I have been looking forward to the new ESV Personal Size Reference Bibles for a couple of months now. I was looking forward to them for several reasons but my fear was that this size would be too small. I had been carrying my Scofield ESV to church and events but it is just so big and bulky. Try carrying a diaper bag, a two year old, Sunday school papers from your 5 and 3 year old kids and then a big ‘ole black Bible! It is just painful.
So anyway, when I saw these new Reference Bibles on the ESV Bible page, I got excited! They have a single column, paragraph format which I think God will one day tell us is the inspired format. 
) The every verse on a separate line format invites people to do crazy things with verses..but, that is for another post. This is a reference Bible so I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to see the hundreds of reference indicators but after looking at the sample format, I fell in love with it. Here are the specs straight from gncpb.org:
Personal Size Reference Bibles
This black TruTone is the one I got though I coudn’t wait to get it from Amazon so I stopped at Baker Books. I have heard that the all leather one is sewn-bound but I didn’t really care for the traditional leather look it has. The TruTone is extermely soft feeling with just a hint of rubberiness to it. For me, it is the perfect match between features and size. While the text is small, it works for me. It does not have a lot of space for note taking but I’m not one to write things in my Bible these days anyway. This is a Bible that I can take anywhere and not feel like I have a brick in my hand. Together with the aforementioned preferred page layout, it is a real winner for me!
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