Don't Neglect THIS When Studying Your Bible! - Understanding Bible Genres
Mentor Mama:
Today we are going to be talking about how understanding Bible genres transforms Bible study. A lot of times we treat Scripture like it's all same from Genesis to Revelation, and while it's true that the Bible is unified, it's also very diverse. Our guest today, Kristie Anyabwile, the author of the book, "Literarily," will be talking about how the Bible can be grouped according to key categories called, genres, that help us read and properly interpret the Scriptures.
(Sponsor - Faithful Counseling)
Mentor Mama:
Kristie Anyabwile is editor of, "His Testimonies, My Heritage: Women of Color on the Word of God." She is the Associate Director of Women's Workshops for the Charles Simeon Trust, and is a founding member of The Pelican Project. She has written contributions to, "Held: 31 Biblical Reflections on God's Comfort and Care in the Sorrow of Miscarriage, ESV Women's Devotional Bible; Word-Filled Women's Ministry: Loving and Serving the Church; Women on Life: A Call to Love the Unborn, Unloved and Neglected; and Hospitality Matters: Reviving an Ancient Practice for Modern Missions." Her work can also be found at The Front Porch, The Gospel Coalition, Desiring God, Christianity Today, and Revive Our Hearts. She is a pastor's wife and has been married almost 30 years and they have three children. Please welcome Kristie.
Kristie Anyabwile:
Thank you so much, Ellen.
Mentor Mama:
It's so nice to have you here.
Kristie Anyabwile:
It's great to be here.
Mentor Mama:
I'm super excited about your book because here at Coffee and Bible Time, as I mentioned, our goal is to help people delight in God's Word, and truly, that is what your book is helping people do.
Kristie Anyabwile:
I pray so!
Mentor Mama:
Let's start out with the title of your book, why the title, "Literarily"?
Kristie Anyabwile:
I know it's a mouthful! It's a clunky word, but I think it's also a concise word. And so, (the title) "Literarily," came about because I really wanted to write a book that helped people to study the Bible based on the literary genres of Scripture, and I say literary genres because a genre is just a category, it's how we categorize certain things. And the Bible is categorized according to certain types of literature, and so, the first five books are the law books. That is the genre, that's the category. So even though a lot of the material in the law books are sort of story or narrative in nature, literarily the function is for us to understand God's instructions, God's law. As he initially handed it down to his people. Then we have the Old Testament narratives, which are stories, they're historical, but they're stories, and those narratives are painting a picture for us of how people responded to God's law, how they responded to his instructions and so forth and so on. We have other genres as well; we have the poetry books, like the Psalms, we have the wisdom books like, Proverbs, we have the prophets, and in each of those genres, again, I think there are certain literary characteristics that typify each of those genres, even when we get to the new Testament and we talk about the Gospels, or we talk about Epistles, or even talking about apocalyptic literature. There are literary features that typify those books that I try to highlight. And I try to just generally explain in a way that helps people understand the whole genre and even a particular passage within that genre that someone might be studying. So hence the title, "Literarily," wanting to study the Bible, literarily according to the literary genres of Scripture. We tried other titles, we tried, but you know, sometimes you can explain something and you can use a lot of words to explain something, or you can use the actual word, and so, the word is the explanation, and so, we tried out a couple other titles, but "Literarily," seems to fit. It's the most concise way to describe what the content of the book is.
Mentor Mama:
It sounds so similar to, literally. How would you say literally, the word, is different than the title of your book, "Literarily?"
Kristie Anyabwile:
A lot of people, when you look at it, we're so accustomed to saying, literally, so when you look at it, you kind of want to say literally, because it's so close, but on that note, lots of people have this question when they study the Bible. How do you actually study it? Should you study the Bible literally? Is it meant to be read literally? And so this kind of goes back to your initial question, in that, when people ask that question, how do I study the Bible? Is it to be taken literally, and to a large extent it's because we don't have a good handle grasp of literary genre. And so for me, I always say that every book of the Bible can be read literarily according to its literary genre. And as we read it literarily, then it will dictate whether or not a particular passage should be read literally. And so, for example, if you're in the law and you're reading various laws, you're reading things about, men not cutting beards, and tattoos, and those kinds of things, well, if you read those, literally, you may come away with an application that may not be the primary intent of that particular passage. But if we understand that the law books where Leviticus and a lot of those kind of laws, laws that we get tripped up about; food laws, and clothing, and this and that, it's within the law and the law is giving us instruction for how God expects his people to live, and in Leviticus, for example, a big overarching theme throughout the book is Holiness. God is Holy and God's expectation for his people to be Holy. So when you come across a verse that talks about, beards, or silk versus cotton clothing, or tattoos, and those kinds of things, the intent of those passages isn't necessarily to tell us whether or not we should wear a tattoo or whether or not a man should have a beard, the intent of those passages is to help us to understand that God expects his people to be Holy. He expects them to be distinct from the people around them. And so at that time, if the pagan nations around were nations in which the wearing of a beard indicated something that would be contrary to God's Holiness and his expectation of his people to be Holy, then that's where a law like that would come from. Then how do we apply that today? Do we say men shouldn't wear beards? Of course not, but we do say men and women should carry themselves in a way that is very distinct from the world. We shouldn't be confused in any aspect from what we wear, to how we speak, to how we carry ourselves, or where we go. We should be marked as distinct people who are God's treasured possession. So I think reading it literarily, understanding the law, for example, dictates to us whether or not we should read a particular passage, literally. That's just one example, but there are a ton more examples that we can point to in the Scriptures that help us with this, the Proverbs are another one, right? People are tempted to take proverbial literature, as promises, and that's not really the function of the Proverbs. And so, I think just being careful with that, of knowing what the literary genre is doing and that'll dictate whether or not we read it literally.
Mentor Mama:
Yes, and that's just so critical and I'm so encouraged for those who are reading this today and you don't have this background yet, Kristie's book actually will go through every single genre and help you learn what the correct interpretation is. So let's go back a little bit. Where did you get this idea for this book?
Kristie Anyabwile:
I've been, and probably a lot of your readers, too, have been teaching and studying the Bible for a long time. One of the things that I started to grow in is just this understanding of how impactful understanding genre is to, say my, Inductive Bible study. And so when I first learned the inductive method, it was on a very general, generic basis. And so, I wasn't taught how to observe the text from the standpoint of, this is history or this is narrative, or how to observe the text from the standpoint that this a prophet who is speaking God's word. I just had a blanket understanding. So I read every passage of Scripture the same way. What does it say? What does it mean? What does it mean to me? Well, I can't really have a great handle on what it means if my observations aren't rooted the right way. And so, I just was growing in that and was excited about it, so I just started incorporating these ideas into my own study personally, but also in discipling other women in my local church. And so, I was reading through the books of Ruth and Esther with women in my church, one lady, we were going through Ruth, another lady, we were going through Esther, it just happened that way, but they're both narratives, historical narratives, beautiful books. And with one lady in particular, we're going through Ruth and she has a theater background, and so, thinking about story, thinking about plot, thinking about narrative, thinking about tension within a story and that climactic moment that we all wait for when we're reading a book, or when we're watching a television show, we were just really enjoying walking through Ruth looking for some of the plot element within each chapter, and so, as we were going through it, she just said to me, she's like, oh man, this is so great. She's like, everybody should study the Bible this way. Have you ever thought about writing a book to help people study the Bible this way? And I was like, huh, you know, that's actually a great idea. So yeah, the Lord used her in just my time working with women through the genre studies as a way to bring the idea about, and even in my small group study in my local church, we were going through Isaiah and as we, kind of, introduced this big 66 chapter, huge book, it was mind-blowing to me when I first understood it and mind-blowing to the women in my Bible study to know that most of the book of Isaiah it is prophecy, but most of it is written in poetic language. So if you look in your Bible at the Book of Isaiah, very little narrative is included in that book. Most of it is poetic, and what I mean by poetic, is that it is organized, it's laid out, according to Hebrew poetry, meaning parallel lines are very important. So, lines go together in most of the chapters of the Book of Isaiah, and how you group those lines together helps you to see what the main sections are, what the main topics or themes are, and helps you to put the book together to make sense of it. Also knowing that it's poetic, then you understand that lots of things are symbolic, lots of imagery, right? And those images are meant to communicate God's message to us in a unique way. And that's important for a prophet because remember God's word was very much an oral tradition, and so, it was meant for people to hear it and for people to be able to recite it later. That was another, kind of, key moment where women were like, whoa, we never knew this, and so then it was fun to go through the Book of Isaiah and to look for the parallelism, look for the types of parallelism within each chapter that we were studying and to put them together to figure out what the main sections and themes and topics and the main point of each of our passages were. So those are the kinds of things that really led me to think about writing this particular book.
Mentor Mama:
Yes, I can see keeping this book tucked inside your Bible and anytime you start a new book, referencing back just to, sort of, ground yourself before you even dig in.
Mentor Mama:
Who is this book for, would you say, and how is it meant to be used?
Kristie Anyabwile:
What you said was perfect. Whether you're a seasoned Bible student, or whether you are just starting out as a student of God's Word, and we are all students, right? We're all disciples, students of God's Word. So in some aspect everybody's a student, but whether you're seasoned or whether you're just starting out, this book is for you, because like you said, it can really serve as a reference guide. So you don't necessarily have to read the book. It's great to read straight through from beginning to end, there is a cohesiveness to the book, and there are study questions at the end of most of the chapters to, kind of, give you some ways to practice what you're learning in each chapter, so you can read it straight through, or you can say, hey, I'm about to study Isaiah, or I'm about to study an Epistle, 1 John, and I just want to know, how do I get into it? What are some things I should be looking for? You know, Epistles, you need to look for the argument that the author is making. How do I do that in Romans? And so, if you just turn to the chapter that talks about Epistles, you can get an overview and have some pointers about, okay, what are some things that I need to be looking for as I approach this particular book? Or, maybe you're in a passage and you're like, hmm, this passage, it's in the law, but it's actually a narrative story. Well, you can just go to the chapter that talks about narratives and at least have an idea of, how do I work out the plot of this story within the context of the greater genre of the law? And so, you can use it very much as a reference guide in that sense, or you can read it straight through and just have a broad overview of the cohesiveness of the Bible and how the genres work together to tell God's Redemptive story. So, yes, I think it would definitely be great for that. I've talked to people who are using it in their teen-age youth group, who are using it for their women's Bible study, who are using it for even their teaching cohort, I have a few ladies who have asked me to pop on and greet their students in their classes for their teaching cohorts and things like that, so I do think there's a broad application of it, but for sure people who want to get a handle on the genres of Scripture, what they are and how to use them, that is who this book is for.
Mentor Mama:
Well in your book, you provide an overview of the primary genres and Scripture. Walk us through what are those main genres?
Kristie Anyabwile:
I talked a little bit about it, but I'll give a brief overview again. So remember I said that the first five books are the, we call that the Pentateuch, those are the law books, and that's God's instructions. Who God is, what he expects of his people, how he expects them to live. So the law doesn't mean like rules, kind of the way we think about rules, the word, Torah literally means instruction, it's teaching. And so, that's the beginning, where God is just saying, here it is, this is who I am, and this is who I expect you to be. Then you get the next set of books. So that's Genesis through Deuteronomy. Then you get Joshua through Esther, and those are the Old Testament narratives, narratives are stories, but in the Bible, these narratives aren't like made up stories, they're not like allegories, they're actual historical fact. So they're often called historical narratives and these stories paint for us a picture of how God's people responded to his instructions. And so we see Joshua, we see the waywardness of what happened in the Judges and how everyone did what was right in their own eyes. So was that in accordance with God's instructions? No, but it was a sinful unrighteous response to God's instructions. So we see that in the narratives. Then we get to the poetic books, like the Psalms primarily, and these are the prayer books and the song books of God's people and it's another way of seeing how God's people respond to his instruction, but how they respond to God's instruction in worship, in prayer, in lament, in Thanksgiving, in hardship, in celebration, in these other kind of areas of life, it is another expression of how God's people respond to his instructions, but it's in a poetic way. The wisdom literature, that's like Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, they're written in the way of basically helping us to know how to live wisely under God's instructions and so, Job, for example, how to live wisely in the midst of suffering. Song of Solomon, how to live wisely in romantic relationships, and on and on and on in the wisdom literature, and then we move on to the Prophets. So the Prophets is how God's Prophets are spokespersons and they're people who are speaking God's Word to God's people. And so remember in the narratives, people go crazy, they don't respond, I mean, some do. Some people respond well and they respond in obedience and in worship to God, but in a large measure, they do not. And so the Prophets are really reminding God's people of his instructions and saying, these are the consequences if you stray away and these are the blessings and rewards if you continue to follow and live under God's instructions. And then we move forward into the Gospels and that is God's instructions embodied in the person of Jesus Christ. The only one who perfectly obeyed every law and instruction of God and who gave his life so that we, who can't live in perfect obedience to God's law, can still have a right relationship with God. And so the Gospels are painting for us, the person and work, the life and the message of Jesus who embodies the law of God. And then we have the church and the Epistles. The Epistles are just letters written to churches, and so the Epistles are painting for us God's instructions for the church now, so in light of Jesus' coming death, Resurrection, Ascension, how does God expect the church to live under his instructions? And then we have the Apocalyptic literature. So we got a little dip in the Old Testament, a little dip in the New with Apocalyptic. Daniel is our primary book that is Apocalyptic in the Old Testament. Apocalyptic literature is sprinkled throughout Scriptures, but these are, kind of, like the main books. There's Daniel in the Old Testament and, of course, Revelation in the New and in the Apocalyptic literature that is painting for us a picture of God's instructions finally fulfilled and how one day we will get to live in full obedience to God's instructions with him forever. So it's kind of the consummation, the fulfillment, of all of God's law and our ability to now live fully and freely under the instruction of the Lord. And so those are the genres and if you look at them all together, they really do show us the full Redemptive history and the full Redemptive plan of God throughout the Bible and, of course, all of that is pointing us to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, right? And so in the Old Testament, we see the Law and the Narratives and the Wisdom and the Poetry and the Prophets pointing to Jesus. And then in the New Testament, we see the Gospels and the Epistles, and even Revelation, kind of, showing us the other side of how we live in light of Christ coming under God's instructions. So there you go, those are the genres.
Mentor Mama:
Phenomenal! Hopefully that just really peaks your interest for wanting to learn more in each of those genres. Kristie goes in much deeper into the book itself. Would you say Kristie, there's a particular genre that's harder to grasp than others?
Kristie Anyabwile:
I would say, most people would say, that Apocalyptic literature is the hardest to grasp, mostly because it's probably the one genre where there are the most diverse perspectives on how to interpret it. But I would say if you really take your time and work your way through Apocalyptic, everything is symbolic. There's lots of imagery, that is true, but if you really take your time and work through it, it's such a beautiful book that helps us to see where all of history is headed and where we are headed and it's very worshipful. There are songs, there's prayers, it's just a beautiful book. So it is probably one of the harder ones to grasp, but it's also a very beautiful book that I think is worth taking some time to go really slowly and working your way through it. So I would start in Daniel, as a matter of fact, because Daniel is kind of setting the groundwork. The first half of Daniel is very much narrative. The second half of Daniel is more the Apocalyptic side and I think it'll give you a good foundation, so that when you get to Revelation, Revelation references Daniel, a lot. Revelation references a lot of the Bible a lot, but I think if you start in Daniel, it'll kind of dip your toes in a little bit and prepare you for being able to study Revelation.
Mentor Mama:
Yes, I know for me personally, one of the parts I find so intriguing about Revelation is just the references to the Throne Room of God and I try to use that as I prepare myself in prayer and remembering that I'm standing before God's Thrown and it really gives you, sort of a visual image of what that's like and the glory and the majesty is beyond the sounds, like all of your senses are aroused in that experience.
Kristie Anyabwile:
That is so true. It is a very experiential book and very worshipful. The other cool thing about the Book of Revelation is, it says it's a letter, but it's also a lot of different things that it says about itself, so if you open the beginning of the Book of Revelation, it calls itself a Prophecy in verse three, blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this Prophecy and it's written as a letter. So in verse four, it says, John to the seven churches that are in Asia. And so it's written very much in the form of a letter. It is Apocalyptic so it really has these high imagery and pictures of the end and those kinds of things and there's stories, there are Narratives in there. So it's like a full picture of so many of the genres, there's poetry, there's so many things within the Book of Revelation that it really is just a beautiful book. So I would encourage you to flip over into "Literarily," and read the chapter on Apocalyptic genre and then dip your toe into Revelation.
Mentor Mama:
Do you have any specific tips when it comes to studying a book of the Bible that has different elements or genres within one book, are those as easy to find and draw out.
Kristie Anyabwile:
That's a great question. For example, in the book of Daniel, again, the first half of it is very much narrative, so I would read it like a narrative; like a story. So if you flip to the chapter in "Literarily," that talks about narratives, they're primarily, as far as the literary genre, I focus more so on the Old Testament narratives, but you can use the same formula in terms of following a plot in just about any narrative story, wherever you find it in Scripture, and so, basically throughout the Bible, you'll find basically three text types. You'll find narratives which is your stories, you'll find poetry, and you'll find discourse - speeches or sermons, even the letters. And so those are the three main types of texts that you'll find in the Scriptures and so, if you go to a book like Daniel and you start reading the narrative passages, then just study it like a narrative and find the plot. If you later on in Daniel, when you get to around, chapter seven or so, there are some poetic sections in there, so read it just like you would read poetry and then when you get to apocalyptic sections, you study in that way, it also gives you some handles about how to organize or how to structure the book as a whole and then really pay attention when the text type changes, so if you're in Genesis and then all of a sudden you come up onto Miriam's song or Moses' song, okay, boom, that is something you really want to pay attention to and so, there's something unique in terms of the message that God is giving to his people in that song or poem or prayer that we want to pay attention to, so that's what I would say.
Mentor Mama:
Yes, that's awesome.
Mentor Mama:
Your book kind of reminds me of going back to English class, having flashbacks. Your book provides a lot of literary terminology. How can someone without literature background benefit from this book?
Kristie Anyabwile:
I would say, join me. I do not have a literature background so I really have had to study, learn, relearn, go back to my grammar school memories and just remind myself of some of these things. Some of it is really intuitive. So if we think about, again, a story, we understand story and so, some of it is just giving terminology to things that we know. We understand metaphors, so if I say, oh boy, that workout was a bear, you know that I'm using the term in a metaphoric sense. Or if I say, it was as cold as a block of ice, you know that's a simile. We use this language all the time, but we don't necessarily always have the terminology to go with it, so in "Literarily," I try to define terms and provide examples that would be accessible and easy for us to relate to. I try not to overdo it, but I do think it's important to know when you come up upon those elements in the Bible to know what it is and to know how it's used and to know, for example, that again, that helps you to know whether or not I'm supposed to read this literally or not. If I come upon a metaphor, then it's obvious, it's not meant to be taken literally it's figurative language, so those are the two poles; you can read literally or you can read figuratively. A metaphor is figurative language, for example, so I would say someone who does not have a literature background, don't worry about it, I don't either, but in the book, I try to give examples and give definitions for things that would help people follow along. And again, my goal is to provide these tools, these tips, these skills, as a way to reduce some of the friction that we sometimes have when we come to Scripture so that when we read in Song of Solomon that your teeth are like sheep's wool or something like that, we have a way to understand what the author might be trying to picture for us in that. We won't be insulted if our husbands tries to echo the words of Song of Solomon to us. That is meant to be endearing, for example. So, the goal is to reduce some of that friction so that when we open the pages of Scripture we can really commune with the Lord, that we can have sweet fellowship in him, that we don't stumble as much on, oh, no, how do I read this? I read all the words, but I have no idea what this means or what to do with it, but we have these tools that will ease us into the Word so that we can just have sweet fellowship and communion with the Lord. That's the goal. It's not really to teach us grammar or to help us have a better literary background. It's not really to give us academic or intellectual learning. It really is to help us engage more freely and fully with the Lord, our God, that's the goal.
Mentor Mama:
Yes, and in all your years of doing this, would you say over time, this process that you're talking about will really start to come much more naturally and you really can embrace Scripture more wholeheartedly?
Kristie Anyabwile:
Yeah, it does because before I might read a song and be like, oh my gosh, I really have no idea what this means, but now I know what to look for. I'm like, okay, back up, Kristie, the lines are parallel, which lines go together? How do they fit together? Are they saying the same thing? Are they saying opposite things? Is one thought extending the thought of another? How does it package together? Where does this line of thinking begin and end? So now I can open a song and I'm like, okay, back up, these are the things that you need to be looking for, and it really helps me to just be able to engage with God more freely and fully. So, I have found it helpful.
Mentor Mama:
That's so beautiful and I just know our readers are going to be transformed through this process. What was the hardest part of writing this book for you?
Kristie Anyabwile:
There were a lot of hard parts. Writing itself is hard. I think one of the hard things was keeping it succinct and providing enough information to help people move along in the Scriptures, but not so much that people would be overwhelmed when they read it. Just in terms of what I was trying to do with the book, that was the hardest part. I literally, barely scratched the surface on some of these concepts, so when you talk about narratives, I mean, there's all kinds of narratives. We can talk about tragedies. We can talk about hero stories. We can talk about comedies, we can talk about so many other sub genres within each genre that we could focus on. I really just had to try to make it succinct, give enough so that people could get into it, but not so much that's it like, oh my gosh, this is way too much. So, in terms of what I was trying to do, I would say that was probably the hardest part. So that in terms of what I was trying to do, that was hard. In terms of the writing process, I think the hard part was, of course, finding the time and really staying focused and prayerful throughout. It's so easy, whether you're writing, whether you're studying God's word, whatever we're doing in life, it's so easy to live life with self-effort, and to do things in our own strength and to not rely on the Lord and to work and labor independent of him, so that's just a constant struggle too, of my own heart, as I'm trying to write and pull these ideas together in a way that would be helpful to people, is guarding my own heart of, okay, Kristie, step back, there's a Holy Spirit that needs to be active here and that's who you need to be relying on in this process of writing.
Mentor Mama:
Yes, amen to that. We all desperately need to keep that in mind. As we wrap up the interview here, are there any parting words of encouragement that you would have for people that may be interested in picking up this book?
Kristie Anyabwile:
Words of encouragement, I would say, all of God's Word is for all of God's people and regardless of whether you are a new student of the Word or seasoned student of the Word, I would just encourage you to spend some time in God's word on a daily basis and honestly, I think this tool is helpful, but you don't have to use "Literarily," you don't have to use any of these tools. If you open the book with a heart that is ready to receive from the Lord, I trust the work of the Holy Spirit in that he doesn't need me. He doesn't need this book. He doesn't need any of these tools. He can work through his Word. Do these things help? Yes, of course they help. Did God have intention for these things? Yes, I mean, he put them in there, so he means for us to use these kinds of tools to aid us in our understanding, but I also trust the work of the Holy Spirit that he moves and he acts and he illuminates God's Word to us, and so, my encouragement would be whether you use "Literarily," or some other tool, just prayerfully open the book with a heart and a mind to receive from the Lord, to commune with the Lord, with a desire to understand him better and to love him more deeply. That would be my encouragement to leave with you all.
Mentor Mama:
Thank you so much, Kristie. This has been such great insight, I know for myself and for the folks that are reading this. How can people find out more information about you?
Kristie Anyabwile:
They can go to my website, my first name, last name.com. Good luck spelling it! It's kristieanyabwile.com. I also hang out a lot on Instagram, so you can always find me there and I'm on the other socials, but probably Instagram more than most. I would love to connect with you, so feel free to hit me up on Instagram or send me a message through the website. I would love that.
Mentor Mama:
Awesome, and we will have all of your contact information including links to your book in our blog. Before we go, I just want to ask you some of our favorite Bible study tool questions. What Bible do you use and what translation is it?
Kristie Anyabwile:
I have in front of me as we're speaking my ESV Large Print Bible, some of y'all will get there! I really love it, it's a soft-back leather book and this is my daily Bible that I read and I mark up, but I also use the Logos Software on a daily basis, and there I use my use my ESV, but I also use the CSB a lot in my study, so those are my primary Bibles that I would use. There's like tons of Bibles on Logos, but I primarily would use CSB and ESV.
Mentor Mama:
Both great translations. Do you have any favorite journaling supplies or anything that you use to enhance your Bible study experience?
Kristie Anyabwile:
Yes. I don't know the proper word, but I consider myself to be a pen-aholic. Is that such a thing? What do you call someone who loves pens?
Mentor Mama:
I think we are too, yes.
Kristie Anyabwile:
Yeah, someone who loves pens. I don't know what you call that, but that is me. I love a nice writing pen. I must have left my writing pen in another room, but I like pens that have a little bit of weight. I'm holding up kind of a medium point, ballpoint pen. I like ballpoint pens to write with. I do write with, kind of, more of the gel pen sometimes, but I don't know, it's something about the feel of a nice ballpoint pen. I also have my handy-dandy journal. I love a soft journal, a lined journal. Then I also have a journal called, Passion Planner, so I have a planner that is a Passion Planner, but they also have journals to give you way to, kind of, brain dump and if you like hand- lettering, if you like, just kind of getting things out of your head that you're thinking about, that's not so much journaling, but just doodling, I use that. So, those are my journaling, pen resources, and then then I have a whole stack of colored pens and markers and highlighters and all those kinds of things. I love those.
Mentor Mama:
We do too! I love that. We will put links to Kristie's favorites in the blog. I know you mentioned the Logos website, which is an awesome tool, do you have any other favorite apps or websites for Bible study tools?
Kristie Anyabwile:
Mostly, I use my Logos software, but if I'm just going to do a quick search or if I'm out and about and I'm looking for something, I use biblehub.com. That's a go-to. I love it and it's free. You can do parallel Bibles, you can do commentaries, you can do word studies, you can do lexicons. There's tons of things on biblehub.com. Then my oldie, goldie is the Olive Tree, some people have that software. Then, I think it's just called Bible on my phone, it is the YouVersion App. So, I have the YouVersion App on my phone as well, so those are probably my daily go-to's, there's so many more though. I love my Day-by-Day Chronological Bible, that's amazing. It's so good. It has study questions in it and I super love that Bible a lot. I love my She Reads Truth Study Bible, big study Bible. I love my Gospel Transformation Study Bible. Oh, we're talking about literarily, The Literary Study Bible by Dr. Leland Ryken, that is definitely a must.
Mentor Mama:
That's one I haven't heard of, but I'll make sure to put that one in the blog, also.
Kristie Anyabwile:
The Literary Study Bible is amazing, I love it, and then of course, the NIV Inductive Study Bible, there's so many! I kind of use those more sporadically when I'm looking for specific things, but if you want another kind of guide to help you study God's Word, Inductive Study Bible is really, really helpful. So there are tons of resources out there.
Mentor Mama:
There are!
Kristie Anyabwile:
This could be a whole other conversation.
Mentor Mama:
That could be a whole other conversation. I know our readers can't see you, Kristie, but I can, and behind her are bookshelves full of books, so I definitely could be here all day. Well, Kristie, thank you so much for being here today and sharing your insights. It really will help people's understanding of how Bible genres can transform your Bible study experience and for our readers pick up a copy of Kristie's book, "Literarily." You will find the link throughout our blog post and please share your comments with us about this podcast while you're on the blog. Lastly, head over to the Coffee and Bible Time website for our Prayer Journals that will help guide and document your prayer life at coffeeandbibletime.com. Thank you so much for joining us today. We love you all and have a blessed day.