I ordered 3 new study bibles and a Greek interlinear of the New Testament (I have the Hebrew Old Testament Interlinear on my wish list…it’ll be my reward when I pay off some bills). Normally, I only use the King James version of the Bible, except on extremely rare occasions where I’ll use the NIV or one like it. I got started on the King James Bible when I became a Christian and just stuck to it. More recently I’ve been looking at how other translations have verse’s worded and found that at times the wording of the more modern translations have given some clarity. I still plan to primarily use my KJV, but I plan to also use the ESV, NKJV and the NIV alongside of it. I’ve heard wonderful things about all three versions… the ESV and NKJV were recommended by a vlogger I listened too, and several of my friends use the NIV.
I also ordered some special highlighters that have a low bleed through quality and a very fine pen to write clean and crisp margin notes. This pen is a special type that won’t bleed or smear. I bought a new journal as well. I purchased a giant print KJV a couple of years back when my eyes could no longer easily see the fine print in my old Bible, but I’ve yet to “move into” it. When I say “move into” I mean use and take notes in it. Because I haven’t used it, yet, I thought I would try something different this time and organize my margin note-taking so that they were useable and not limited to the space in the margins and keep my bible neat.

The instructions on the video I watched were that you assign highlighter colors to themes… for example, using a red highlighter to highlight scriptures that speak about the blood and redemption. Use Purple for Jesus because it’s the color of royalty and orange for the Holy Spirit because it’s the color of fire….basically pick colors that represent the category, so I can quickly find things that are relating to a topic I’m studying. The next part is to assign a letter to my journal that I’ll be taking notes in, then when I want to write next to a verse, I give it a number like A001 and write the number in the margin next to the verse. Afterward, I write the same number in the first page of the journal (leave about 10 pages blank in the front of the journal for a table of content) after the number of the verse, write down the theme it deals with which can be a symbol. Then, after skipping the 10 pages, write that same number in the journal margin and write down the notes. When done correctly, the journal notes will fall into sequence by the number, making finding the notes taken in the journal easy. After rereading that I’ve decided to link the video so I can quickly refer to it without confusing myself or anyone else.

I’m excited and ready to get started.
The video with all the fantastic ideas https://youtu.be/zqgk1GWoz8M?feature=shared

A Note on My Personal Notes in My Bibles

Looking back at my old Bibles and the things I underlined and wrote notes on is a blessing. I can see how I’ve grown as a Christian, but also I can see the times when the Lord was showing me something that profoundly blessed me.

Lord Jesus, please give me a hunger for your Word.