I received the NKJV Spirit-Filled Life Bible Bible for free as a member of the Thomas Nelson Bibles Blogger Program. I am providing an honest and unbiased review. Note: this review contains affiliate links.
Kingdom Equipping Through the Power of the Word
If there is one name that comes to my mind first when thinking about “Kingdom equipping teaching” through the power of God’s word, it’s Pastor Jack Hayford.
When I saw that Pastor Jack served as the executive editor on the Spirit-Filled Life Bible, I was excited to provide a review for my readers! Check out these 5 features of this Bible that can help Kingdom-equip your faith every day.
Table of Contents
Not Your Typical Study Bible
In most study Bibles, you’ll find hundreds or even thousands of study notes arranged beneath the text on each page of scripture, often verse by verse. This is helpful for understanding and applying God’s word to your every day life.
While you will find that resource with this Bible, you’re going to discover even more. Check out these Kingdom equipping, faith building tools!
Spirit-Filled Life Bible Resources
Kingdom Dynamics
One of the first stand-out features you will find in this Bible are Kingdom Dynamics. These are brief, in-depth articles that give attention to very specific truths found throughout scripture with topics like foundations of the Kingdom, spiritual foundations, unity, leadership and stewardship of life and resources.
Kingdom Dynamics are particularly powerful because they provide chain references of relevant verses and passages. Studying the Kingdom Dynamic articles and following the chain is simple, yet has a profound impact on your understanding and more importantly, application of God’s word.
Along with these, you have 7 in-depth articles towards the back of the Bible that teach on subjects like worship and intercession and the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit.
Word Wealth
Understanding key words and their meaning within the context of scripture is crucial to learning how to apply God’s word to your every day life. Within the Spirit-Filled Life Bible you will encounter more than 650 important words and terms explained in context and often with supporting verses.
Word Wealth is an important tool because learning the context of time, location and culture of the original text helps you to not simply understand the Bible, but to apply it in your life.
There’s also a Word Wealth index provided that shows all 650+ words with the original word transliterated and the scripture reference where you will find it.
Praying the Word
Psalm 119:105 tells us,
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
One spiritual discipline that gives you tremendous fruit in you life is learning to pray through scripture. The Praying the Word resource in this Bible provides dozens of prayers adapted from verses and an index of where you’ll find each one.
The blessing in this is that you will find help to connect with God through His word to apply to all kinds of life circumstances and personal needs.
Book Introductions
Every book in the Spirit-Filled Life Bible begins with a thorough book introduction. In case you don’t know, I’m a huge fan of book introductions in study Bibles, and when I say these are thorough, I am not kidding!
Each introduction gives you the basics that you’d expect like author, date written, background, content, and an outline summarizing the chapters.
However, the Spirit-Filled Life Bible goes beyond and also provides personal application, how Christ is revealed in each book, and where you’ll find the Holy Spirit at work. These are important because one main purpose of reading God’s word is to learn how it will change your life every day. This study Bible scores highly on that!
Truth in Action
At last… here is my favorite Spirit-Filled Life Bible resource!
Truth in Action is what I would consider the most practical tool in this study Bible. What you will find at the end of each book is a very readable chart giving you a summary of truth found in each book along with action steps that are practical and easy to follow and apply.
While this tool will give you realistic ways to apply the truth of God’s word to your life, it can also be used in small group settings to help equip others as well.
In fact, this is exactly how I have used Truth in Action while leading high school youth through a study of Ezekiel!
Who Would Benefit Most from the Spirit-Filled Life Bible?
After using this Bible for a few months in a variety of applications and contexts ranging from personal use and family discussion to teaching small groups, I can say with certainty that any follower of Jesus would find great benefits in using the Spirit-Filled Life Bible.
Not only believers, but even those who do not know Christ could find authentic, practical scripture-truth because all of the extensive tools, features and benefits are presented to teach and honor God’s word rather than that of the editors and contributors.
The Spirit-Filled Life Bible is one resource that I will continue using and recommend for anyone who desires to drink more deeply from the well of scripture!
