Ryan Gustason of Pentecostal Blogger has written an article on creating your own study Bible. He is using a red-letter Word document, created his own layout, and downloaded a unique font set to create his own symbol system. Ryan provides links to all the downloads you need to create your own study Bible and symbol system. You can see his article here:
Loose-leaf Bibles provide a great way to add your own notes and pages to your Bible. There are several available from Hendrickson, so at first printing your own hardly seems worth it. It comes down to what features you want in your Bible. Printing your own give you even more advantages and options. For one, if you don’t like something you’ve written or highlighted, simply print the page out again and start over. Loose-leaf Bibles are a nice way to make your own Study Bible- you can type your own notes and then print it out without having to write anything by hand.
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Bible marking is a form of inductive study and can be a great way to interact with the scriptures. Once you’ve marked in your Bible it starts to become a reflection of your study of God’s Word. It becomes personal. Over time, it becomes a companion. It becomes a valuable study Bible. No two marked Bibles are alike. Marking in your Bible is well worth the effort, but the really hard part is knowing what to mark and how.
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Sometimes I like to read a Bible that I haven’t marked in, just so I can see a clean text. Sometimes I find the markings to be distracting. In fact, I find the headings and notes in study Bibles distracting. Sometimes I want to just read. There is a way to mark your Bible and still be able to read it without being distracted by the markings.
Bible study tools are resources that are designed to help in studying God’s Word. The Bible itself is of course the most important tool we can use for inductive study, by allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture, but sometimes it is helpful to get a deeper understanding by knowing words, culture, the context, history, people, places, etc. Bible study tools help us to understand these concepts.
Learn MoreCross-references are one of my favorite features in a study Bible. Not all Bibles have them (Note-taker’s from LCBP), and not all Bibles have enough if they do have them (wide-margin from Hendrickson). Even if your Bible has plenty of cross-references, there’s always going to be a need for a reference that’s not included. For all of these situations it is best to make your own. The art of creating your own cross-references is a great Bible study method. Jonathan Ammon, of Bible Reading Project, has written an outstanding article on creating cross-references. You can read his article here: