Which Bible Should I Get?

This past Sunday, I taught about Josiah's rediscovery of Scripture from 2 Kings 22. I said that everyone - regardless of where they are on their spiritual journey - should have their own Bible. You should read it, wrestle with it, study it, talk about it, ask questions of it, and engage God along the way.

One of the most frequently asked of me is, "What kind of Bible should I get?" When you go to a bookstore, there are so many options. So, here are a few of my thoughts on this.

1. Get a Bible you can understand. I like the beauty of the King James English, but let's be honest: nobody speaks King James English today. Not in England. Not in the United States. It's almost like a foreign language, making a King James Bible pretty hard to understand. I have one and I use it if I want the poetic beauty of that language in a wedding or a funeral, but I never study from it for the same reason I wouldn't study from a Bible written in Russian. I don't fluently speak either language. There are several good choices, and I suggest that you read through a few of them and find the one that speaks most clearly to you.
2. That said, I usually use the NIV on Sundays. It is the most popular modern English translation. I also study out of the NIV most of the time.
3. I also recommend that you have a 'Study Bible'. This kind of Bible will have a commentary in it (which helps you to understand what's going on), a concordance (which lets you look up words and locate them in the Bible) and other helps, like maps, introduction to the books of the Bible, etc.
4. The Message is a paraphrase of the Bible that I also keep handy for parts of the Bible that are particularly hard to understand. The Message is written in particularly easy to read language, but it is NOT a translation.

So, if you are looking for a recommendation, I suggest the Life Application Study Bible in the NIV translation AND The Message. I would get them both.

Hope this helps.

Brian