NEW BELIEVER’S BIBLE: First Steps for New Christians

Resource Description

Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

A dear woman at The Rivers where I volunteer accepted Christ as her Lord and Savior quite recently. Her best friend there, a committed believer, gave her a copy of New Believer’s Bible: First Steps for New Christians in the New Living Translation. She proudly showed it to me. When I expressed interest in it, she bought a copy for me, a very kind thing to do, something I definitely did not expect!

Here is some information I learned online about this Bible:

“Pastor, author, and evangelist Greg Laurie has written devotional study tracks to help you get into God’s Word and start growing:

Cornerstones—Learn the basics of Christian belief: the Trinity, angels, Satan, heaven, hell, forgiveness, peace, joy, love, and other essential teachings of the Bible.

First Steps—Discover God’s plan for you as well as how to know you are saved, find the right church, study the Bible, resist temptation, talk with God, and much more.

Off and Running—Find out how you can enjoy God’s blessings and direction in all areas of your life: career, marriage, family, finances, and relationships.

The New Believer’s Bible is uniquely designed to help the new Christian read, study, and understand the Bible. It includes features that help Christians develop and deepen their faith, while providing a foundation for their new life in Christ.

Features and benefits:

• Clear and accurate New Living Translation
• How You Can Know God
• How to Study the Bible
• Four Devotional Reading Tracks
• Memory Verses
• One Year New Testament Reading Plan
• 52 Great Bible Stories
• Prophecies about Jesus
• Overview of the Bible
• Glossary of Christian Terms
• Charts and Indexes
• Versefinders
• Book intros
• Topical index

Now for my now own evaluation of New Believer’s Bible: I’ve scanned all the notes and believe it has lots of clear and basic information on living the Christian life. Reading and putting into practice all this could give any new believer a great start in his walk with Christ.

However, in my opinion there are two weaknesses in this Bible. (1) It gives hardly any background information on the books of the Bible or any commentary on the actual text. (2) The notes speak mostly about what we are to do, but not much about what God has already done for us in Christ, i.e. the Gospel. As a result the new believer does not grow to appreciate the glory of his salvation, nor learn to praise God as fully as he/she should for who He is and what He has done. (By the way, I see this as a weakness not just in the New Believer’s Bible, but in much preaching among evangelicals today.)