ESV Study Bible

My goal before starting ministry school in the Fall is to finish reading the Bible.  I just finished the book of Ezekiel and picked up a reading plan at YouVersion that will take me through Proverbs and Psalms in one month.  I’ve already read the New Testament, so I just need to finish the Old Testament and Psalms and I’ll be done.  

Things were going much faster before my wife bought me the ESV Study Bible.  I’d previously been reading from my Green Bible and making all my highlights and notes in it.  [Truth be told, it’s one of probably 10 Bibles that I own, but I’d chosen it to be my primary “read through the Bible and mark it up” Bible.]  Before I began reading each successive book in the Bible, I’d consult the Oxford Guide to the Bible for background information, cultural context and so on.  My ESV Study Bible has changed all that.

The ESV Study Bible is a typical study Bible with extensive notes, cross-references, charts, supplemental info and so on.  But to me, its best feature is that it’s available online!  So when it gives a cross-reference, rather than holding my place and flipping pages to find the reference, I simply click on the hyperlink and a pop-up window displays the cross-referenced verse.  Easy!  Another feature that I really enjoy is that you can have the Bible read to you by simply clicking a button.  I’m doing this for Psalms.  I’m not much of a poetry guy and I’m finding it easier to read the Psalms by having them read to me while I follow along with the text (either on the computer screen or in the Bible itself).

I’m one of those intellectual, perpetual student types that prefers the feel of an actual book in my hands as opposed to reading a digital copy.  However, with the greater ease of having notes and references hyperlinked, I’m finding that I prefer the online version of the ESV Study Bible over the tome itself.  And it is a tome--I should put it on the scales and see how much it weighs. 

So, with all the notes typical of a study Bible and the ease of the hyperlinked cross-references, my Bible reading has slowed considerably as I avail myself of all these great features.  The flip side of that, though, is that I’m doing a much more in-depth reading than I was previously in my Green Bible.  I had intended to put-off this more in-depth reading for my second trip through the Bible.  This first read-through is intended to familiarize myself with the entire Bible and allow me to say “yes, I’ve read the whole thing.”  I started a Bible-in-a-year reading plan last year and, obviously, came up short.  So I’m using the start of ministry school as my new target date for completing my read-through.  Plus, I figure that before I graduate I’ll be expected to have read the entire thing anyway, so this way I’ll have a leg up.