The American Bible Society has teamed up with the National Coalition of Ministries to Men (NCMM) to produce the Men’s Bible. This is a devotional Bible that focuses on issues that men face in their day to day lives, and to help them be the best father, husband, son, and brother they can be. Since I am all of these, I thought it would be an interesting Bible to review.
Translation
This Bible uses the Good News Translation – a translation by the American Bible Society. Also known as the Good News Bible, and formerly known as Today’s English Version, it is written in everyday language and is a thought-for-thought translation that is close to the paraphrase side of translations (which I am not a fan of). Accuracy is sometimes sacrificed for clarity. It’s not something I recommend for study, or as your only translation, but for a devotional Bible such as this one it does the job just fine. It was meant for reading and devotions. It is a popular translation and has been used in many devotionals, evangelistic campaigns, and films. It is popular for material that is meant for non-Bible readers.
Physical Features
This is a paperback edition with a thick textured card-stock cover and the kind of paper you would expect to find in a paperback. It has an 8-point black-letter font that is very legible. It’s presented in two-column paragraph format with plenty of section headings throughout. Section headings in the Gospels contain references to parallel passages. Many pages have translation footnotes in the footer that includes information about the original languages and manuscript variations. Each book has a short introduction and an outline.
Devotions
The real meat of this Bible is the devotions. There are 72 devotionals with over 150 Biblical references. They are separated into two different sections: The Battle and The Challenge. The Battle has 60 devotions and they are placed in the middle of the Bible. The Challenge has 12 devotions and they are placed in the back with the tools section. The physical aspects of the devotional sections are a little strange. The Battle is on heavy stock and makes the Bible difficult to handle. It feels like it was made separately and then glued into the middle of the Bible. The Challenge is on the regular paper and are much easier to deal with. I would have preferred to have all of the devotions on the regular paper.
The devotions themselves are designed to help you apply the Scriptures to various aspects of a man’s life. Topics include:
- Purpose – what is a man, a man’s role, leadership and service, strengths
- Priorities – God, family, health, jobs
- Living – live as a Christian man
- Challenge – marriage, pornography, friendship
Each of the topics contain many devotionals with them. The idea is to go through one devotional per day, so there are 72 days’ worth of reading. Each reading includes these sections:
- Pray
- Read
- Reflect
- Respond
- Pray
The devotionals are one page each and give you a few questions to answer about the primary points of the devotional. Some talk about the point while others tell a story, either form the Bible or from outside the Bible, to illustrate the point. The responses are usually writing something, reading a passage, or doing something specific like talking to your kids or wife, measuring the time you spend in God’s Word and doubling it every day, thinking about words you’ve said that you would like to take back, and more.
Tools
Word list – there are a little over 7 pages of words with definitions. The words are people, places, objects, and cultural features (such as holidays) that are not commonly known.
Chronology of the Bible – this is three pages that charts the major events of the Bible on a timeline.
Maps – there are 12 pages of black and white maps. There isn’t an index, but they are labeled well and I found them easy to use.
Pages for Notes – there are 18 pages in the back for writing your own notes.
Conclusion
Physically, this Bible is a little difficult to use. The text of the Scriptures and the devotions get lost in the bend of the gutter. There needs to be an inner margin. Some pages are worse for it than others. There are a few pages that are almost unreadable. Other than the lack of an inner margin, the text is readable. It’s bold enough and very consistent throughout. The devotions are relevant to issues that almost all men face. There are some that apply to all men, while there are others that only apply to husbands, fathers, etc. I would like to see the thick paper for the devotions replaced with the regular paper and I would like to see an inner margin, but even without these changes the devotions alone are worth the price of this Bible.
You can see more about this Bible here: The Men’s Bible
Where to buy: The Men’s Bible
This Bible was provided for free for review by the American Bible Society. I was not required to give a positive review – only an honest review.
Dear Randy:
I have found that in my bible, an ordinary good quality Authorised translation (1769), that there is all that a man needs to conduct his life honorably and fulfill the expectations of his family, his society, God, and his church, if read carefully it will also lead him to eternal life. What more do we need!
I consider any paraphrase “bible” to be less than a bible. We don’t need more and different bibles, we need men and women to spend time in the ones we do have. My father struggled to read, he grew up in a time when even a few weeks of school each year was all the community could afford, he was able only to get through the 4th grade until life needed his time for making a living, he struggled all his life to improve his knowledge. My poor father though ill educated, made it his business to know his bible, he spent untold hours trying to understand God’s word with only a simple Authorised bible to guide him through life’s trials. Dad lived out what he found in his bible, there was never a better man or father ever drew a breath. We need more men like Dad who live out what they find in their bibles. If a poor Ozark mountaineer with almost no education could teach himself what it was to be a man and a Christian, and live it out with only his bible for a guidepost, what more do we need? Dad’s own father passed away when he was 3, and Dad left home and supported himself when he was 12, and never looked back. There were many men like Dad in his generation who learned life and morality from the pages of their bibles when family church and community failed. I knew many of them and thank God for Dad and men like him who when faced with life’s worst events, turned to the bible for guidance. Now we have special bibles that are to help us be men? All we need is a good basic bible, and the character that says in the heart, “there is a better way to live, and it it found in these pages” God rest my father and all like him who carried God’s word in their hearts.
This new bible seems to be OK, but just reading the ones we have is even better.
Yours in Christ
Don Denison