The Best Free Bible Software

It’s been over ten years since I’ve written a comprehensive review of Bible Software for Christian Computing Magazine and the last one I did took weeks to complete (which I don’t have available currently). But, I thought I could afford the time to offer some suggestions on the best free Bible software for the PC on the market currently. Although there are 12 free desktop Bible applications currently, 4 of them warrant your consideration, in my opinion.

The Word
www.theword.gr/en/index.php/w/beta

This software application is currently in beta 1 phase. But, it is pretty stable. It is a significant improvement over version 2 in terms of interface design. If you are willing to do without the more common contemporary translations, this application is intuitive and well designed. It’s search capabilities are reasonably good. If you are into original language studies, this application will give you a lot of options. This application is only available for the PC.

Bible Explorer
www.wordsearchbible.com/be4.php

Bible Explorer provides a clean, simple user interface. It downloads only with the KJV installed but you can download 19 other free translations (no popular contemporary translations) along with dozens of commentaries and other books. If you choose to purchase a popular translation like the NIV, NASB, NLT, etc., they will work with any upgrades you make to Bible Explorer or if you move up to their high-end WORDsearch application. The latest version of Bible Explore (4) is available for the PC or Mac. You can purchase additional translations but they tend to be a bit expensive. If you like the free version of BE, you may want to consider some of the upgrade packages as they are cheaper than buying the individual translations (if you find a package that has the translation you are looking for).

e-Sword
www.e-sword.net

The latest iteration of e-sword is built on a new data format so if you’ve been running earlier version, you will have to do some reinstallation. One thing that I really like about e-Sword is that the Bible translations you purchase are much cheaper than they are with similar applications (usually around $20 versus $30-40 with others).

Xiphos
http://xiphos.org/

Xiphos provides a nice interface. It’s ability to add translations and resources from directly within the application is very helpful. I have experienced the Module Manager hanging up on me that requires the app to be restarted. It supports Windows, Linux and UNIX. It is part of the SWORD project and so the files it uses are inter-operable with other SWORD applications and projects.

MacSword
www.macsword.com

MacSword can read the same files as e-sword. MacSword is like Xiphos a CrossWire application using the The SWORD Project’s underlying programming librariy and modules. Both MacSword and Xiphos are open source programmes.

Well, I won’t go into any more detail since these are free applications, you can download them yourself, compare them and see what you think.

Also, you iPhone users will love YouVersion’s free online Bible application. It offers every popular translation you can imagine for free. I love the user interface too. But, you do have to have Internet connectivity to access it. You can find it in the Apple App Store. My friend Stephen suggests Olive Tree’s free Bible reader for the iPhone. It offers a lot of free translations but if you want the popular translations, you have to pay for them. Instead of being an online application, Olive Tree downloads the translations directly to your phone so you can access them when you don’t have connectivity.

Then again, there are always the free Web-based bible solutions such as Bible Gateway and Blue Letter Bible.

If you have any thoughts or feedback, please share them…

Blessings, John

Thoughts On Distractions

I’ve come to the conclusion that many, if not most, people make little progress toward their purpose in life because they are easily distracted – so much so that they are more focused on distractions than they are on purpose. Let me give you a few examples:

1. A person has a dream of how they want to change the world. Yet, they have fears or failure, fears of success and just plain fears that occupy a large part of their thought-life. They run what-if-scenarios through their head constantly and the outcome is more often negative than positive. They take one step toward their dreams and then two steps back in response to fear.
2. A Christian wants to live a godly life and yet they are more guided by their focus on their sin than they are on pursuing God in His righteousness. They keep their gaze on their sin instead of God. In other words, they are sin-focused or focused on distractions. They take one step of faith toward experiencing God’s goodness and two steps backwards because they sin.
3. A person wants to train and coach others. But, they have some rejection and abandonment issues from past traumatic and unresolved events. They make some progress toward helping others but the first opposition they encounter in someone brings their rejection and abandonment issues quickly to the surface. They can’t stay focused on meeting other people’s needs when they are so easily distracted by unresolved internal issues within them.

Distractions are a part of life. The difference between advancement toward purpose and getting stuck under current constraints is how one responds to distractions. If you allow distractions to shift your focus off of your purpose, you will seldom make significant progress. If you learn to recognize a distraction for what it is, you empower yourself to resist distraction and remain focused.

It isn’t that fears or sin aren’t real. It’s just that they are distractions – unimportant and unnecessary. When a fear comes, you may want to acknowledge it, consider any wisdom it might bring but then you dismiss it from your presents. Overall however, fear or distractions seldom contribute anything positive to your journey. Instead, you keep your gaze focused on your purpose. When sin happens, you acknowledge it, confess it, repent of it and then move onward in faith undeterred.

If you stop and linger on distractions, you’ll never get far. They are like traffic lights set to red. Have you ever gotten behind someone who was too distracted to see that the light had turned green and so they just sit there through the green light making no progress at all? Some of us need a good honking at because we’re just sitting through one green light after another.

Spending time at the altar of fear or sin, for example, does nothing but keep you from advancing forward. Focus is the ability to distinguish that which is essential from everything else. Scripture says that without a vision people perish. In other words, if you don’t have something of hope in the future to fix your gaze upon (purpose) then the only thing to occupy your thinking is distractions and there is no hope for change in a life focused on distractions.

If you are worshipping at the altar or fear, sin, or failure, isn’t it time to leave it for higher ground? I was recently in the country of Bosnia helping people get emotional healing. One particular young man I worked with was so preoccupied with sin that he could think of nothing else. He said he was stopping every 5 minutes or so to repent for his thoughts. This is someone who is sin-focused. He’s focused on the wrong thing – distractions. It permeates his thought-life. Success isn’t possible when you are focused on distractions instead of purpose. Many people are the same way toward fear, rejection, abandonment or countless other distractions. Repentance need only take a second to change your thinking on something and not distract you from your purpose and mission.

Let’s try an experiment. Try to draw a picture of a blue dog in your mind while verbally repeating the phrase pink elephant out loud. How much progress were you able to make? It isn’t likely that you’ll make nearly as much progress in this state of distraction as you would focused. Focus gives you clarity of thought. This is an essential ingredient in progressing toward your destiny.

Consider another example.Imagine driving on a two-lane undivided highway heading northward toward your destination. Yet, instead of driving in the North-bound lane, you are driving in the South-bound one. Periodically, you encounter a vehicle heading straight toward you. You have to swerve out of the lane in order to avoid being hit. You swerve into the correct North-bound lane for a moment and begin making progress. But before long swerve back into the South-bound lane. Others may even make a u-turn when confronted with an oncoming vehicle and began heading southward. They find themselves moving from North to South with little progress forward, at least in the desired direction.

This is a picture of how people live out of a distraction-based paradigm. Maturity comes when you learn to quickly identity distractions so you can move your focus off of them and back onto your destination and hopefully never even loose your focus in the first place.

If you can’t get there alone, get help. There is nothing broken within you that God can’t completely and permanently heal you of. God’s purpose is to fully restore you of everything you’ve lost or given up. He wants you to get back on track and heading with focused clarity toward your purpose and destiny.

Now that you’ve read this blog entry, it’s time to get back on track heading toward your destiny with focus. Recognize the next thing that pops up as a distraction that moves you in the wrong direction.

If you read this blog and have any thoughts about it or it had any impact on your life, would you mind taking a moment to post a comment at the bottom of this page? Thanks! I like to use my time wisely and if no one is getting anything of value out of these I have plenty of others things to do without getting distracted .

Thanks, John