What Is the Blue Letter Bible?

Oh his own resources mankind has no way to discern, with any accuracy, the divine. Essentially, if God had not made Himself known to us, mankind would be rendered blind to the ways of God, wandering aimlessly in the darkness of his own soul. Fortunately, however, God did intervene. By sharing the light of His Word, He chose to illuminate the darkness in which mankind dwelt in order that we might travel sure-footedly the path of the miraculous, the path of Jesus Christ.

It is only through the Word of God that we can come to know the glory of the Son of God, that we can come to commune with God. It is by studying and taking hold of the truth of Scripture that we come to know God, that we grow in our appreciation for His majesty. The Bible is central to the Christian experience and understanding it should be amongst the foremost goals of those who worship God. To that end, we offer the Blue Letter Bible.

The Blue Letter Bible

The Blue Letter Bible (BLB) is—among other things now—an online Bible-study program that operates at no charge to its users. From its conception in 1996, the mission of the BLB has been to facilitate the in-depth study of God�s Word. The BLB offers a robust system of study tools such as lexical aids, an interactive reference library, and word, phrase, and verse searches—all of which are interlinked in such a way to promote Spirit-led Bible study.

How Is the BLB Unique?

The central experience of the BLB has always been God's Word. Like many other online Bible-study options, the BLB offers multiple translations, a variety of reference works and study charts, Hebrew and Greek interlinear texts, lexicon entries, articles, commentaries, and audio sermons. Still, despite all this content, the BLB is organized in such a way that this information is most easily available when one is in the midst of studying God's Word.

Every verse is tied (through a handful of simple buttons) to the tools that will help to enrich the study of that particular verse and passage. When studying John 3:16, one has immediate access to Greek interlinear and concordance for the verse, commentaries and sermons treating the verse, related hymns, and encyclopedia entries on Atonement, faith, Nicodemus, and more. Everything is linked and interlinked and helps facilitate Spirit-directed study of the Word.

Then What Is the BLB for iPad

The BLB for iPad is an adaptation of our website for Apple's tablet device. We've tried to pack as much of the website's functionality into the iPad program as we can. It, of course, is a work in progress and future builds should have more content and a more streamlined interface. But at the least we wanted to provide a solid portable opportunity to continue the same level of easy Bible study on the iPad.

Why Is It Called the Blue Letter Bible?

Back in 1996, in the early days of the World Wide Web and when the Blue Letter Bible first came out, hyperlinks were pretty much always blue in color (or purple if previously visited, but that gets in the way of the story, so ignore it). Because our Bible-study program had hundreds of thousands of links that were all blue, we stuck upon the idea of calling it the Blue Letter Bible as a play on the more commonly referenced red-letter editions of Scripture. It was cute and playful and, evidently, memorable. And we've been kind of saddled with a blue theme ever since!