You’ve probably seen something recently about the ESV Scripture Journals. According to the publisher, they “pair the entirety of individual books of the New Testament with lightly lined blank pages opposite each page of the biblical text, allowing readers to take extended notes or record insights and prayers directly beside corresponding passages of Scripture. Individual volumes feature one book of Scripture in a thin and portable format—great for personal Bible reading and reflection, small-group study, or taking notes through a sermon series.” They’ve now released the individual volumes as well as sets for both the Old Testament and New Testament. I take a quick look at them in this video.
If you’re interested in purchasing them, you can find them at Amazon or Westminster Books.
Transcript
These are ESV scripture journals. Now available in the complete set. I’m going to tell you about them in just a moment.
These are the ESV scripture journals. The complete set. I’ve got the New Testament, I’ve got the Old Testament. Now, you’re watching this video, I had to set up this video. You know, like get the camera set up and the lights. One of the things you don’t really think about is, how do you not make it look bizarre, sitting behind these two giant boxes of books being dwarfed by them. I don’t know. This probably looks crazy. But anyways, here they are, these two giant boxes. This is the complete set of journals. I’m just going to show them to you and then tell you why they might be of interest to you and how you might put them to use. So, this is the set that came out first, the New Testament. Brand new, 2019 is the Old Testament. The complete Old Testament. So, we just take this top off here and we’ve got the journals. There is one for every book of the Bible. Well, not quite. Some of the books are stacked together. You find like the minor prophets all together in, I guess, three volumes and so on. But, this is the Old Testament beginning in Genesis, running all the way across. And then here we’ve got the New Testament, beginning in Matthew of course, and then running through to Revelation.
These are scripture journals. What is the point and purpose of a scripture journal, what is the format? Well, I just happen to have one extra one here. This is the letters of Paul to Timothy and the letter of Paul to Titus. And so I’ll open it up and show you what’s inside. It’s actually super simple. The point is, you’ve got the Bible on one side of the page, on the other side you have just lined pages so you can take your notes. So, we crack it open. We’ve got 1st Timothy, chapter 5, into chapter 6 on the one side.
And on the other side just a blank sheet of paper ready for your notes. In terms of the scripture, it just is the very, very basic ESV text, which means it has chapters and verses and headings. There’s no cross-references, there’s no footnotes, none of the explanatory notes you might find in your standard ESV text or in your ESV study Bible. None of that. Just the chapter markings, the verse markings, and the various headings.
Beyond that, it’s just meant for you to write. For you to write, to doodle, to do whatever it takes for you to better understand the text. So, why would you want to use one of these? They’re ideal for personal Bible study, if you’re just going through a text, you want to better understand it and you like to take notes. That would be ideal. Of course, you can write the notes on the lined page, you can also write all over the text. These are relatively cheap to buy, relatively cheaply made, so you can go through a lot of them. You can just go through and make it your own, in that sense, and buy another one next year, if you want to read these books again. Also great for pastors who are studying a text so they can really engage with the text in that deeper way, and not have to mark up their preaching Bible. And of course, for Bible studies, really for any purpose, you might find something like this helpful.
You can buy them online in individual, so I bought this one just from Amazon, just as is, just for a few dollars. Or, as I’m showing you here, you can now buy the entire set as well. So, ESV scripture journals, New Testament, Old Testament. I find them helpful, I’m thankful for them, maybe something you’ll find helpful as well.
