Bible Study Handout

I am producing Bible study handouts for the congregation I serve, based on the Lutheran Service Book three-year lectionary. The handout includes the text of the three readings for the day as well as the reference for the Psalm of the day. It has a section for notes as well as the next Sunday's readings as well.

If you'd like more information, please contact me.

Translation Notes

I am using the Berean Standard Bible (BSB) translation, for three main reasons:

  1. it's a good English translation which falls somewhere between the ESV and NIV on the "formal/dynamic" continuum,
  2. it's part of an interesting tier system which includes an interlinear and a more literal translation, and
  3. it's public domain.

Maybe that last reason should be higher on the list, because the reason that I can share it freely is because of this. The translation that's most commonly used in our Lutheran circles is the English Standard Version (ESV), which is also good, but carries copyright restrictions that would prohibit distributing something like this.

The text used in this handout is the 2021 printing of the BSB that is found in the Logos software. There is a more recent printing (2025), but from what I understand there are only very minor revisions, almost none of them textual. I use the 2021 printing for expediency's sake; copying the 2025 version from the Word document would take orders of magnitude longer than from the Logos edition. If the Logos edition gets updated, it will be reflected in the handouts produced from that time.

Any "quirks" of this specific translation (there are always these things in every translation: word choices, odd phrasing, etc.), I deal with during a teaching time. I prefer to keep the text as presented rather than introduce my own quirks; though the public domain permits changes to be made, it would then no longer be the BSB and I would end up complicating things further.

Formatting Notes

The only changes I make from the provided text involve formatting, specifically:

  1. I make the spelling consistent with Canadian spelling conventions instead of USAmerican.
  2. I use indents for paragraphs instead of blank lines.