Ray of Sunshine. art

This installment of Bible Buddy is all about breaking down the books of the Bible into a guide you can quickly reference. This way you have all the basic information for each book of the Bible at your finger tips and neatly stored in your Bible Buddy for quick reference. This will assist you in your Bible studies as you can write down all your important thoughts and references for each book. Maybe you studied Ruth one month and come across another study a few months later and need a quick refresher, turn to your Ruth section and there ya go, all your key notes! In the next section we will break down the 1/2 sheet pages that I created and go through ideas of how to fill out each section.

The Pages

Let’s take a closer look at one of the pages and talk through some ideas for how to use them. Each page starts with the title of the book. There is some space to the right of the title where you can add any extra information that you would like, such as a brief highlighting guide for that chapter or write out your favorite verse from that chapter.

The date section is meant to record when this book was recorded. A study Bible or Google search generally has the answer to this question. It is not always known the precise date but getting a general idea will help you in the section later on: Historical Context as well as the Audience. While the Bible is extremely applicable to our daily lives, it is important to note when the book was recorded as it was written to those people in that time as well.

The next section is for the author of the book. We know that all scripture was given to us by God however, a person would be responsible for recording that book. Another way we view authorship is through the gospels and a common phrase used is the gospel according to John, according to Mark, ect… In this section you can record who wrote that book. Sometimes this information is known and sometimes people have different opinions on who recorded that book. This information can be found in a study Bible or in a commentary of your choosing. Commentaries can be found for free through the Blue Letter Bible app or website. One word of caution is to remember that all commentaries are written by man and so they are a human opinion and not necessarily fact.

The audience section is part of understanding the context. A question to ask yourself is who was this written to? An example is how in Corinthians we know that Paul is writing to the church in Corinth. Knowing who was originally receiving this book is helpful to our greater understanding of the book as a whole.

Speaking of a greater understanding, the Historical Context section is the perfect time to do your own research regarding the time and place and gain a robust understanding of the context of the book. Using your study Bibles and commentary are great tools for this. Also once you have the date range for the book, you are able to research history archives to get an understanding of what was going on in that time period. This adds a rich layer of understanding to your reading of the Bible. You can go way in depth in this section in your own journal or study and then take a quick summary for your Bible Buddy pages to reference.

Key Verses is meant to jot down the addresses of verses that you either find helpful in your understanding of the book, provide application, are ones you want to memorize, ones that stand out to you, or a combination of all these. There is much room here to record what fits your needs.

The next section is for Key Takeaways. These are the things you want to remember and what speaks as an important message from the book. It could even be something new that you learned as you studied the book.

The final box is for the Themes. Themes are the main points of each book. You can determine themes for yourself or find them listed in a study Bible or commentary. Having general themes listed like this can help you when you know you want to study a topic but are unsure which books support that topic. A simple example of this could be creation as to be found in Genesis.

Now What?

So, I spent a lot of time explaining my pages and if you’ve made it this far you may be thinking, “cool, now what do I do cause I don’t have these sheets and don’t know how or want to make my own?” Well below you will find a downloadable PDF file. Of course as it is here it is free to download however, if you wish, please consider making a “donation.” This allows me to continue to make these printables and share them here with you all! Some notes regarding printing: I designed this file in the A5 format to fit directly into my Bible Buddy and to print it on the pre-punched paper (see Bible Buddy post for a link to the paper). If you wish to print this letter sized, just adjust your printer settings to fit to page or fill page.

The Download

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Thank you for taking the time to read this post! I hope that you have found it helpful and are inspired to use these sheets or create your own to aid in your Bible study. Our time spent in the word is so important and it is my goal to provide you all with the tools to do so! Please leave a comment if you have any questions or ideas for these pages. If you do use them please share how you are on Instagram with the hashtag #BibleBuddy and #rayofsunshineart.