Three Bible Reviews: NKJV Color Code Bible, Open Bible, and Sovereign Collection

Let’s take a look at three new offerings from Thomas Nelson Publishers:

The Sovereign Collection NKJV Bible

The Sovereign Collection Bible looks attractive on the outside, but the inside design leaves much to be desired. The exterior has an exquisitely designed spine with gold embossed text and images and comes with two bookmarks (one red and one brown).

The interior has decorative illuminated-style letters at the beginning of each chapter, but since they are single-color and the same throughout, it is not as aesthetically inspiring as it might seem. Show-through (seeing the text on the back of the page) detracts from the “sovereign” or high-quality look the designers set out to achieve. The font size is 10.5-point for easy readability, and it does include easy-to-locate cross-reference, a concordance, and full-color maps.

This bible would look beautiful on the shelf and be somewhat easy to read, so it would serve well for those two purposes. However, the interior design and the questionable binding near the back of the book block detract from what could have been a beautiful book. I would not recommend purchasing this bible, because there are more beautiful and utilitarian options available.

This Bible is available for purchase at Amazon.com and Christian Book and Thomas Nelson Bibles.

The Color Code Bible for Kids

If you have a child in your life who enjoys colors in relation to information, this edition might be a good fit for them. The style of this Bible is very appealing for young kids with its brilliant textured blue cover on the outside and highly colorful layout on the inside. The color-coding system is used throughout the text to help the kids identify what certain sections of passages are related to. In the preface, there is a section explaining each designation. Thankfully, the coding system is on every single page of text. Personally, I’d forget which color was for which category, so this is helpful.

Unfortunately, I have a difficult time distinguishing which color corresponds to which highlighted portions. The colors they used for pink, orange and red can be challenging to identify when the three don’t appear in the same section.

The Color Code Bible could be a decent starter bible for a young kid, but for most children, the coding system might be more distracting than helpful.

This newly-released Bible is available for purchase at Amazon.com and Christian Book and Thomas Nelson Bibles.

The Open Bible

The Open Bible is an excellent choice for anyone seeking a bible that includes great study tools. Whether you’ve been studying the Bible for years or are just getting started, this edition includes information that will be incredibly helpful.

If you are a visual learner, you will appreciate the “Visual Survey of the Bible” section at the beginning, as well as the overview charts in each book. One of my personal favorites in this Open Bible is the inclusion of maps within the text. As nice as it is to have maps in the back of a bible, it is much less frustrating if the exact map I need is on the same page of text I’m reading.

The design of the text is clean, neat, and easy to read. There is adequate space around the text to avoid eyestrain, and the headers and subheaders are in different shades of blue to distinguish them from the main text.

The study tools include word studies (included within the text), charts, a topical index at the front of the bible, and a concordance in the back of the Bible. Each book of the Bible has an introductory section which discusses authorship, date, themes, and an outline of the book. In the back of the Bible, there is a section on Biblical Archeology, a listing of the miracles of Jesus (including the passages where they’re located), and the parables of Jesus. There is a wealth of reference material for a Bible student all contained in this one edition of the Bible.

The Open Bible is functional, beautifully designed, and overflowing with helpful tools. I highly recommend this anyone seeking a new study Bible.

This Bible is available for purchase at Amazon.com and Christian Book and Thomas Nelson Bibles.

Disclaimer: The opinions in this review are my own. I received a copy of each Bible for review purposes.