Your First Study Session

A short tour: open a passage, read commentary on it, and try both kinds of search.

1. Start at the home screen

The home screen shows a verse of the day. Click it to go to that verse in context. Below it are two buttons, Read Bible and Search.

Click Read Bible.

2. Pick a book and chapter

To open the Go to Passage dialog, click the chapter title at the top of the reading area (for example, "Psalm 23"), or click the book icon at the right end of the search bar.

Choose a book, then a chapter. You can also type a reference such as John 3, Psalm 23, or Gen 1:1-5 in the search bar. See Reading the Bible.

3. Read a chapter

← Prev and Next → at the bottom of the chapter go to the previous and next chapter, across book boundaries. The chevrons beside the chapter title and at the right end of the toolbar do the same. To change the text size or theme, see Personalizing Your Experience.

4. Click a verse to study it

Click a verse to select it. The panels on the right update to show commentary, cross-references, topics, and original-language information for that verse. On a phone, the Study and Commentary screens update instead.

See Study Tools.

5. Try both kinds of search

The search bar is at the top of the screen. Press / or Ctrl+K (Cmd+K on a Mac) to focus it. The button to its left shows the search mode. Click it to choose Standard Search (magnifying glass) or Ideas Search (lightbulb).

With Standard Search, type the good shepherd. The results list every verse containing those words. Click a result to go to it.

With Ideas Search, type a shepherd boy killed a giant with a sling. Ideas Search attempts to match by meaning rather than by exact words. The first time, a dialog explains that Ideas Search sends your search words to an online service; click Agree and search to continue. See Ideas Search.

See Searching for more, including Strong's number searches. The "?" button in the header opens a short in-app help panel.