A Review
Not a study Bible; not a devotional Bible - but a working Bible designed for the new (or experienced) pastor seeking to improve his/her public ministry.
The binding is a quality imitation leather with a nice feel, alas no leather smell. The Bible text is the traditional KJV text - not being a big fan of the KJV, this is truly the weakest part of this Bible - those who have a greater appreciation of the KJV will not see this as a weakness. That weakness is overcome by the availability of the same Bible helps with the NKJV translation. The font is readable and comfortable to use. The text is devoid of footnotes or cross-references, though chapters and verse markings are present.
What gives this Bible value is the 180 pages of helps provided in one place for the pastor’s public ministry: weddings, funerals, dedications, the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, worship helps, pastoral care, and a variety of pulpit invitations. Some of this information will be used once, some multiple times, and others will serve as templates for future use. Much of this information can be found in a typical “Pastor’s Manual”, but having additional information is helpful. Also, not having to carry two texts (Bible and manual) into the pulpit is of additional help.
A couple of things I would like to see in the future:
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Publish the helps with additional translations. Neither the KJV nor the NKJV are my favored translations. I would hope that Thomas Nelson might work with other publishers to make these tools available with a greater variety of translations.
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The other improvement would be to make the helps available as an e-book, thus allowing the pastor to manipulate the various service helps to fit their particular needs without retyping the material. As best I can tell, this edition is not available in Kindle, Nook, LOGOS, or WORDSearch - having it available in any of these formats would be helpful.
Most pastors would find either of the two available editions helpful - hopefully, other editions will become available in the future.
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This review is based on a free copy provided by the publisher for the purpose of creating this review. The opinions are mine alone.
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