How I Use the Blue Letter Bible (step by step) 

Aw, thanks Sharon. You’re a gem!

It’s interesting you mentioned looking up passages in church. I do as well, and since it’s so easy to reference all the locations for each Greek word, I quickly get lost in my own study, sitting there in church. Thanks for the comment.

Thanks. It was rough when I was in boot camp. Say hey to Ruth.

Thanks for the comment and great energy. Tell me what you mean by “there is also one for study.” That doesn’t sound immediately familiar. (And I love learning new tricks with this amazing tool).

Thanks for sharing these cool little hugs from God. Matthew Henry has changed the way I see God’s word…and I never knew about him until the BLB! Appreciate it.

@@Motivationeer BBN out of Charolette NC used to carry Great Christians, and they had the life of Matthew Henry years ago. That’s where I first learned of him, George Whitfield, and many many others. When I saw his commentary available in both e-Sword and Blue Letter, I tapped to add immediately.

Thanks @Zephulastar…I appreciate it. While MH can be hard to read at first, he is nothing like Shakespeare. The more you read, the more nuance you see in his style. He is brilliant. I know of no other commentator who covers every verse in depth, tying in deep concepts that make me wonder how he could do this back in the late 1600’s…simply amazing. My only drawback is his stance on Jesus and Michael being one and the same. Yeah, sounds weird. He makes a case for it and, from what I understand, this is a Church of England belief (Anglican)

Yes, I completely agree. I think it might be time for me to create a video about how to use the phone app. There are a couple of features I use while sitting in church on Sundays, because of their convenience.

My pleasure!

You are so welcome!

I'm really glad it was helpful, Barb.

That means a lot...thanks @52bbibbs. Here's a verse for you: Daniel 12:3 Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.

Logos has a learning curve but use only what you need at first. There lots of stuff in Logos I rarely, if ever, use.

I’m glad to hear you say that. I’ve used BLB for years, including the features covered in this video, and recently started to teach myself Logos. Maybe because I’m so familiar with to navigate BLB, but I find Logos harder to navigate than Logos. I do appreciate how Logos Scripture references in other books in my library to my primary Bible.

@ecuador9911, which one is harder to use for you? Logos or BLB?

@@Motivationeer I’ve been using BLB for about 15 years, but Logos for only about 6 months, so I would say BLB is easier. However, I’ve created extensive notes in BLB, and I’ve asked them to be able to “lock” in the “verse” sequence in notes so I can explore my notes and surrounding notes, but after reviewing any note BLB reverts back to its default sequence.

Really glad you found it helpful. I'll be making more in 2024. BLB has really helped me find deeper insights into the Word.

This is a great question. None of the great Bible software tools ever integrate a useful note-taking system (beyond highlighting passages or writing floating-notes in the margin). So, I capture what I learn in a Word document (if it is a one-off study) or an Excel sheet or OneNote, ( if it is a multi-tab complex topic.) For example, I did a deep dive into the Kings of Israel and the Kings of Judah. That was way too complex to write up in a Word Doc. So I created a multi-tab Excel spreadsheet to gather all the info I learned. (I could have done the same thing with a OneNote). Contrast this to a study I did on "accept one another." I then file these Word docs and Excel sheets into my File Explorer within a folder called "Bible". One study I am doing called "Forgiveness and Reconciliation", I create another sub-folder within the Bible folder. Here I create multiple different Word docs, downloaded PDF's from the internet, images etc. Hope this helps.

You are most welcome. Glad you liked it.

Psalm 33:4!

You are most welcome, @kassiedoo. I'll be doing more in the future. It has really helped me tremendously. AND...it's FREE! How? Amazing.

I’m really glad you do. Thanks for the post.

Thank you much. I'm glad you like it.

Where is the prison ministry

@@Motivationeer Maryland

May God bless His work with the prisoners, through you!

Thanks @DottyGale8. I appreciate the reply. I want to do a whole series on this soon.

Me as well.

I only discovered (maybe three years ago) the Textus Receptus has approximately 2% more words than the original translations. From what I learned (taking the 26-week class from Dallas Theological Seminary on Textual Criticism), the additions were made because Erasmus was rushing his translations in chunks to the printer and they thought his marginal notes were also scripture. So, I agree.

Esv is from Nestle Aldrin, it twists Paul's letters into pretzels .

@rustneversleeps01, I think you mean Neslte-Aland, right? What I failed to mention in my previous response to @lambo58 was that the Nestle-Aland (which is what the Morphographical GNT is from) appears as the Greek text above the selected verse and Textus Receptus appears below the selected verse.

I tried this on my phone and it kept having trouble. It just shuts down the app. But on my computer the following works: "walk + in + the + light". Give this a try. Let me know if it works for you as it does for me. I use NASB and it returned only four verses. I then tried it with NIV and it came back with the same four verses.

@@Motivationeer Yes, you're right. On my desk top computer I get 8 scriptures with that exact phrase in the New Testament but on my iPhone, I get 33. Thanks a lot. I think that BLB needs to update for cell phones.

Yeah. When I try to search the BLB App using this logic, the app instantly closes. This happens every time for me. Not sure what it is. I may reach out to them.

Thanks for the comment, Glen. Please feel free to email me at shawn@motivationeer.com and let me know more about what you had in mind. I welcome all discussions about having a teacher cohort.

Yes, but it does have all of these: Acton, Bill Anderson, Robert Athanasius of Alexandria Bennett, Richard Bowman, Robert M. Brown, John Bunyan, John Burroughs, Jeremiah Calvin, John Chafer, Lewis Sperry Charles, Jr., H.B. Custance, Arthur Eastman, Mark Edersheim, Alfred Edwards, Jonathan Flavel, John Goodwin, Thomas Guzik, David Español Headley, Phineas Camp Henry, Matthew Hocking, David Hoekstra, Bob Ice, Thomas Inglis, Charles Jamieson, Fausset & Brown Kress Biblical Resources Lightfoot, Joseph Barber Luther, Martin MacArthur, John MacLaren, Alexander Marsh, F. E. McGee, J. Vernon Murray, Andrew Newton, Isaac Newton, Richard Pirolo, Neal Shirley, Dave Sibbes, Richard Smith, Chuck Smith, Don Spurgeon, Charles Haddon Stewart, Don Terasaka M.D., David Torrey, R. A. Vlach, Michael Walvoord, John Weld, H. Hastings Wesley, John Westerlund, Carl Whitefield, George ...which is very impressive...would you agree?

Not that I know of, no. It is a no -profit group who has done amazing work. I love the tool. Not sure how much development is going into it, however. I usually don’t take notes in the app, however. I would love improvement in that area. Overall, huge fan of BLB. Thanks for the comment!

It took me a while. This is why I made the video. I hope it helps.

It's actually very close. But now that you mention it, it would probably be good for me to do a video about the nuances of the cell phone. If I may provide the step in the meantime, here they are: - Any verse you want to dig into, just select it by tapping anywhere on the verse - A short text list will pop up with the following chocies: Interlinear/Concordance, Bible Comparison, Cross-References, Text Commentaries, Audio/Video and Dictionaries - From here, I use the first choice the most...the Intelinear. This is where you can break down the verse word-by-word Let me know if this helps...okay?

So sorry for the terribly late reply, @anilkarki5531. I'm embarrassed. "Strong's GH" is a short way to refer to a large book called "Strong's Exhaustive Concordance." It is a massive collection of every word from the Old and New Testement showing every word that appears in the Bible. The letters "G" and "H" represent the short way of saying "Greek" and "Hebrew". That's because the first section of this massive book is a collection of all the Hebrew words. The last section all the Greek words. Thanks for the question.

Thanks for the support, Lola.

I've heard Logos is also amazing, true.

It will be even more enticing when I show the features on their app. That video is coming soon. Thanks for the message @Boxer54

Each publishing company for their respective translation has their own selected concordance, from what I can tell. They do not all have Strong's. That is the great thing about the Blue Letter Bible; it has the Strong's concordance and it has the pronunciation of the original Greek or Hebrew word from the Strong's

I found a great page (outside teh BLB) that explains the timeline of His death, burial and resurrection. I hope this helps.

I do appreciate your thoughtful reply, @Renaudio. Thank you for taking the time to respond. BTW, it is called the Blue Letter Bible...not the Blue Line Bible...just to make sure credit is given. And I understand some of what you are saying. Although I am not a Greek scholar, I do know the Greek spelling of Jesus did not include a "J" but an "I". I am sure you also realize the Qumrān sect, a Jewish monastic group who felt compelled to preserve the scriptures (and who gave us the Dead Sea Scrolls) translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek approximately 300 B.C. -- I don;t think they did it because they hated the Jews. And, if I'm not mistaken, most of the Old Testament cross references we see in the New Testament were clearly taken from Septuagint (the Greek Old testament captured by the Qumrān people.) And I agree with you...I wuold love to see the Hebrew also captured in the BLB App, indeed. Thakns again.

When I see responses like this, though they add to the interest of a particular article or viewpoint, my devotions constantly point me back to God and away from man. So what I say is from a man; as are what others say... all from man. I have adopted a few guidelines for myself and keep them in front of me in the form of acronyms... PID and PYM (and I've not shared them with others because they require life and Spirit interpretation; otherwise they are just like the Bible... black print on white paper... objective, not necessarily, as viewed or read, quite blessed by God yet). So (and I'm way beyond my comfort zone in sharing this and realize that, the more I write, the more I may be breeding discontent... but I'll risk it this once), the PID stands for "Push It Deeper" (whatever the "it" is; black print?) and the PYM is something I actually "took" from a pastor because I needed to have something that I'd been "toying with", and practicing, in my own times with God's word, and stands for "Park Your Mind". I really do try to get stuff beyond my mind in the hopes that "it" (God's word) does not take root there and I characteristically mentally click the "Got It" button with my imaginary "mouse" (or the "OK" button with same), and move on before I have the inclination or the chance, to practice the PID thing mentioned above. Whew! What a weird sensation to finally put some words to these "things" I've been practicing! PID and PYM... fabulous for myself. I somehow recall that someone once said that "the mind is the Devil's playground." Yeah, I believe that's true. So, the Blue Letter Bible app and a lot of other digital content, while it has its place, will be adding to my mental resource (and, yes, I will look at and use it at some point in the near future, perhaps, even, today, after I finish this reply), but you can be sure that I am enjoying the PID and PYM process while using the App. Now, where does it go after PYM and PID? Hopefully, the "deeper" means that the "manna" goes to your human spirit that is now made alive by Christ's work on the Cross... atonement made, spirit made alive, new gifts of grace, new heart plus a bunch of Ephesians 2 gifts, and the indwelling Holy Spirit (preaching to the choir, no? No doubt.). Now what? Normally, you just wait and praise (another acronym here... PPWT&R... pray, praise, worship, thanksgiving & rejoicing). Pray that God blesses what you've turned over to Him and blesses it... even to the allowing of your mind to share some of what He shows you (gives you some understanding?). More likely though, much of what He shares with you is for you alone... to grow you and to bring you more into line with identification with Christ... something called, sanctification. Oh wait! I've gone way too far in my reply. All that stuff to say this... Scripture interprets Scripture and God gave us the Scripture and only He can grant understanding of it and, certainly, application of it. I know this is "preaching to the choir" stuff and I apologize. What I say usually turns to "gibberish" because I "shoot from the hip" on this stuff. I kinda don't know what I'm talking about half (or more) the time because I seldom re-read what I write. But I'll conclude by saying the I love the Lord... and I'm slowly learning to love what the "things" that He loves... His own word/Word, and people. 'Tis a long journey, and a slow one, for me. Lord bless all of you guys, and gals. -me

Dude, this is how Christians get a bad reputation with nonsense like this.