Bible Gateway has been my “go to” Internet resource
for years, so it finally occurred to me to review the site that includes blog
posts, podcasts, study notes, articles, and more. Most impressive, though, is its being, as it says, “A searchable online
Bible in over 150 versions and 50 languages.”
Since I regularly receive review copies of new
editions of God’s Word, my bookshelves are piled high with Bibles, but I certainly don’t have all 150 versions! So I often
click onto the Bible Gateway site to compare translations and, especially, to
research a biblical topic.
For example, when I felt urged to see what the Bible says about love, I readily found over 600 references simply by typing the word “love”
in the Search box provided at the top of the main page. Then I added brief
devotionals and published the book by that name.
That same Search box let me type in the Bible book,
chapter, and verse(s) of the actual prayers in the Bible then compare numerous
translations before paraphrasing them for the prayer book I've always wanted, the Book of Bible Prayers. Shortly thereafter, I published the Book of KJV Prayers
with the same scriptures but from the King
James Version only.
Instead of having to retype each prayer for the
latter, I was able to copy/paste the KJV text directly from the Bible Gateway
site into a word processing file then remove verse numbers and break lines into a more contemporary rhythm
of speaking.
The site’s features also work wonderfully well in preparing
sermons and Bible lessons. Not only does it take less time to look up topics
and key scriptures, the site offers a wealth of translations for comparison. A
quick click onto the version in place lets you immediately change to another.
If you look up a single verse, you can also see numerous
versions of that same verse on a single page. By comparing the words chosen to
translate the original Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic texts into English, we get a
broader perspective of biblical truths, and we see that God’s Word truly is
living, constantly speaking to us, and moving us closer and closer to the Lord.
Mary Harwell Sayler,
©2020
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