No app

Over the coming months I will share some of my favorite Bible apps. But first I want to share a non-app. This year my wife and my colleague John Sacson have inspired me to read through the Bible the “old fashioned” way. I have a physical study Bible that she bought for me about ten years ago. I decided to read through it in a year. I’m not going to quite make it through in a year, but I’m enjoying the overview. I just read the text, not the footnotes. I’ve chosen different colors for different themes related to the heart and I’m highlighting them: joy, mourning, wisdom, prayer, and the heart itself. I’ve had to let go of some of my desire for order so that I can just focus on the text and let God speak through his Word. So if I misplace my highlighters, I don’t force myself to go back to the chapters gone by.

 

My study Bible

I really enjoy having a physical book in my hands, or laid out on the rug in front of me. I can easily look forwards and backwards as I read. After learning many ways to study the Bible, I’m not actually studying it this year. I just read it out loud. I’ve never done that before and I find that I like it. The emotion comes out and I find I slow down and listen better. There are some parts that are a bit shocking and I find I am reading in a whisper because the Bible sometimes tells stories that are violent or even shameful to say out loud.

Printed Bibles in many Nigerian languages are fairly accessible, though some still can not afford Bibles, especially in languages that fewer people speak, as these tend to be a little more expensive to print. Please join me for thanking God for availability to so many of the sweet printed Word, and pray that printed Bibles will be available in all the languages that his people want them here.

How do you like to read your Bible? I’d love to hear from you. The more I hear from you all, I can make this less about me and more about God and how we meet him in his Word together!

I’ve heard some people completely switch off their phone or keep it in another room when they are praying. Before I read the Bible, I use my phone for Scripture memory flashcards, so I use a different approach. I have an automatic feature that puts my phone into a focus mode during my prayer time. I’ll share about that in my next post.