Enhancing Your Personal Bible Study with Olive Tree Bible Reader [T3]

In the past, most of my posts about using Olive Tree Bible Reader were really only beneficial to preachers. This post is one of those, though, which will benefit anyone who wants to study the Bible more (and better).
One of the things I really love about using Olive Tree Bible Reader is the ability that it gives me to organize my thoughts. You see, as a preacher, I can't just study for the sermon of the week. I have to grow in my own personal study, too. For that reason, I'm constantly attentive to what it is I'm finding and discovering as I read and study God's Word.

After all, you never know what might make a good sermon until you find it! But finding it is only half the battle. Organizing the thought in such a way as to remember it and be able to share it is the other half.

In the past I've tried using notebooks, note cards, and even a separate inexpensive wide-margin Bible devoted to scribbling down ideas as they hit me during my study. None of them really accomplished what I wanted them to. But Olive Tree shines in this regard.

Within the app, there are four ways to notate any given section of text. The following is how I use those features to enhance my own personal study and lesson preparation.

Highlights

I used to do a lot of highlighting in my Bible. In fact, I have an old Bible on the shelf (from when I was younger) where just about every square inch of the page in some books has some color of highlighter on it. There's a point at which it all runs together, and isn't helpful anymore. It can also make simply reading the text difficult.

In OTBR, you can highlight entire verses, or even specific words. Highlights of verses can be viewed in every translation you have installed, whereas highlighted words are translation specific. Also, OTBR will allow you to customize your "pack" of highlighters, down to the stroke size, color, and intensity.

I personally have a very simple system of highlighting, which consists of only four colors, each one relating to a main thought. Obviously, though, with an unlimited number of colors, shapes, and intensities, you can get as complex with your highlighting as you'd like. Another advantage of using OTBR for this is that you can do something you can't do with your paper Bible - turn the highlights off!

Notes

I have a really nice goat-skin Cambridge wide-margin NKJV. The reason I wanted it is so that I could write down my own commentary notes in my Bible, and have them available as I preach. There are a few downsides to this, though. For one, once it's written, it's written. There are some notes I'd phrase differently, or even strike out altogether, but I can't do that in my paper Bible. Also, my notes are tied to THAT Bible. If I lose it, or if it loses a battle with rain, fire, etc., I lose my precious notes. That's where the "notes" feature of OTBR steps in.

I use the "notes" feature to make my "margin notes," just like I would have in my wide-margin Bible. The nice thing is, that I can change, or even hide them if I want. I can also sync them to every other device I have which has Olive Tree installed, as well as keeping them backed up (and search-able) in Evernote.

I study hard for my notes, so I don't want to lose them. Olive Tree helps me keep up with them.

One other thing. I wrote a few weeks ago about using Olive Tree to preach from. You can bring in and organize notes in folders in Olive Tree without having to attach them to a specific verse. You can then view them in the split window, instead of view them as a "pop up" window next to a verse. I sometimes, though, will skip the importing of the outline, preach from memory, and simply tap my "margin notes" and use them just as I would in my paper Bible. It's completely up to you how or if you use it, but even if you preach from memory Olive Tree can enhance your study and delivery of lessons.

Bookmarks and Tags

I mentioned before that I used to try to use a notebook or note cards for keeping track of sermon ideas. Ironically, I could never keep track of the notes! Here's another place where OTBR has significantly improved my study.

I'll use the bookmarks and tags features to keep track of my ideas. If I come across a passage which would make a good sermon text, I'll use the bookmark and enter a title or keyword which jogs my memory. Or maybe I come across a verse which would make a good devotional thought; I can tag it with the tag "devotional thought," and then when I'm looking for something to use for a Wednesday night devo, I can search those tags for ideas. I can also tag or mark a passage I'd like to come back to and study further. You could even tag passages with a topic (e.g., "salvation" or "prayer") so that you can view any passages you've studied related to that topic. The possibilities are limitless.

Really, aside from the ability to save my notes in the cloud, the ability to bookmark and tag passages has been the next most useful and beneficial feature set to me in Olive Tree.

Enhance YOUR Study

Using an iPad as my Bible is not just about being able to use it to preach from. It's neat, but not all all there is too it. Technology affords us all the ability to be better Bible students; To find and discover things that would take hours, if not days, to find before.

I encourage you to use your iPad, Kindle Fire, or any other device you might have to enhance your study with an app like Olive Tree Bible Reader. Do it! I promise you won't regret it!

-Daniel