Today I’m looking at the NLT One Year Pray for Life Bible. It is part of Tyndale’s One Year Bible line. This Bible is designed to give the reader a specific way to read through the Bible in a year and pray for the most vulnerable people in our society each day.
ISBN 9781496445131 Printed in the United States of America
Tyndale provided this Bible in exchange for an honest review. I was not required to give a positive review, only an honest one. All opinions are my own.
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This book is available at (includes some affiliate links)
and many local Bible bookstores
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Construction & Printing
This is a softcover or paperback Bible. It measures 9″ x 6″ x 1 1/4″ and weighs almost 2 pounds. It has a glued binding.
The paper is a slightly creamy off-white and feels like an upper 30s GSM. While it is not a typical Bible paper, it is some of the best quality between Bible paper and newsprint paper we have seen used in a Bible. It is a black letter edition with fairly consistent ink darkness throughout.
The text is laid out in a double-column format and has a 9.25 point font. Most of the text is in paragraphs with Psalms and Proverbs being printed verse-by-verse. Lists are presented as lists and quotes are in a slightly indented verse format like Psalms. The suggested date of each reading is in the outer top corner of each page. The header also contains the page number on the inside corner.
Translators’ notes are the only footnotes that are included. They are found in smaller text at the end of each section of the day’s readings rather than actually being in a footer.
Each month starts at the top of a right-hand page. To keep formating consistent, they also occasionally start a new day’s reading at the top of a page. Both of these give you a small bit of blank space.
This Bible is also currently available in the E-book format.
Reading Plan
If you follow this Bible’s reading plan you will read the entire Bible once and Psalms a second time in a year. Each day includes a reading from the Old Testament, a reading from the New Testament, a reading from Psalms, and a short passage from Proverbs. The readings are designed to take the average person about 15 minutes.
It is easy to tell where one day ends and the next begins. Each day starts with a highlighted prayer prompt and a black and white picture with the date written on it.
These 3 pictures show you a fairly typical day’s reading. They are all between 2 and 4 pages long with 3 pages or just barely over being the most common length.
There is a One Year Bible Plan User’s Guide at the front with suggestions for how to engage with Scripture. The User’s Guide also contains suggestions for modifying the reading plan if you want to go at a slower pace.
This is definitely a Bible designed for reading It makes it much easier to use a multi-passage reading plan by gathering all of each day’s readings together. This does make it harder to run references, however. The Table of Contents has the date and page each book begins on but with readings from 4 books included each day looking a reference up will be time-consuming.
Prayer Prompts
There is a 4-page Foreward to this Bible written by Joni Eareckson Tada. She is asking this Bible’s readers to be modern-day Eleazers. To be great warriors that use prayer as their weapon to fight many of the ideas and problems that threaten life all over the globe.
Each month there is a specific prayer focus. Some of them are for individuals or groups of people facing difficulty others are for ideas and practices; some of which need to be more common, some of which need to be done away with.
A picture that runs the full width of the page and a short paragraph explaining the basic problem is at the start of each month.
The focuses are:
- January -Abortion
- February – Children at Risk
- March – Teenagers
- April – People affected by Disabilities
- May – Mental Health
- June – Families
- July – Protecting the Vulnerable (the Covid-19 Pandemic is mentioned in this Focus)
- August – Addiction
- September – Poverty
- October – Loneliness
- November – Uncertainty of Aging and Illness
- December – Those near Death
There is a short Prayer Prompt at the beginning of each day’s reading. Many of these tie into the month’s focus. Three other themes seem to figure heavily in these prompts. We are reminded of the greatness of God. Gratitude for what we have is encouraged. We are asked to pray for a softening of our own hearts so we can more easily recognize those in need and what God wants us to do about it.
A smaller version of the month’s photo is included, which I think will help everyone remember the moth’s focus even when the prayer prompt is less directly related to it.
There are 6 thicker glossy full-color pages spaced throughout the Bible. These include 12 slightly longer writings from people who have dealt with these problems themselves or who work with organizations that help these problems. The pages are beautiful and are nice additions to the Bible but the thicker pages do make it harder for the Bible to lay open on its own.
Comparison to the NLT One Year Pray for America Bible
I was surprised when I received this Bible to find it was not the same size as the NLT One Year Pray for America Bible I reviewed earlier this year. (link to review here). The Pray for Life Bible is only 5/8″taller and 3/4″ wider so it is not really obvious until you have them side by side. It is also 1/4″ thinner and 5 ounces heavier. The main reasons for the difference in size are the slightly larger font and the thicker, higher quality paper in the Pray for Life Bible. This paper does not have the glare that the Pray for America Bible paper had.
The reading plan is identical in both with the exact same four passages being read each day of the year.
They have the same number of glossy inserts just with different pictures and writings on them.
Both of them have a well-done prayer theme added to a reading plan Bible. If you have the NLT Pray for America Bible and were wanting to use a different reading plan look elsewhere. Otherwise, both are a nice choice and I can see where it would be nice to be reading the same Bible passages as a friend or family member but having the extra content different.
Final Thoughts on the NLT One Year Pray for Life Bible
The NLT One Year Pray for Life Bible is a nice read your Bible through in a year choice. It’s great for reading and the format makes it easy to maintain a daily reading habit. Prayer prompts and focuses that remind you to take time to pray for others will help anyone wanting to add intercessory prayer to their daily routine.
_________________________________________________________
This book is available at (includes some affiliate links)
and many local Bible bookstores
_________________________________________________________
Tyndale provided this Bible in exchange for an honest review. I was not required to give a positive review, only an honest one. All opinions are my own.
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