“Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life.”
The closing line of Philip P. Bliss’s hymn says it perfectly. God’s Word is filled with beautiful, wonderful words that give us life. The words of Scripture are indeed beautiful for their love, grace, exhortation, correction, wisdom, hope and truth. While we know that God’s Word stands alone and needs no help from us to speak to the reader, in this Bible we complemented Scripture with illustrations of God’s beautiful words. In partnership with seven unique artists who each brought their own personal creative style to 500 verses, we added visual beauty to the pages of Scripture.
With the help from data collected by BibleGateway, we selected key verses online Bible readers search most often. We paired our review with an editorial eye to select verses that represented every book of the Bible and that balanced popular verses with less familiar ones. Some verses are great to memorize, others will introduce you to a section of God’s Word that may be unfamiliar.
How many women have prayed a prayer such as Hannah did in 1 Samuel? Do you feel you have been placed in a work, home, or family situation “for such a time as this,” like Esther? Perhaps you need a reminder that sins will be found out (Numbers 32:23) and God is a just God (Deuteronomy 32:4)—but also that he is a merciful God (Jonah 4:2) whose love knows no end. Maybe today you need the hope of 2 Chronicles 15:7: “But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded.” As Psalm 150 encourages us, “Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.” And no matter what season you are in, 2 Thessalonians 3:3 reminds us, “The LORD is faithful”—both sun and rain are important to growth and he will not fail you in any season.
We hope that through the beauty of these illustrated words, you will pause, read and be drawn in to explore God’s Word deeper than you have before. We also hope that the artwork will inspire you to illustrate or journal about your favorite, life-changing verses and passages in the margins of this Bible.
We pray that this inspirational, Scripture-based art will open your hearts to his beautiful, wonderful words of life in a way you’ve never experienced.