About 6 weeks ago, Crossway came out with their new ESV Study Bible.  We’ve been looking forward to it for a while now.  With the help of Desiring God (where I worked this summer) and a Cornell alum, we were able to give out 80 study Bibles to all of the students in Campus Crusade at Cornell’s Bible studies!  

This does several things:

• Every student has the same translation – the English Standard Version – which we’ve been encouraging for years now.
• Every student has a solid study Bible for use in personal Bible study and devotions – they can learn how to use and benefit from all the different reference systems – footnotes, study notes, crossreferences, concordance, charts, maps, book intros, etc.
• Each Bible has dozens of helpful articles about Christian ethics, theology, how to read the Bible, etc.  At a conference we just went to, the speaker (a prof from Gordon Conwell) said something to the extent of “if you read and learn all the extra articles in the ESV Study Bible, you’ll get the equivalent of a Bible College education.”  

The top of the stack of boxes (14 of them!):

One of our Bible studies getting their Bibles:

When you have 80 of the same Bible floating around, marking up the outside is helpful…

-Ben

I got my copy of the ESV Study Bible Gospel of Luke today.  Crossway sent a bunch over to DG, so we all got copies.  BBC Bookstore also has a handful out on display.

This thing is really pretty amazing.  I now understand why Driscoll couldn’t wait to talk about it once he got his hands on it.  And why BBC has brochures for it EVERYWHERE.  And churches all over the place are selling preorders.

Once you see it, you’ll want one.

There are very low-tech ways to do the Bible – just present the text, the verse numbers, the headings, and maybe some translational footnotes and/or crossreferences.  Those have their place – they allow you to study the text on your own without footnotes forcing their interpretation on you.

And there are varying levels of non-low-tech Bibles, with different types of notes, maps, charts, etc.  I’ve owned an NIV Life Application Study Bible, an NIV Study Bible, and the ESV Literary Study Bible… This blows them out of the water.

This is the Google of Bibles. (Can I say that?)

People did search before Google… then Google came and changed the way you thought of search.  People did webmail before Google… then Gmail came and changed the way you thought of webmail.  This will change the way you think of study Bibles.

The intros are long, helpful, and meaningful – you’ll want to read them.  The diagrams are BEAUTIFUL – the inside of my sample copy has rendering of “Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus”, with markers detailing and explaining where all sorts of important features/locations are.  There are supposedly over 200 little full-color maps inline with the footnotes – how often do you actually flip to the back of your Bible to look at the maps there?  I never have.  Hopefully this will teach me the importance of location location location.  The footnotes are also full of charts with titles such as “Parallels in the Ministries of Jesus, Peter, and Paul in Luke-Acts”, “Predictions, Reminders, and Proofs of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke”, and “Jesus and Prayer in the Gospel of Luke.”

Crossway has the book’s introduction online here.  You can check out one of the diagrams here.  Learn about lots more features at the ESV Study Bible website.

Why is this all important and worth getting excited over?

God tells us about Himself in His Word by telling us Truth.  Ultimately, what we want is more of God – seeing Him and knowing Him (not just knowing about Him) more clearly and more fully and more deeply.  This will help that, I believe, for many people, as the notes and the articles and the maps and the diagrams explain things of God through the Word and the Holy Spirit opens eyes to understand and marvel at who God is and what He has done.

All the cool new features that this Bible has are worthless if they don’t teach you more about Jesus and cause you to treasure Him more.  Treasure the Giver and be thankful for the gift that helps us treasure the Giver more!

-Ben

1. Reading. I mentioned this last night at Real Life, and I’ll probably write more surrounding it for the Cru website and/or listserv in a bit, but the ESV blog is promoting a “Read The Bible In January” Bible reading plan. The basic premise is that people make a New Years’ Resolution to read the Bible, then quit after a little while for all sorts of reasons. Solution? Finish reading in that “little while”. I don’t know exactly how much I’m going to attempt to read. Maybe just all of the Old Testament and the Gospels, since I’ve been spending much of my devotional time in the New Testament Letters these last few months. And I don’t quite know when to start. I don’t own a paper ESV Bible (should have brought one back from Cornell…..), so maybe after Christmas?

2. More reading. I brought home a large stack of books to read. Of course, my entire Christmas list was books, so this list may change come December 25. Right now, the current ordering of that looks to be:

1. Doing Things Right in Matters of the Heart by John Ensor
2. Finishing the last few chapters of The Mortification of Sin by John Owen
3. God Is The Gospel by John Piper
4. Preaching The Cross by Dever, Duncan, Mohler, and Mahaney
5. Some of Piper’s biographies, from The Roots of Endurance, The Legacy of Sovereign Joy, and The Hidden Smile of God

3. Programming. There are a few updates to be made to the Cru site, as well as a few interesting projects to be worked on. Perhaps I’ll write about these in the coming weeks…..

4. Blogging. Lots of free time and lots of reading means I should have lots of little things to say. The best way to keep up with them (and all blogs) is to subscribe with an RSS reader (see this explanation on the Cru blog about RSS readers).

-Ben