The Bible on the Web

What is one resource that every church professional always has close at hand, if not in memory? That's right: the Bible.

But what do you do if you need to do a quick keyword search? Or you need to create a handout for confirmation class and your trusty concordance and study Bible are being used to prop up your computer's monitor? You can use any number of free and flexible Bible sites on the Internet. There are many online Bible searches available, each with their own particular strengths and weaknesses. We hope that the following resources will provide you a starting point for your online exegesis.

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Bible Gateway (www.BibleGateway.com) is a full-fledged service, great for quick passage lookups and keyword searches in a variety of languages, from Amharic to Tagalog and several in between. Many of the most-used English versions are available as text. However, Bible Gateway also provides several English renderings as well as Spanish and other languages as audio files. With a little work, you can have a virtual Pentecost language celebration anytime you want!

Olive Tree Bible Software (www.OliveTree.com/Bible) makes the popular and widely used Bible Software for PDAs and Smartphones (Palms, Blackberrys, etc.). At their online search site, they provide similar keyword lookup options. This site has very good original language (Greek and Hebrew) versions, including interlinear options for those who want to do a bit more original word study.

Oremus Bible Browser (www.Bible.Oremus.org) provides much of the same functionality as the other Bible search sites mentioned above. Two things make Oremus stand out and cause us to use this as our primary bookmark for online Bible. Of the search sites that we've discovered, Oremus is the only one to make the NRSV available. We prefer this translation for nearly all of our congregational ministries. Second, Oremus provides a search box which allows you to enter multiple passages. The resulting screen will give you each of the passages you entered, one after another. This is a simple way to produce handouts with all of the lectionary readings for a given day or other multiple-passage results, without having to retype them all, or make your monitor topple over.

Daily Bible Reading (www.ELCA.org) While not a searchable Bible resource, the ELCA provides a Daily Bible Reading using the NRSV. This Daily Bible Reading follows the pattern of the Revised Standard Lectionary and provides a way to follow up on the previous Sunday's reading or prepare for next Sunday. This is a great resource and link for congregational Web sites.

Jennifer and Seth Moland-Kovash serve as co-pastors of All Saints Lutheran Church, Palatine, Illinois, and are Web resource editors for Lutheran Partners magazine and Lutheran Partners Online.