) and thinking about how emotionally attached I become to my Bibles. My NIV that I've had since college (about 17 years at this point)... my brown ESV that will still go to church with me... my beat-up little red Gideon New Testament from high school. Heck, I still think about the NKJV Open Bible that I gave away in 1986 or so (if the ESV is ever published with the Open Bible stuff in it, I'm there, baby)! I love books in general anyway, especially beautiful hardback books, but I can't think of a single book that makes me as happy as one of my own Bibles. Undoubtedly this is mostly because I know in my heart of hearts that the Bible contains words of Life. I don't necessarily fall head over heels with every Bible I see, but I do over ones that I buy for myself. Maybe it's because they're not just "food"... they're my very favorite food. It's not just steak... it's steak with my favorite steak sauce, a salad with my favorite dressing on the side, bread made just the way I like it, my favorite drink with free refills, and some yummy key lime cheesecake for dessert.

So after less than 24 hours together, I have already fallen in love with my ESV Bible, Nick Chopper Edition. I hope to spend many happy bus rides squinting in the blue fluorescent bus light at those tiny little red words of life!