The Bible: Getting Started

Get started reading and understanding with these apps, videos, book, and website.

Bible Apps

Read Scripture

Download free for iOS

Download free for Android


The Read Scripture app provides plans for reading the entire Bible--either daily reading or proceeding at your own pace.

What makes this app unique is that it incorporates excellent five-to-eight minute videos from The Bible Project to introduce and explain every book of the Bible--sometimes multiple videos for one book. The app prompts you to watch videos when they will be most helpful in your Bible reading plan.

Logos Bible

Download free for iOS

Download free for Android

To download this app you have to set up an account with Faithlife Corporation.


This app has lots of tools for digging into a Bible passage. It stands out because of the wide variety of ways it helps you work with the original languages from which the Bible is translated. The app includes:

  • Many translations to choose from
  • Search
  • Audio Bible
  • Faithlife Study Bible comments and explanations of passages
  • “Topic,” which is a Bible dictionary
  • “Exegetical Guide,” which shows the Hebrew (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament) text with links to lexicons and a dictionary of Hebrew and Greek Bible words.

The app also includes Bible reading plans, a place to record your own notes, and other resources.

Bible Hub

Download free for iOs

Download free for Android


The Bible Hub is chock full of resources, including:

  • 32 English translations as well as the Bible in many other languages
  • Atlas
  • Dictionary
  • Encyclopedia
  • Study Bible
  • Links to more than 50 online free Bible commentaries
  • Search
  • Reading plans

Blue Letter Bible

Download free for iOs

Download free for Android


The Blue Letter Bible provides resources for reading and studying the Bible, including:

  • Search
  • Numerous English translations, either resident on your device or linked on the Internet.
  • Cross references
  • Links to online commentaries
  • Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias
  • Reading plans

Bible Gateway

Download free for iOs

Download free for Android


Bible Gateway offers more than 50 English translations to choose from. It provides audio Bible in several translations. In addition:

  • Search
  • Reading plans
  • Bible maps
  • Commentaries
  • Devotionals
  • Dictionaries
  • Encyclopedias
  • Study Bibles

Videos

How to Read the Bible: An Introduction to Reading the Bible

This set of twelve 5-7-minute animated videos is part of the excellent collection of Bible-explaining videos from The Bible Project—www.thebibleproject.com

The How to Read the Bible series walks through each literary style found in the Bible and how each Bible book uniquely contributes to the overall whole. While the Bible is one unified story, it cannot all be read in the same way, as each literary style lives by its own rules and structure, which the videos explore in detail.

This series should help you understand what the Bible is and the story it tells. But, perhaps even more importantly, it will teach you how to read it for yourself in light of the various literary styles that characterize each part of the Bible.

By the end of this series, you will be familiar with every part of the Bible and how it communicates who God is, who we are, and the big, redemptive story that we all are living.

Books

How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart

This book helps everyone feel confident reading the Bible. It describes the different kinds of literature in the Bible—from history to letters to poetry and more—and shows how to approach each kind of writing to best understand it. You'll come away from this book with a better understanding of what the Bible is, how to approach the different parts of the Bible, and how to apply biblical truth to your own life.

Websites

The Bible Project

The Bible Project is a non-profit animation studio that produces short-form, fully animated videos to make the biblical story accessible to everyone, everywhere. Their mission is to show how the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus.


The videos are usually five-to-eight minutes long. They feature excellent theology as they explain the Bible and make it more accessible. Videos available at this website include:

  • Introductions to all 66 books of the Bible
  • Themes, including
  • Heaven and Earth
  • The Gospel of the Kingdom
  • The Day of the Lord
  • Word studies
  • Video series, including
  • How to Read the Bible
  • Luke/Acts
  • Torah
  • Wisdom


Some of the videos are included in the Read Scripture app (for iOs or Android), explaining Bible books as part of their plan for reading the entire Bible.