At a recent Youth Specialties conference on “Unleashing Scripture In Your Life & Ministry”, the following list of helpful resources were suggested for youth ministers as they build their libraries.
Biblical Encyclopedias
Biblical encyclopedias are often written with regard to a particular subject like Bible Difficulties or Biblical Characters. They often provide more extensive and comprehensive information in comparison to a Bible Dictionary. There are any number of these available depending on what, in particular, you want to study.
Lexicon
Lexicons give you insight into the original languages o the Biblical text. For beginners try A Reader’s Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testament
by Terry A. Armstrong, Douglas L. Busby and Cyril F. Carr and A Reader’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament
by Sakae Kubo.
Bible Dictionary
Want to get some more information on a Biblical topic? A Bible dictionary is where you want to look. The NIV Compact Dictionary of the Bible
by J.D. Douglas, Merrill C. Tenney is both easy to manage and simple to understand.
Concordance
A concordance lists every occurrence of a particular word in the Bible. Strong’s
is the most popular, but uses only the King James. If the NIV is more your style, check out The Strongest NIV Exhaustive Concordance
by Edward W. Goodrick, John R. Kohlenberger III.
Bible Handbook
Bible handbooks help give you insight into the cultural, religious, geographical and archaeological context of the Biblical narrative. By far the most popular and helpful is Halley’s Bible Handbook
by Henry H. Halley.
Commentary
Commentaries are written by Biblical scholars to give you insight into the overarching themes of scripture as well as the details contained within each individual verse. For one trusted and used by academics and casual students alike, check out The Expositor’s Bible Commentary
by Zondervan.
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- Lord Acton’s Reading List