For Greek reading I’ve been so knee-deep in Ephesians that I haven’t been much in the Septuagint of late. That will change with the release of Karen Jobes’s Discovering the Septuagint: A Guided Reader, just published by Kregel Academic. I have known about this for a long time, so am happy to see it released into the wild! I think a lot of folks will benefit from it, especially those ready to freshen things up or go a step deeper in Greek learning.
Just when I thought my sermon preparation was moving away from loooong Pauline sentences, Ephesians 1:15-23 offers another–a single sentence stretches across those nine verses. (See here on Ephesians 1:3-14 as one sentence and where I started my exegesis.)
This week I thought I’d see if I could wed my need to visually outline the text with my deep appreciation for mind mapping.
The result was that I got a significant step closer to understanding the focus of Paul’s prayer for Ephesian Christians. This is in rough form (and will be revised still), but here’s how I used the app MindNode to lay out the passage (click/tap to enlarge):
Ephesians 1:3-14 is a single sentence in Greek. It has more than 200 words. How does a preacher even begin!
Well, to start, I isolated the indicative verbs, which is as simple as typing
[VERB Indicative]
into the search entry bar in Accordance software. I wanted to start there because I thought indicative verbs (as opposed to the participles) would be the best place to begin breaking down the flow of Paul’s argument.
Then I cross-highlighted the verbs in an English translation in parallel (though I had done my own translation, too) so I could see them in both languages. The result was this (click/tap to enlarge):
From there, you guessed it, a three-point outline emerged, which shaped my sermon on this beautiful passage. I found that the indicative verbs themselves coalesce pretty nicely into three main points.
I’m preaching on the passage tomorrow–great stuff, and much more to share, but just this simple search (with, of course, instantaneous results) has been essential in guiding my exegesis and preparation.
At my church we’ve spent the Easter season looking for and finding signs of Christ’s resurrection power all around us.
We see the power of the risen Jesus through mundane interactions in our worlds, just as the risen Jesus appeared on the shore to the disciples and ate breakfast with them.
We find rhythms of resurrection—death and rebirth—in creation.
We see signs of it in our daily lives: our work, family life, and friendships.
We find the power of the resurrection at work within us when we Christians show love to each other—both in word and action.
And we experience the power of the resurrection of Jesus when we affirm with his disciple John, “Perfect love drives out fear.”
I’ve grown these last couple months in my appreciation of how Christ’s resurrection is still shaping everything today.
So I sort of don’t want the Easter season to end. It feels like a little bit of a letdown. I’ll still be on the lookout for signs of the resurrection—I’ll still try to “practice resurrection,” as Wendell Berry wisely tells us to do. But we’re moving now into that long period in the church calendar creatively called, “Ordinary Time.”
I was doing some long-range preaching planning the other day with a week-by-week calendar in front of me. This coming Sunday is the First Sunday after Pentecost. And then, not surprisingly, it will be the Second Sunday after Pentecost. And then the Third, and Fourth, and Fifth, and 13th, and 19th, and 23rd Sunday after Pentecost… all the way up to the 27th Sunday after Pentecost on November 20. Then it’s Advent.
Those “after Pentecost” Sundays for us are “Ordinary Time.”
But moving from what has been a meaningful Easter season for me into this 27-week long “Ordinary Time,” I feel a little like the disciples must’ve felt on Pentecost Sunday: “What now?” “Where do we go from here?”
We need the Holy Spirit for the “ordinary” days ahead. Jesus unleashes the power and energy and life and breath that is the Holy Spirit, so that the disciples can have the Holy Spirit now that Easter has come and gone.
* * * * * *
If I could live through any period of history, it would be those post-resurrection days with the disciples and Jesus. They had lost him to death once, and now he’s gone from them again through his ascension to heaven.
But he doesn’t leave them stranded. He gives to the Church and to every believer the Holy Spirit for all our days to come. The Holy Spirit is for ordinary time.
A number of years ago, when Newsweek was still a print magazine, the editors asked Garrison Keillor what five books were most important to him. #1 on his list was “The Acts of the Apostles.” His one-sentence summary of it was: “The flames lit on their little heads and bravely and dangerously went they onward.” (HT)
And that’s how we go: onward, into differently structured summer days and adjusted schedules. We go onward, even into Ordinary Time, into seasons of waiting and tedium and unmet expectations—we go forward anyway because the promised Holy Spirit has come.
When we love with the love of Jesus, we go “dangerously” but willingly into places of darkness and loneliness and despair, ready to share God’s Spirit far beyond our gathered Sunday morning assemblies. Through the Holy Spirit’s power we can declare with the prophet Joel and the apostle Peter that God’s Holy Spirit is for all people, and that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
The Holy Spirit, having come in power at Pentecost, has filled each of us—all of us—to speak words of praise and comfort and love. And we can move with those first disciples from praying, “Come, Holy Spirit,” to now praying, “Thank you, Jesus, for giving us your Holy Spirit. Come afresh to me.”
And we can know that the Holy Spirit is a promise, a guarantee of Jesus Christ himself, given to us now. The Holy Spirit is for Ordinary Time!
The above is adapted from my Pentecost Sunday sermon to my congregation yesterday.
I’ve had hit-or-miss success in 2016 with Bible memorization. It’s entirely possible I’m being too hard on myself, but I also know I struggle to consistently work at the parts of the Bible I’m trying to memorize this year.
A tool won’t necessarily make me a better memorizer, but thinking it could help, I sprang for the Saddleback Leather Gospel of John Bible portion. You readers of this blog know I like good leather. You know I like pocket notebooks. And of course I like pocket notebooks with leather covers. So why not have a portable Scripture portion covered in leather?
This has actually been a desideratum of mine for some time, so I was really excited to see that Saddleback Leather has just released a set of three books of the Bible (John, Proverbs, and Revelation), each stitched into a leather cover. These are not inserts that can be exchanged–they are permanently stitched to their covers.
Lemme show you.
Lip Balm, Life Balm
The book is passport size (think 3.5″ x 5″ Baron Fig Apprentice rather than 3.5″ x 5.5″ Field Notes or Word. Notebooks). This means it’s a great front pocket fit.
Here it is, front and back:
Words of the Word on a Rock
Rock on, You Rock on the Rock
Here’s a look at how the uber-tough paper is stitched into the leather:
That paper, by the way, is “YUPO synthetic paper: 100% recyclable, waterproof, tree-free, durable, and easily wipes clean.”
Bible production is notoriously challenging, and I’m quite sure this piece was no exception. A bummer is that there is virtually no margin to the pages. The font is small, but the lack of white space is the larger issue:
This especially becomes a problem as some pages don’t lay 100% flat:
Crammed margins
The leather is full grain and wonderful, as with all of Saddleback’s stuff. It smells good, of course. It will last forever. The paper looks just as tough, too. I don’t quite feel like trying to rip it to see if it’s truly tear-free, but it’s the kind of paper you could take on a camping trip and not have to worry.
Surprisingly, given the excellent workmanship on Saddleback products, the leather stitching was a little crooked, even though it’s machine-stitched:
The insides are the NET Bible, which I appreciate as a translation for its rich footnotes. Those are not included here, which is inevitable, since the font is already small to get John to fit in.
There are 30 pages (15 sheets), including–oddly–five blank pages at the end, which means that one less sheet could have been used. (Maybe these are for notes?)
Back to why I got this thing–to memorize. The NET Bible does not lend itself well to memorization. Consider John 1:1-5 in the 1984 NIV:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
Here it is in the NET Bible:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was fully God. The Word was with God in the beginning. All things were created by him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind. And the light shines on in the darkness, but the darkness has not mastered it.
I dislike the translation of the generic Greek ανθρωπος as “man” in the 1984 NIV. “Humanity” or “humankind” is better in 2016–even the NET footnote cedes this option, but the text alone just gives you “mankind.” And though the footnote in fuller NET editions explains “the Word was fully God” well, NET has other such turns of phrase that make the version less than ideal for memorization.
There are also no paragraphs in this text. This means the 71-verse John 6 is a single paragraph in the Saddleback Leather Gospel of John. There is a single blank line between chapters, but especially with those five blank pages at the end, could not paragraph separations for greater readability have been employed?
One more minor production quibble: the cover text (“The Book of John”) is ever so slightly left of center, and the branding on the back is a little off-center. These are not really noticeable (like the stitching is), and maybe it’s just that I’ve come to expect near perfection from Saddleback!
I still, however, think it is absolutely awesome that Saddleback is making these things, so even though the NET Bible here isn’t quite the pocket-sized, leather-covered panacea I was seeking for Bible memorization (I know: I have issues), I would still buy this again, even if only to support the effort and have it to keep with me.
I imagine the production of these little books will only improve in time–if you’re going to get one, maybe give it a couple months and see if the next few production runs iron out the quality and layout issues.
(Personally, I’d love to see an easier-to-memorize version available in the future, too, like the NIV or NRSV.)
Here’s a fun Greek word: σπερμολογος (spermologos). It appears only one time in the Greek New Testament, and nowhere in the Septuagint. Here it is in its context, Acts 17:18:
τινες δε και των Επικουρειων και Στοικων φιλοσοφων συνεβαλλον αυτω, και τινες ελεγον· τι αν θελοι ο σπερμολογος ουτος λεγειν; οι δε· ξενων δαιμονιων δοκει καταγγελευς ειναι, οτι τον Ιησουν και την αναστασιν ευηγγελιζετο.
A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with [Paul]. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.
The NIV 2011 (above), NRSV, and KJV all translate σπερμολογος (spermologos) as “babbler.” HCSB has “pseduo-intellectual.” NASB has “idle babbler.” NET has “foolish babbler.” Not to be outdone, the Message offers, “What an airhead!”
Context determines meaning, which makes a word like this tricky, since it has no other uses in the Bible. The LSJ lexicon notes its use in, among other classic works, the play Birds by Aristophanes, where it refers to birds picking up seeds. In the 1st century B.C. history of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, σπερμολογος describes a “frivolous” person. For the noun form LSJ offers, “one who picks up and retails scraps of knowledge, an idle babbler, gossip.”
BDAG has this: “in pejorative imagery of persons whose communication lacks sophistication and seems to pick up scraps of information here and there.” I also like its gloss of “scrapmonger”! In the part of the entry that covers the Acts verse, it says, “Engl. synonyms include ‘gossip’, ‘babbler’, ‘chatterer’; but these terms miss the imagery of unsystematic gathering.”
one who acquires bits and pieces of relatively extraneous information and proceeds to pass them on with pretense and show.
And then this gem, from the same source:
The term σπερμολογος is semantically complex in that it combines two quite distinct phases of activity: (1) the acquiring of information and (2) the passing on of such information. Because of the complex semantic structure of σπερμολογος, it may be best in some languages to render it as ‘one who learns lots of trivial things and wants to tell everyone about his knowledge,’ but in most languages there is a perfectly appropriate idiom for ‘a pseudo-intellectual who insists on spouting off.’
The implications for an easy-to-access information age are obvious–how much of the Internet is gathering information like seed and passing it on, without stopping to research and truly evaluate it?
We could pontificate, but back to Acts–this is what some Athenian philosophers called Paul: a σπερμολογος. The parenthetical statement in Acts 17:21, however, makes this the height of irony:
Αθηναιοι δε παντες και οι επιδημουντες ξενοι εις ουδεν ετερον ηυκαιρουν η λεγειν τι η ακουειν τι καινοτερον.
(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
Did you catch it? Louw-Nida says a σπερμολογος engages in “two quite distinct phases of activity: (1) the acquiring of information and (2) the passing on of such information.” Acts 17:21 says the Athenians themselves (who leveled the σπερμολογος charge against Paul) spent all their time in two phases of activity: talking (#2 above) and listening (#1) to “the latest ideas.”
Moral of the story: check yourself before you call someone a σπερμολογος.
This book sets out to encourage preachers by reminding them of the importance of their calling; to exhort them to spend time in careful and prayerful sermon preparation; and to remind them of the personal qualities that must characterize every faithful preacher of God’s word. (x)
It easily succeeds in this goal. I found myself bolstered in my sense of calling as a preacher. And the abridgment is compelling in its description of how the preacher should prepare (a) sermons and (b) himself or herself.
The book gets better as it progresses. I bristled at the first chapter where I thought there was both an overemphasis on the word in Christian communities, as well as only vague criticisms of the culture at large.
Words: The Church’s One Foundation?
Of course I agree with Stott that “God chose to use words to reveal himself to humanity” (1), but I’m not sure we can rightly conclude that this is “the truth” which “Christianity is based on” (1). One might alternatively suggest a truth like, “God is love,” or the truth of John 3:16 as a more robust foundation than that of the written and spoken word as “the foundation on which all Christian preaching rests” (14). What I thought was an undue overemphasis on the word shows up elsewhere. The church, for example, is “the creation of God by his word” (21). That’s true as it goes, but leaves a lot out.
Even how the word/Word is interpreted is narrowly construed: “Everything in the rest of the text must relate in some way to the main issue” (55). And again, “Every text has an overriding thrust” (58). It’s difficult to think of biblical passages that support the notion that a biblical passage must have one overriding thrust. Why think this? I was left unconvinced by an assumed claim that I hear often repeated in some evangelical preaching traditions.
I agree with Stott on the primacy of the biblical text in preaching preparation: “We have to be ready to pray and think ourselves deep into the text, until we become its humble and obedient servant” (59). But herein, I think, lies the rub: while I desire to willingly submit to Scripture, isn’t it better to say that we are first humble and obedient servants of the Lord who stands behind Scripture, who breathed it into being, and who breathes life into us even now so we can understand and follow his words? This may seem a subtle nuance—and Stott is clear in emphasizing the role of the Holy Spirit in the process—but I think one has to be careful not to give too much weight to the written and spoken word. We don’t want to unwittingly fossilize it.
Challenges to Preaching
The first chapter is “Challenges to Preaching.” Here Stott mentions “Hostility to Authority” (2), “The Electronic Age” (5), and “The Church’s Loss of Confidence in the Gospel” (9). The criticisms are unfortunately broad and sweeping: “People have also become emotionally insensitive” (6). Which people? What constitutes “insensitive”? What is the basis for the assessment? Each of the challenges suffers from vagueness like this (“We must trust God, not our computers…” (8)). A better model for cultural criticisms is the depth and winsomeness so readily on display in David J. Lose’s Preaching at the Crossroads. I think this may just be a fault, however, of the book’s being abridged. The longer version includes more studies and citations to support the criticisms Stott makes.
Similarly, the second chapter (“Theological Foundations for Preaching”) includes assessments of the pastorate that wasn’t convinced were warranted. Bemoaning “today’s pastors” (which ones? in which denominations? according to which studies?) who don’t take the New Testament seriously (measured how?), Stott writes, “Instead, sadly, many pastors are more involved in administration” (25). Don’t get me wrong: I’ve read Acts 6, and I would love to spend 20 hours a week in sermon preparation, but I really do believe God has entrusted administrative aspects of church leadership to me (with others), whether it’s helping the leadership work toward a mission-driven budget, helping to organize Sunday school classes, etc. I appreciate Stott’s views, but I found them at times to be unmerited hermeneutical leaps.
(It’s worth pausing here to say: disagreements and frustrations with the first part of this book aside, if I could one day be half of half the pastor John Stott was, I would rejoice greatly.)
Metaphors for Preachers, and a Non-Neutral Pulpit
From the beginning of chapter 3 (“Preaching as Bridge-building”) and throughout the rest of the book, I found myself nodding in agreement and with conviction. Stott’s six metaphors the Bible uses to describe preachers is a compelling and really helpful way to frame the role of the preacher: heralds, farmers, stewards, shepherds, ambassadors, and workers. “In all of these New Testament images,” he says, “the preacher is a servant under someone else’s authority, the communicator of someone else’s word” (31). May God forgive me those moments when I take this truth for granted—it is at the heart of my preaching philosophy, and why I continue to get up into the pulpit Sunday after Sunday, seeking to communicate God’s love with God’s people. Seeing these specific ways to understand my role encourages me to continue to seek to be faithful in my calling.
Along these lines I found myself convicted by Stott’s line, “The pulpit cannot be neutral” (39) when it comes to social issues. Amen! He offers a set of examples that could make folks on all sides of the political spectrum (including centrists) squirm a little: “We also need to address issues of injustice, poverty, hunger, illiteracy and disease; the pollution of the environment; failure to conserve natural resources; abortion, mercy-killing or euthanasia and capital punishment; inhumane technocracy, bureaucracy and unemployment…” (38-39). A good word, indeed.
He adds a wise caution only a seasoned leader can: “We need wisdom not to go beyond what is written in Scripture and to speak carefully where Scripture is not clear” (39). May God give us preachers wisdom to know the difference!
Study and Character
Chapter 4 suggests some (realistic) habits of study in sermon preparation. The 5th chapter goes more in depth, including this great question for preachers to ask: “What response does the Holy Spirit want to this text?” (55) He calls for both study and prayer in equal measure (57). His suggestions (even in this abridged version) are specific, practical, and ones that a preacher could implement this week. I was especially intrigued by his suggestions that the preacher write the body of the sermon out, then the conclusion, and (only) then the introduction! (65) He reasons, “Only after doing this, will we be sufficiently clear about what we are introducing” (66). I’m in the habit of writing the introduction first, once I have my outline. I plan to try Stott’s proposed order first chance I get.
The final two chapters focus on the character of the preacher (chapter 6, “Sincerity and Earnestness” and chapter 7, “Courage and Humility”). The first appendix is an abbreviated (though still fairly robust) overview of the history of preaching. I thought it was wise to make this an appendix, though it serves as the first chapter in the longer Between Two Worlds.
Conclusion and Where to Get It
In the end, even if I didn’t agree with all of Stott’s approach, I found this book refreshing and inspiring. He quotes Spurgeon, who said to his students, “Our preaching must not be articulate snoring” (82). Stott’s passion for Scripture and wisdom in preaching are clear. Reading even this abridged version of his classic book serves as yet another reminder of a life well lived, and a ministry faithfully carried out. We preachers are fortunate to be able to access Stott’s hard-earned wisdom.
You can find the book at Amazon here. The publisher’s page is here.
Thanks to Eerdmans for thinking to send me a copy of the book.
I almost always read non-fiction when I sit down with a book. What drives this is, in part, my insatiable (and sometimes over-active) desire to learn something new about the world. But of course it is untrue that only non-fiction can teach. The best poets and storytellers can offer as true insight into human nature as the best psychology text.
Where else in life does a person have to stand weekly before a mixed audience and speak to them engagingly on the mightiest topics known to humankind–God, life, death, sin, grace, love, hatred, hope, despair, and the passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Who is even close to being adequate for this challenge? (xi)
Plantinga immediately engaged me in this way. He both reassured me as a preacher and convinced me from the beginning of Reading for Preaching that I ought to have my nose in fiction more often–and to add biographies to my non-fiction reading. The Holy Spirit “sows truth promiscuously” (ix, via Calvin), so we who presume to be preachers do well to read widely and “get wisdom” on all of life. From here we can employ our insights to more effectively shape our language–just like poets do, saying “a lot in a few words” (xii)–since language is the preacher’s “first tool” (x).
Based on lectures and workshops around the same themes, Reading for Preaching divides into six short and highly readable chapters:
Introduction to the Conversation
Attentive Illustrations
Tuning the Preacher’s Ear
Whatever You Get, Get Wisdom
Wisdom on the Variousness of Life
Wisdom on Sin and Grace
What Preaching Is, What Reading Is
Preaching for Plantinga is “the presentation of God’s Word at a particular time to particular people by someone the church authorizes to do it” (1). The preacher’s job is to “not just repeat a text, but also to outfit it for the hearing of a congregation.” (Sometimes more challenging than it sounds.) In order to do this, Plantinga suggests that preachers “get into the interrogative mood and stay there a while” (vii-ix). He calls on them to ask about biblical texts “everything you can think of, including about the tone of voice of the speakers in the text” (102).
And he gives copious examples of how to both ask questions of biblical texts and use wisdom found from non-biblical texts to do it. One of the book’s great strengths is its use of stories, characters, and motifs from works like Grapes of Wrath, Les Miserables, Tolstoy short stories, a biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, and much more. In every case Plantinga shows the reader (a) how wisdom may be found in the text and hand and (b) how to apply it from the pulpit.
This doesn’t mean Plantinga wants preachers to read fiction just for the sake of finding good illustrations. That would cheat both literature and preacher. But the preacher can find wisdom everywhere, if she or he is looking for it. Plantinga shows how even a conversation with a long-winded neighbor helped one attentive preacher understand humanity more fully. To that end the book concludes with a few words on having a good system for storing and retrieving illustrations. Many future sermon illustrations will come up in unexpected moments and need to be filed and saved for later.
It is out of his own wealth of illustrations that Plantinga has drawn–he says as much. Especially in later chapters I had the feeling of reading illustration upon illustration, but this is offset by the masterful way in which Plantinga links complicated fictional characters, for example, to abiding truths about life in Christ. He shows more than he tells. He is a gifted illustrator and writer, which makes the book a joy to read.
The book would have been greatly enhanced by a Scripture and especially Subject Index, since there are so many illustrations I will want to return to.
Plantinga offers some good cautions, too. The goal of a sermon should be doxological, helping train the congregation’s eyes on Jesus. Overly poetic sermons with the goal of being “pretty” won’t do.
Needing to See the Risen Lord
Sunday morning comes without fail, each week–“right about the same time, too,” as one of my minister friends says. Again, here is Plantinga on the preacher’s challenge and call (and invitation!):
A preacher needs to be a sage to speak responsibly from the pulpit week by week. She has to have something worth listening to on some of the mightiest subjects in the world, including how the universe looks to a Christian, who human beings are, the human predicament, God’s gracious address to the predicament in Jesus Christ, the resulting prognosis for our world, and, along the way, much else. Fortunately she has our community’s book to draw from, which is wonderful except that she now has to bridge from Scripture, which is a multiplex ancient literature, to her own particular context and engage an audience there that is certain to be mixed in some formidable ways. (107)
Phew!
The preacher has to be a little crazy to tackle all this. Or else, like the Apostle Paul, she needs to have seen the risen Lord. In either case, once embarked, the preacher will need to get wisdom with all deliberate speed. (107)
Plantinga cautions: “Naïve preaching is a kind of malpractice” (102). Reading widely–and paying attention to life!–is a good antidote for this. So is prayer and that encounter with “the risen Lord.” Sometimes sermons really do write themselves. And–reading aside–it’s for one primary reason, at least that I can figure: if the Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is the same Holy Spirit that Jesus breathed onto the disciples and gives to us… does not that same Holy Spirit breath through us, and even speak through us preachers?
All I can say is Thanks be to God!, because I could never be (and would never dare to even try) a preacher if that were not true. Plantinga, I think, would agree.
Finding classy and well-made Bible covers is surprisingly difficult, even on Amazon. Christian Book Distributors fares a little better. But you still have to wade through some, uh, options.
But what if she wants the eagle cover?
One way to solve the long sermon vs. game-starting-at-1 rivalry
Like a roaring… leopard?
Plain canvas would be just fine. Full grain leather? Even better.
That’s the Leather Bible Cover from Saddleback Leather Company. No, not that Saddleback. This one.
Saddleback’s cover comes in four color options: Tobacco, Dark Coffee Brown, Black, and Chestnut (pictured above).
Here are a few more images, to introduce you:
The Bible slides right in:
That’s the UBS5 Greek New Testament, which, as you can see, is a little short for the cover, but otherwise is a great fit.
A closer look reveals consummate stitching:
The closure mechanism is easy to get used to, and even allows you to slide a pencil or pen inside:
The Chestnut color is deep and rich. The leather is sturdy! So much so when it first arrived that I didn’t believe it would soften over time, but it has. It lays flat with no issue, as a result. You just have to make sure you handle the Bible cover (and enclosed Bible) rather than build a shrine to it on your shelf-of-leather. (Uh, no, I don’t have one of those.)
It looks, feels, and smells delicious. No complaints at all on the appearance, construction, design, and feel of the thing. Top-notch.
Let’s talk about fit.
A dictum of reviewing is that you review a book (or piece of gear) on its own merits, in accordance with its aim. It would be unfair, for example, to lambast a print book for not being as keyword searchable as its electronic counterpart. Print never claims to give you search results with a single click. (Not YET.)
And it gives you the dimensions of the (opened) cover: 12 ½” W x 9 ½” H.
However, I think it’s fair to ask: how many people buy a leather Bible cover before buying a Bible? Usually you realize that a certain Bible has become your mainstay: through 52-week sermon series on Romans (chapters 1 and 2), through holidays and family reunions, through major life events, through years of semi-failed reading plans… and then you go get a cover worthy of the Bible.
Saddleback currently offers just this size, so you’re limited in your options. This cover is nowhere near big enough to work for the kind of Bible many folks would want to put into a leather cover: a Study Bible.
However, user reviews indicate this beautiful cover is good for slimline Bibles (ESV, NIV, NKJV). And the product page is clear along these lines, so you just have to be sure you know what you’re getting.
The Greek New Testament above is the best fit I found among my Bibles. I was disappointed that my not-that-big Greek-English New Testament didn’t fit:
Bible too big
Before I laid eyes on the cover, I had dreams of my Septuagint fitting in, but…
I got really excited that my since-discontinued TNIV Bible (which I’m pretty sure is “slimline”) would be the last Bible I’d put in the cover:
But it was not to be:
In fact, this was a real downside to the cover–this Bible and a small hardbound notebook both got bent in my efforts to wedge them in. I didn’t push too hard, but you really have to be sure your Bible is small enough for this thing to work. Again–the product page is clear here, but one might wish not to have so many misses in matching beloved Bible to beautiful cover.
This Greek-English edition of the Apostolic Fathers is a nice fit:
And don’t forget about books! That’s actually another good option, if maybe a little superfluous:
I wish I had more to contribute to what needs to be a running list somewhere on the Saddleback Website of “Bibles that fit this cover.” My Greek New Testament has a happy home now–and smells really good. I hope Saddleback will consider expanding its sizing options.
In the meantime, if the fit is right, it’s hard to imagine a nicer cover. Saddleback uses the best leather, and their workmanship is excellent. People who buy from them tend to buy more than one item over the course of a lifetime.
Saddleback’s site is here, with a ton of products that will make you want to “go leather or go home” (I hope I’m not giving anyone any Bible cover phrasing ideas). You can also check out my review of their pen/sunglasses case. The Leather Bible Cover (reasonable retail price of $49) is here.
Many thanks to the awesome people at Saddleback Leather for sending the Bible cover review! I’m really grateful they sent it, and I would have been embarrassed had anybody seen me rip into the UPS package the way I did when it arrived… though that did not influence the objectivity of the review.
