This is an old BFS assignment, but I missed it because it was posted while my telephone was out. I found it intriguing enough that I wanted to go back and do it. We are to answer these questions:

How old is your Bible?
Why did you choose this Bible?
Do you highlight/mark passages in your Bible?
If so, what is your system for marking passages?
Do you have notebooks to record things?
If so, how many and what do you record?
Where is your favorite spot to read your Bible?
Are there any special thoughts about your Bible you want to share?

I have multiple Bibles, so I’m not really sure how to answer the question about how old my Bible is. I would really like a nice, wide-margin Cambridge Bible, but they don’t come in NKJV, which is the version I generally use. 🙁 I have not, in fact, been able to find a NKJV that has my desired features. (Which is rather pathetic, since I don’t really want much – leather, wide margins for note-taking, no red-letter text, and preferably no study notes. I don’t think that’s really asking much, but apparently no such edition exists.) [UPDATE: I found one!  Cambridge did start making a wide-margin leather NKJV.]

• So, in the meantime, I have a three-hole punched edition to hold my notes. It’s huge, and not practical for regular reading, but it will hold my notes. It’s a few years old.

• I have a Reformation Study Bible, which would ordinarily be my regular “reading” Bible. It’s a couple years older than the hole-punched edition, and was chosen for the Sovereigntist notes.

• I have a very compact Bible, which stays in my purse/diaper bag and is currently what I usually read at church, since it’s about all I can manage with a baby in my arms/lap. It’s probably almost as old as Ariel, since it was a gift from hubby when she was a baby and I discovered the difficulty of holding a full study Bible on my lap along with an infant. 🙂

• For my everyday reading, I use a cheapy paperback copy, but I’ll get to that in a few minutes.

• My current oldest Bible is an Inductive Study Bible I got during my senior year of high school.

I absolutely love it, except that it’s a NASB, which has since become less-than-my-preference for study. It’s leather, has wide margins for notes, well-spaced lines for underlining/marking, blank spaces for chapter headings, and a chart for notes at the end of each book. It has study “helps” (like maps), but no notes, so there is not a significant “man’s influence” during study. It contains many of my notes and markings, and I would very much like to have something long-lasting and high-quality like it to use for current and future study. Unfortunately, Thomas Nelson (the publishers of the NKJV) don’t seem to share my high value for self-study and longevity 🙁 , so I make do with what I have.

My Reading/Marking System

To discuss my marking system, I must return to the subject of my paperback copies. I have, over the last several years, been trying to read through the entire Bible every year. (I don’t expect to keep up quite this pace for the rest of my life, but I wanted to get good and familiar with those books we usually skip, and with the “whole picture.”) I don’t know about you, but if I “just read,” my mind tends to wander, and I will suddenly realize that I have no idea what I just read.

To combat this problem, I decided to come up with a theme to focus on, on each pass through the Scriptures. I thought it might get a bit messy to mark all of these themes thoroughly in my main Bible, so I use a separate Bible for each one. Each year, I start with a new paperback. (This has the added advantage of looking far less overwhelming!) I choose colors to use for highlighting, and subdivide the theme. As I read, I “highlight” these verses/phrases with colored pencil in my chosen colors and, at the end of the year, I write the subject on the front.

For example, the first year I chose to focus on the five points of “Calvinism.” I highlighted verses focusing on the depravity of man in brown, election in green, particular atonement in pink, irresistible/effective grace in orange, perseverance/preservation of the saints in blue, and general references to God’s sovereignty in purple. This copy of the Bible is now a terrific “quick reference” for me when dealing with this subject.

Last year, I focused on “family,” marking such themes as the responsibility of parents, instructions to children, the blessing of children, and “aberrations” from family (widows, orphans, etc.).

These paperback copies are the copies I read from on a day-to-day basis. (When studying, I use my study Bible, or, under certain circumstances, a portion of my ring-bound Bible pulled out and placed in my study binder.) Along with my reading Bible, I keep: a 5.5×8.5″ sketchbook, which I use as a journal; a pencil case which contains a set of twelve colored pencils, a mechanical pencil, a much-loved pen for journaling, a dry-erase marker, and a tissue for erasing the marker marks; and a three-ring binder.

My Binder

The first section of my binder includes my Bible reading plan and several key sheets of paper. The Bible reading plan is in a sheet protector, and I mark it off with a dry-erase marker so I can reuse it later. The sheets of paper are for keeping two types of notes.

On the first, I jot down the verse reference and a quick note to myself when I come across something I would like to underline or make note of in my main Bible. Periodically, I copy these over. (This is not as much work as it sounds like, although it would be simpler to be able to just read from my “marking” Bible.) I take notes with a mechanical pencil, just in case I should decide to remove or change a note later. (It’s easier to write small with a mechanical pencil than a regular one.)

On the other sheet of paper, I make note of any questions I need to either look up answers to or ask Michael about.

My (Spiritual) Journal

I keep a variety of things in my journal. There is a list of topics I’d like to study, as well as a list of “focus” topic ideas for future read-through’s. When I come across a quote that is significant to me (in a spiritual sense), I write it in here. When I want to write about my spiritual growth or struggles, I make an entry here. Lately, I’ve been writing down something I’m thankful for every day (because I need the practice!).

One of my favorite types of journaling here, though, is jotting down verses that “jump out at” me, for myself. I write down the date, then next to that the verse reference. I write the verse out below the verse reference, which leaves a little bit of space below the date. All of this is written in ink. Sometimes I will highlight key phrases in the verse with my colored pencils, which also makes the page look more interesting. 😉 And then if I need to make some note to myself in relation to the verse, I can do it in pencil in that small margin that was left. The advantage of writing these verses here is that all of the verses that have been significant to me recently are in one place, and I can easily look back over them to see what the Lord has been teaching me, or to dwell on them some more.

More About My Binder

The rest of the binder includes a section for prayer reminders (photos of friends, family, etc., in page protectors, so I can use a dry erase marker to write down specific requests for each one), one for storing current study notes (when I have them), and one for storing quiet time “helps” (suggestions for spending an hour in prayer, how to meditate, various Bible reading plans, etc.). When it’s appropriate, I have stored sections of my hole-punched Bible here, as well.