I am totally psyched up about a Bible study tool I purchased this weekend. I not only purchased it for me, but I purchased one for each of my kids as well. I have no doubt this tool is going to take my personal study and my family study to the next level. I couldn’t wait to get back here and share this with you. The tool is called the Journible™.
What is a Journible™?
The Journible™ is a tool created by Rob Wynalda as part of “The 17:18 Series” and published by Reformation Heritage Books. It’s greatness completely rests in its simplicity. It’s a journal. But not just any journal. It is a journal inspired by Deuteronomy 17:18-20.
“And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.”
Every king was supposed to handwrite his very own copy of God’s law. You can imagine how that might help him actually remember God’s will and keep it.
According to Revelation 1:6, Jesus has made us “kings and priests to His God and Father” (NKJV). If we are kings under God’s new covenant, perhaps following God’s law for the kings of the Old Covenant is pretty good advice for us. Why not handwrite our own copy of God’s Word?
Why Would I Ever Want to Write My Own Copy of the Bible?
I know what you are thinking, that will take for ever. Actually, if you copied one chapter of the Bible every week day, it would take about 4 1/2 years. Given sick days and vacations, and maybe taking a few extra days to copy Psalm 119, you can have this done in about 5 years. But that is a lot of time. You are probably looking at 1200 hours of work.
Don’t think of it as 1200 hours of work to accomplish the goal of handwriting your own copy of the Bible. Think of it as simply taking time each day in God’s word to really think about it and retain it. You’re not trying to get a job done in a certain amount of time. You are just trying to take each day to grow a little closer to God.
Handwriting the Bible will help you remember and retain the meaning, if not the very words. It will cause you to slow down and think about what you are reading. It will keep you from scanning the text just to get through the day’s reading.
Additionally, you will have a keepsake and legacy for your family. This is especially great because, as you see in the picture above, the left hand side of each page opening is actually a place for taking your own notes. What a great gift to hand to your kids some day. Here is a copy of the scriptures complete with your notes and what the text taught you and meant to you.
Why Journible™?
At this point, you might be saying, “I love this idea, but I’m just going to go get a notebook and do this myself.” And you can. That may be the thing for you to do. However, there are a some reasons to go ahead and buy the Journible™.
1. It is very durable. Lot’s of notebooks have cheap bindings and easily ripped pages when they are used as much as you are going to use the Journible™. These are quality bound books that will last for a long time and endure a lot of use.
2. Better paper. The paper is thicker in the Journible™ than in most notebooks, which makes them last longer.
3. Will look good on the shelf. This is the real reason I took the plunge instead of just getting a notebook. The nice binding will look great on the bookshelf as you build your own handwritten Bible library. You’ll have a shelf of easily identifiable books instead of some ring bound notebooks or composition books shoved onto the shelf somewhere.
4. Enough space. If you just buy a notebook, you never know how much you’ll actually fit into that notebook. For instance, you may have a 150 page notebook and by the time you get to Proverbs 23 discover you actually need 175 pages to fit the whole book in. Wynalda has actually spaced out the verse numbers on the pages to insure that you have enough room to include all the book (or books in some cases) in your Journible™ for that Bible book.
5. Study prompts. You may notice some light gray text on the left hand page in the picture above. That is a study prompt. The Journible™ contains these lightly written study prompts. You may use them if you wish to help you begin your study of different passages, writing what you learn in response to them below. Or you may simply write through them or ignore them, depending on what you want to do with your own note-taking.
Wynalda also addresses this in the video below.
If you can’t see the video in your e-mail or rss feed, here is the link to the post so you can watch there.
What’s Available?
This series is still under creation. But right now you can get a Journible™ for Psalms (two volumes), Proverbs, John, and Romans. The following books are also available combined into one volume: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Also, in another one volume combination: 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Hebrews. Finally, in another one volume combination: James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1 & 2 & 3 John, and Jude.
By the time you get these sections copied, I’m sure there will be more.
What a Great Tool
Apart from simply memorizing the entire text yourself (which will probably be the subject of another post), I can’t imagine a better tool for studying the Bible than paying such attention that you handwrite your very own copy of the text. Though I know you will need to dig deeper to gain greater understanding, can there really be a better way to gain understanding than or aiding in retention than penning the words of God in your own hand?
Be the king God has called you to be. Write your own copy of God’s Word. Whether you use the Journible™ or not is up to you. But I’m so excited to have started writing my own copy of God’s Word and I wanted to let you know about this great tool.
Below is another video of Rob Wynalda explaining how the Journible™ can be more than a personal tool, it can be your own personal legacy.
*By the way, this post does contain affiliate links. What kind of recommender would I be if I didn’t show you how to purchase this great tool? Oh yeah, here are some more:
S_in_vns says
OK, when I saw #1 tool ever for Bible study, I was thinking “The Bible”…
I’ve had the writing project on the back burner for a long time. Probably time to dust it off and attack it again.
Anonymous says
Okay, I guess technically the Journible is the #2 greatest Bible study tool ever. I let my excitement get me in over my head. But, since your studying the Bible, I will assume you already have one of those. Besides that, this is the #1 greatest Bible study tool ever.