The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - How to Mark Your Bible

Episode Date: April 7, 2017

Jeff explains that the best way to mark your Bible is the way that makes most sense to you. So, he gives some helpful guidelines to help you develop your own marking system that lets you "live" in your Bible and connect it to your everyday life. Jeff also shares his personal Bible-marking mistakes along with his favorite way to keep track of important moments in his life.

You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show, Episode 9, How to Mark Your Bible. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavins. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven Show. And welcome to the show. Great to spend some time with you once again.

Hey, I was going through my office a couple days ago, and I have about five or six Bibles that are in my closet stacked up, and I brought them down, and I started to look through them. Some of them are 40 years old, and I started to look through them, and I was really struck by how many memories I have in my Bibles, and how many notes I have made in my Bibles, and how I've underlined and taught from the Bibles, and it reminded me of a very common question that I get, and that is, how do I mark my Bibles? Because I teach from the Bible, but I don't use a lot of notes when I teach, typically. I try to bury the word in my heart and, you know, get an idea of where I'm going to go, but I also put a lot of notes in my Bible that help me as I'm

actually teaching. So I thought, you know what, this would be a great show. I mean, we'll just spend some time together talking about how to mark your Bible and a little bit about Bible care in general. And so what I did is I took a number of pictures of some of my Bibles, covers, notes inside, all of that. And I put them in the show notes for this show because what I talk about this, I want you to be able to look at my Bibles in some of the ways that I've marked them, even though it looks kind of messy at times. But also I want to show you the, the actual instruments that I use to underline in my Bible, to highlight passages, to write in the margins and so forth. So I thought it would be a lot of fun. I mean, I don't remember ever listening

to a show where somebody said, here's how you can mark a Bible, even though everybody that really gets deep into Bible study wants to mark a Bible, and they want to make it their own and make it personal. So let's do that. Let's do that in the show today. I want to start off by reminding you not only about the show notes, of course, and those are at ascensionpresents.com forward slash podcasts. That's where you'll get the show notes for this particular show, and we'll give you all the photos and links and things that we talk about throughout the show.

But I want to thank you for participating. We're getting so many good comments, great feedback from you, and honestly, it really helps. It helps us in developing shows. It helps us in knowing what do people want to hear, what would be helpful? And if you've got an idea for a show, then you can get in touch with me simply by emailing me at the Jeff Kaven show at ascensionpress.com. And if you listen on iTunes to the show, you can rate the show and leave some comments there.

Love to hear from you. Really appreciate the feedback. Okay, so let's take a look at the Bibles here. As I looked at the Bibles in my closet, I have probably five or six over the years, but I would say, say that I've only really lived in three, three of them. I have one that I bought back in 1977. That was the first one that I really got serious about Bible study with. And since then, I've had two other ones that I have used to teach with over the years. You may have seen them in the Great Adventure or on EWTN or live at a conference. A couple of them have been rebound

at least twice because they got so, you know, rattled, tattled, and torn and everything else. So they're kind of in retirement, but I bring them out to look at the notes now and then, and it really brings back great memories. You know, in my Bibles, I write in them, but I also write at the beginning and the end important things in my life. And I, for example, wrote down the day we found out that we were pregnant with Carly, our firstborn. I even wrote down in the beginning of my Bible the first day that I heard her heartbeat at the doctors. And I wrote a little paragraph about the day that Emily came home from work and said,

I think we're going to have a baby tonight. So I kept a lot of notes about life's biggest joys and also some struggles that we've gone through. And I put those in the back and in the front of the Bible just as a reminder that God has taken us through good times and bad times with His Word. and he has led us with his hand upon us. It's been really, really good. Well, one of the first questions that you've got to ask yourself is, what Bible are you going to use? And I can give you a little bit of advice on that.

You certainly, if you're Catholic, you want to use a Catholic Bible. There's 73 books in a Catholic Bible. In a Protestant Bible, there's 66 books. So we have seven more books. We call those the Deuterocanonical books, the second canon. and like Syrac and so forth but make sure you get one with 73 books and there's there's two translations that we really recommend for bible study one is the revised standard version catholic edition and that's what i use a lot you know to teach from and that's that's what is

used in the catechism and then um the new american bible and now that one is used in mass and that's a that's another good translation you know speaking of translation it's important to delineate the differences between types of Bibles. If you go to a Christian bookstore or you go online and you think, I'm going to buy a Bible, you're going to find all kinds. And it really fit into three categories. You have on one end, on the left end, I guess you could say, you have a paraphrase. And a paraphrase is like the Good News Bible.

And a paraphrase is real loose in the translation. It's really a thought-for-thought translation. And so you would get things like the Lord's, God's word is like a flashlight on my path, you know, rather than a light or something like that. So they take license to describe thought for thought, you know. And sometimes it's insightful. And sometimes it makes you think in a different way. And it's really nothing wrong with reading a paraphrase, but it's important to realize it's not a translation of the Bible. It's a paraphrase.

And then on the far end to the right, then, you would have a translation, which is a word-for-word translation. That's with the RSV, the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, plus the NAB, the New American Bible. Those are translations. Some Protestants use translations like the New American Standard Bible or the English Standard Version or the King James Version. Now, we typically like to study with a translation, a word-for-word translation like the RSV Catholic Edition and the NAB. Now, in the middle between a paraphrase and a translation is what's called a dynamic equivalent, like the NIV, the new international version. A dynamic equivalent is where you have attention paid to thought for thought and word for word. It's kind of the best of both worlds, and it's a nice reading Bible.

I like to read from those now and then, but I primarily stay with translations. And I like the RSV Catholic Edition, the New American Bible. And of the Protestant versions, that's the 66 books, I do like to read the English standard version as I'm studying because it is such a good translation, and I'm hoping that someday that's going to come out for Catholics. I really, really do. But get a Bible you can live in, get a Bible that you are not. afraid to mark in because that's what we're going to be talking about on the show today is marking and marking up your Bible. And you can't be afraid of that. You can't be timid.

You've got to get in and this is a love letter written by your Heavenly Father who has come down to your level and he has adapted himself to your weaknesses. He's accommodated himself to your limitations. And he wants to speak to you as a father. So we can't be timid, you know and we we can't be afraid of the Bible and you you can't get you know stuck in a rut where I'm not going to write in it I'll ruin it you know this is a place to meet God later on I'm going to do a whole show on Lexio de Vina and talk about you know allowing God to speak to you on a daily basis and if you do that you want a Bible that you can that you can live in now once you decide on one so let's say you decide on the RSV Catholic

Edition which is what I use typically to teach with then you're going to you're going to want to decide you want a hard cover do you want a leather cover or do you want a paperback well the paperback's not going to last as long the hard cover is is nice if you want to underline without having to put the Bible down on a table or something and the hard covers usually last pretty pretty well and and if you get to the point where it's really torn apart you can always get a new cover put on it many people are going with the leather And the reason for that is that it's soft, it lasts a long time, it has a good binding. But it also feels good, you know, and there's something about the Bible being different, the inspired Word of God that almost deserves, you know, some special treatment, a leather Bible.

And that's what I typically have. I think all of mine are leather Bibles. but I also have Bible covers on my Bibles, and I've taken a picture of two of my Bibles. The one on the left, the Brown Bible, one of the pictures there, it has the two Bibles side by side. That was a cover that I had made for that particular Bible, and that Bible was used a lot on EWTN at Steubenville, Franciscan University, and that was a custom job that we had for that one.

I think it probably cost me 45, 50 bucks or something like that. The one on the right is one that is made out of Italian leather, and it is beautiful. It is so soft, and everybody that sees it wants to touch it, because it's just so beautiful. That is a Bible cover that fits the RSV Catholic Edition. And I'm going to give you a little website you can go to if you're interested in getting that one for your RSV Catholic Edition. and that website is simply Catholicbibblegear.com. That's Catholicbibelgear.com, and you get a choice of several leathers, colors

that you can choose from and order your own Bible cover. They'll last forever. I mean, these are incredible, incredible Bible covers. So Catholicbibblegear.com, something my wife and I work on the side. Okay, so we've got a Bible. You might have a cover. Now you're going to want the tools to underline,

and to mark in your Bible. I'm going to tell you what I use. And let me start off by saying there isn't a right in a wrong way to mark your Bible. I'm going to grab my pencils here and my pens. There's not a right or a wrong way. There just is your way. And full disclosure, what I have found out

in marking my Bible over now 42 years of reading and studying and marking my Bibles, I have found that I start off with a pretty good plan, but that plan falls apart and it kind of turns into a little bit of this, a little bit of that, as far as marking my Bible, which is fine. I really don't care. Because I mark my Bibles for different purposes. Like, for example, sometimes I'm doing a book study like James or Galatians for the Great Adventure. And I mark up that whole book just for that study so that it will help me to teach on the fly. You know, I can see things quickly. I've highlighted.

keywords, circled keywords, certain colors for certain things. But there's also another way where you can mark your Bible, and that is you can have a color-coded system. And some people do that. For example, they will underline all the key verses that they want to remember in yellow, or they'll highlight it, I should say, the words in yellow. And then they'll take a colored marker, a colored pencil, and they'll underline in a certain color, a sort of certain things that remind him of salvation like in red or with Mary, the Blessed Mother in blue or spiritual growth in green. You can really come up with your own system here, and I'm just going to share with you what I do. And you might not want to do what I'm doing, because it might seem

crazy to you, or kind of out of control. But the point is, do something. Okay. Now, what do I use to mark my Bibles? Let me tell you what not to use right away. And I even have a picture of one of my Bibles that I used a wet marker. I got so excited. Go ahead and turn to that particular picture. You can click on that in the show notes. Once again, the show notes are at ascension presents.com forward slash podcasts. And you can go to this show and you get all the show notes. If you go to that picture, it's 1 Corinthians chapter 13. You'll see that it is all yellow. For some reason on that day, I was so jazzed about that chapter that I thought, I'm going to highlight the whole thing. I wouldn't do that again if I had a chance

to go back, but I highlighted the whole thing. You can see it. Now, the problem is, look at the next picture. The next picture is one of, after you turn the page, it's 1 Corinthians 14 and 15, and it is marked as well. So I made a mess out of it, and it was fairly early on, you know, in the using of that Bible. So I felt kind of sick, you know. when that happened but oh well that's life you know and now i here i am all 40 years later showing you my mistakes but don't use a wet marker it will bleed through good paper in a bible is called india paper it's a lighter paper it is a more transparent it is thin and so you've got to take care of it you know you got to be careful how you turn pages you got to be careful what you put in your bible

because it can have a, it can wear out the binding. You know, if you start just piling pieces of paper and cards in there, it eventually starts tearing the Bible apart. But don't use a wet marker. Here's what I use. I use, and I took a picture of this. This is in the show notes. I use what are called the, what is the company called here?

It is the Sanford. It's called a Sanford colored pencil, Prisma Color. And I carry with me four colors. And the reason that I use pencils, colored pencils, is that they don't bleed through. And you can highlight words, you can underline words. And I use yellow the most because I use that to highlight words or phrases or a whole verse. And then I have a blue one, a green one, and a red one. And I use those for a variety of things.

So sometimes I will use all three of them in a chapter when I want to off. set or contrast to things. I'll use one of them to make my main points or I want to remember certain people in that chapter and I will underline those people so that my eyes drawn to that name very quickly when I'm teaching or when I'm just reading. So I use the colored pencils and I have the Sanford. Is that what it was? What did I say it was? It is the, yeah, Sanford, Prisma color and then there's another really good set that you can get by Stadler S-T-A-E-D-T-L-E-R it's got what does it have here and I have 12 different colors in it all the way from black to yellow and they have greens and blues and everything

but it has a little carrying case with it I also took a picture of the carrying case that I throw in my briefcase to hold my pencils and my pens I got two pens that I use too I'll mention that in just a moment but I but look in the picture you'll see the plastic tube that I put them in and I throw that in my briefcase I don't have to worry about them getting bent out of shape or anything I just throw that in there and it protects them so I use the colored pencils but I also use uh I use pens now once again man you got to be careful don't use wet pens you know that really wet ink because that too will bleed and blotch right through your paper and people get so upset with themselves when they really do that

to their Bibles and I get it because we don't want we don't want our Bibles wrecked so here's the pen that I use and I took a picture of it it's I use a red one and a black one to write in my Bible and I use a zebra pen called a zebra pen and it has a number on it and right underneath the zebra I took a picture F I think that's for Fine Point F301 and then it has a big BP I'm not sure what the P.P. stands for, but I mean, I'll look that up and who knows. Maybe you tell me what it stands for. So I use the zebra pens to write in the side column or next to a verse, even sideways between columns. You can see in some of the pictures that I provided that I even write sideways, sometimes just to keep a note in there about a particular verse or something else.

So what do I write? What do I write in my Bible? Well, here's one thing that I do. I use these pens and one of the things that I'm really interested in is the relationship between the Bible and the Catechism And so I you'll see in some of the pictures that I use CCCC that's that's the C C Cacism of the Catholic Church CCC and then the paragraph number you know like CCC197. That's the it's 197 paragraph of the catechism and I it's a cross-reference for me that that brings a relationship that brings a relationship to me between the Bible and the catechism. And I think it's important for us to see the Bible and study the Bible in light of the fullness of the Catholic Church. So my Bibles are filled with a lot of cross-references to the catechism.

Now here's another thing that you can do. You can also get your catechism out, second edition, the big green one. you can get that out and you can go to that particular paragraph in your catechism and you can write next to that paragraph see and then the verse that you were just writing next to in the Bible. So you've got this catechism in the Bible kind of speaking to each other while you're studying and it saves you a little bit of time in preparing studies and, you know, CCD lessons, whatever it might be. So that's a neat thing to do, is to make a relationship between the catechism and the Bible. I also use my pens to write out the meaning of Hebrew and Greek words in the side.

You know, I might, like, for example, you'll see in the Genesis 2 and 3, that particular picture, you'll see where I write the word nahash for the serpent, you know, in chapter 3. And I write these typically in the margins, next to the words. Another thing I do is I do cross-references. So I might have a Bible verse, and I want to remember the New Testament fulfillment of that. Like, for example, in Matthew chapter 3 and 4, Jesus in chapter 4 goes into the wilderness for 40 days. He's tempted three times. He quotes scripture to the devil.

and he quotes from Deuteronomy 6 and Deuteronomy 8. So I write that right next to Matthew 4, right where he says that. I'll just write it. Someone may say, well, if you look closely, Jeff, it actually has it in some Bibles, that little cross-reference. I know, it does. And sometimes I'll just circle it or underline it. But oftentimes I want that cross-reference to pop out at me while I'm teaching,

so I write it next to that verse. Okay, so cross-reference. Another thing that I like to do is I like to circle words or I like, number one, I like to circle words that I want to draw attention to real quickly. And I also want to write in the margin a word that will jar my memory about a story. So I tell the story about getting beat up as a kid, you know, and I write down the name of the two boys, you know, their last name next to a verse. it always reminds me to tell that story and it reminds me of God's faithfulness and my father's faithfulness. So I like to do that. But back to the colored pencils for a moment.

Here's what I do oftentimes. I highlight in yellow, almost everything that I'm really interested in. Then I use the colors to underline a certain word or a name. Or if there is like, for example, the Ten Commandments, I will highlight the... those in first one red, second one blue, third one green, go back to red, blue, green, so that it delineates them for my eye when I'm teaching. I like to do that. And there's a good example I provided for you in 1st Samuel chapter 17, where David takes on Goliath.

And I have that whole chapter. If you look at it, I'll just grab it right here myself and take a look at it. If you look at that, what you will see is almost everything in yellow that I want to draw from. And then I guess on that day I had an orange, or see what I tell you, your system starts falling apart. I had an orange colored pencil and I underline everything that I want to draw out of that chapter when I teach live. and this is exactly what I'm looking at every January when I go to Israel and I stand in the valley of Elah and I teach this teaching and I don't need any other notes it's all there I do little notes in the underneath verses you can see some of the little things there and there and my eyes drawn to the

next point that I want to make that's a that's a neat way to mark up your your Bible okay so back to marking up your Bible remember there isn't one system for everybody you're going to be tailoring this for yourself but you're going to make mistakes and just it's okay it's all right you know we're not we're not perfectionist we're going to make a mistake look at the pictures that I provided for you I've made so many I've made so many mistakes but you know what I have lived in these Bibles they've been so good and have so many really really wonderful wonderful memories. If you are a teacher, I would really recommend that you come up with a system where you highlight, with yellow, and then you use how many colors you want. I use three other

colors, blue, red, and green. You can use 10 if you want. I've seen some people riff off of what I'm doing, and man, their Bibles look beautiful. I'm jealous in a good way thinking, oh, I wish I had that much discipline like you. I've seen artists who draw little pictures and things in the columns of their of their Bible. But make sure you get a Bible, you know, that has a little bit of a space on the side that you can do a little bit of writing. And in the front, as I said in the back, use it as a place to write down some special moments in your life, special times where God really came through big time in your life. And you want to remember that. And you want to remember some of the details. Okay, so that that would be good. So one other suggestion I would make is to get a small

notebook to accompany your Bible. I use a moleskin, M-O-L-E-S-K-I-N, I think that's the way you spell it, and I keep a lot of notes in that little notebook, and I use it for Lexio-Devina. And as I said, we're going to do a whole show in the future, you know, on Lexio-Divina. I got a few more things I want to share with you about the Bible. And what I'm doing with it, but I will do that right after this. Hi, I'm Father Mike Schmitz, and I want to invite you to join me at the National Catholic Bible Conference this coming May, May 5th through the 7th in Houston, Texas. At the conference, you will hear from an amazing lineup of presenters who will help you grow

in your faith and your understanding of the Bible, including Jeff Kavins, Dr. Michael Barber, Sarah Chris Meyer, Thomas Smith, and Dr. Ed Sree. To learn more and to register, go to Catholic Bibleconference.com. I hope to see you there. Welcome back to the show. We're talking about marking our Bibles today. I've never heard anybody do a show on that before, but we're doing it, and we're giving you the show notes, and I'm giving you kind of an inside look at my Bible.

About how one was it? 1997, I think it was. Dr. Scott Hahn and I, or 98, Dr. Scott Hahn and I did a show for EWTN called Our Father's Plan, which we use the Bible timeline as the kind of the guide for the whole 13-week series. And then we talked with each other for about an hour about each of the periods of salvation history. And we had a very interesting point in that study

where I looked over at Scott's Bible, which made my Bible look pretty unmarked, actually. His was so marked up. And I looked at it and I grabbed it and I lifted it up to the camera. I said, look at this. Look at this. That became one of the most sought-after points of all of those shows that we did because people want to know how or get ideas on how to mark your Bible. And I understand that and I get it. I want to share with you. you one technique that some people use, which is good, and I have used it on a limited basis in my Bibles. It's called a chain reference, a chain reference. If you are interested in sharing with

somebody a particular aspect of the Catholic Church, let's say Mary, oftentimes people say, I wish I could share with other people from the Bible about Mary, but I can't remember all of that. Well, that's okay. That's all right. Because we can, we can compensate for that. And here's how you can do it. You can compensate by at the beginning of your Bible on one particular page, write down the chain that you want to start. Maybe it's the Blessed Mother. Then underneath that, write down the very first verse that starts the chain of thought on Mary. Then go to that verse. Let's say it's Genesis 315. The seat of the woman. I'll put enmity between you and the woman, and the seed of the woman will crush your head, and you will

bruise his heel. Okay, that's typically the beginning point for teachings about Mary, the seed of the woman, the woman. So that's the beginning of your chain. Then you can create on your own, or you can order from Ascension Press the Bible thumpers, two different cheat sheets that give you chains on different topics, you can actually use those and put them right in your Bible. So underneath Genesis 315, you'll put maybe four or five or six, seven more verses that lead you down the chain to talk about the Blessed Virgin Mary. So once you go to Genesis 315, which is the first one, to the right, or in the margin of Genesis 315, you write the second one.

Then when you go to the second verse, you write the third one next to it. to the third one, you write the fourth one next to it. These are called chain references. And you can do that with, I don't know, 5, 10, 15, 20 different topics if you want to. And it suddenly turns your Bible into really a useful tool for showing people, you know, the truths about the papacy, about the Eucharist, and the real presence of God, the saints, purgatory, whatever it is that we oftentimes have. a hard time showing people we can create a chain reference right there in our bible and that is really really helpful really helpful so that's a beginning and i just wanted to share with you how i mark my bible but i but i mark i mark my favorite verses i mark chain references i i highlight names

highlight keywords right in the column and it is it's it's amazing because as I teach, like for example, I think I provide, yeah, I provide it for you, the picture of Gospel of John Chapter 1. When I think of John chapter 1, that's what I think about. And I even know where the verse is that I've memorized, I know where it is on the page, and I can go to it very quickly. Now, if I got a new Bible that was laid out differently, I'd be searching a little bit more for it. But I have like muscle memory now with color and position on the page. It's like muscle memory. Now I want to conclude by doing one more thing, and that's this. If you've got a problem navigating through your Bible, we've got some tabs from Great Adventure Bible tabs on ascensionpress.com, and you can get those

and put them on your Bible, and it literally has a tab for every book in the Bible, and it's color-coded by the 12 periods of salvation history in the Bible timeline. That might be helpful for you as well. Now, I've also known people that got 12 different colors, and they started to mark their Bibles based on what happened in that particular period by using that color. That's a lot of work, but I've known people to try to do that. And almost everybody that has a system for marking their Bible, it turns into more of a mush, but that's not a problem. And they start to market in ways that are particularly helpful for them. As I close out this show, I am looking at my grandfather's Bible, which I have shared on previous shows with you.

And I see that my grandfather used a pen, and that was pretty much it. and he underlined his favorite verses. And isn't it neat? Isn't it special to go back and to see the verses that meant something to my grandpa? That's neat. Now I've got three Bibles and those are gonna go to relatives someday. I'll probably, before I push daisies,

might have one or two more, maybe. Might do it for my grandkids, you know, give them a Bible. But I think it gives my kids, my grandchildren, my heritage, if you will, look into my heart and my conversations with God. This will even make more sense to you on a future show when we talk about Lexio Davina. Hey, I want to thank you once again for joining me on the show here. Make sure you share this with your friends, your pastor, anybody that might benefit from it. I do appreciate that greatly.

The show notes, again, are at ascensionpresents.com forward slash podcasts, and all the links and pictures will be there to Catholic Bible gear, the pictures that I've been talking about. I would love to hear from you. If you've got an idea for a future show, I'd love to hear it. And all you have to do is email me at the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. That's the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com where you can go to iTunes, listen there, rate the show. That will help us out greatly. If you want to start a Bible study in your church at home, at work, guess what? All you need is four people.

That's it. You have four people. You start a Bible study with Ascension Press. And guess what? If you have four people and you register and get your workbooks for that particular study, whether it's Galatians or James or the Great Adventure, Revelation, whatever it might be, guess what we're going to do? we're going to give you the video is absolutely free that's right it's digital delivery it's free free sign up no monthly fee no monthly fee and we're going to have you're going to have access to

over 40 studies that we have put together all you got to do is have four people most of most of you're going to have 1015 200 300 people at your church studying so that's a no-brainer but if you want to start a study at work or start a study with your girlfriends in the neighborhood whatever it might be we're going to provide all of that free to you just register go to ascensionpress.com register your group and you can even communicate you know with your group and and uh you can find out who's registered in your group and it's just it's a turnkey operation we're really really thrilled with the digital delivery that we've built and even more thrilled that we can give you all the videos absolutely free kind of unheard of all right my friend it's good to good to talk to you let's close out in prayer in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, I thank you for my friends who have joined me today. We are delighted with your word, Lord.

We delight in you. We thank you for leading us and guiding us in our lives with your word and comforting us in the difficult times. Jesus, help us to be more efficient and faithful disciples as we study your word and we keep track of the things that have touched our hearts so deeply. Thank you, Lord, for the Word of God. Thank you for giving us free access to Bibles today where we can talk with you, our Papa, our Father. We thank you for this, and we ask for the intercession of two great Bible scholars, St. Jerome and St. Augustine, pray for us in Jesus' name. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen. You have a great week. God bless. Thank you.