Bible Gateway Blog

We’re always excited to add more ways to experience the Bible. So, we’d like to offer a special thank you to The Lockman Foundation and mp3nasb.com for helping us get the Old and New testament flash versions of the NASB audio up on biblegateway.com.

The NASB bible is read by Dale McConachie. Click here to listen.

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve added Max McLean’s beautiful performance of the KJV to our audio offerings on BibleGateway.com. The files are in an easy to use flash player that you can find by following this link.

You can find all of our audio bibles here. Enjoy!

Thanks you for the over 1600 responses we’ve already received on our Verse of the Day survey!

We wanted to let you know that we’ll be closing the survey tomorrow.

Instead of having our staff picking new verses for the Verse of the Day, we thought we’d extend the offer to you to let us know what your favorite verses are. The survey is one question long, ridiculously simple and we don’t ask for personal information. Feel free to take it more than once if you have a lot of favorite verses!

Looking for a unique way to support the Bible Gateway? You can now become a sponsor of the Bible Gateway, and help us make the Word of God available to millions of people each month!

What does Bible Gateway sponsorship involve? It’s easy—sign up at the sponsorship site, choose which day you want to sponsor, and for your entire chosen day, you (or your organization/website) are prominently acknowledged on the Bible Gateway as the day’s sponsor (in the “Today’s Sponsor box on the left).

Bible Gateway sponsorship starts at $250 per day of sponsorship. (The normal cost is $400—but for a limited time while we introduce the sponsorship program, we’re offering it at a reduced price.) Your sponsorship is tax deductible, and helps us impact millions of visitors by making the Word of God freely available in dozens of languages.

If the Bible Gateway is a ministry you’re excited about, take advantage of this opportunity to publicly support it by sponsoring the Bible Gateway for one or more days! Head over to Sponsor.BibleGateway.com to learn more, or to become a Bible Gateway sponsor!

We’re updating our Verse of the Day feature and we’d like your input. Rather than our staff coming up with a biased list of favorite verses, we thought we’d extend the offer to you to let us know what your favorite verses are.

The survey is one question long, super-simple, and we don’t ask for personal information. Get your two cents in, and then tell a friend!

As 2007 drew to a close, we ran a special donation drive at the Bible Gateway, asking BG users to support our ongoing ministry… and the results are in! You responded with donations totaling over $213,000!

We at the BG team are both stunned and humbled by your response. Your donations will help us continue to improve the Bible Gateway this year with new translations and new features. We’ve got some exciting plans for 2008 and your support is going to make those plans a reality.

So from the Bible Gateway team to everybody who donated or sent a prayer our way—a hearty “thank you!”

(And if you’d like to learn more about Gospel Communications, the organization behind the Bible Gateway and many other ministries, take a look at the Gospel Communications website. Your support of the Bible Gateway and Gospel Communications is always appreciated!)

Last week we rolled out some new functionality on Biblegateway.com. Perhaps you noticed, but when you do a search on Biblegateway.com there is a new results section from a place called Gospel.com. It looks something like this:

Perhaps you’re asking the question, “What’s Gospel.com?” Well, friends, that’s a great question. Here’s a quick explanation:

Biblegateway.com is just one of the web sites that make up the Gospel Communications International Internet Ministry Department (a mouthful that refers to our online ministries). In November we launched Gospel.com, which is an online directory of web pages from our Gospel.com Community. The advantage of a directory is that instead of automatically indexing information on the internet each link is individually indexed by a person. The result is a directory with much more focused resources organized into different topics. And as our Community adds and bookmarks new content to their web sites Gospel.com just keeps getting better.

We’re pretty excited about Gospel.com. The next time you search on the BG, we hope you take a chance to check out one of the links from Gospel.com.

Wow, not only did we click over 1,000 members before thanksgiving, but we just passed 2,500 today!

We love hearing your positive comments about the ministry of biblegateway.com, and the discussions on the boards have been inspiring. A big thank you to the group for being willing to respectfully and prayerfully minister to each other. Here are a few comments that people have left on our Wall:

“I love Biblegateway.com. Not only can I read the Word but hear it as well, thus allowing my faith to increase. Thank you for now also allowing us to be able to encourage one another and meet like minded people. I appreciate you:)” (From South Africa)

“I have made Bible Gateway a verb on IM. Such as: ‘… I cant find the verse, hold on, let me BG that.’”

“Praise the lord, am happy and thankful that i have got a forum where i can share with brothers and sisters who know the lord, thank you bible gateway for your resources, may God bless you, would like to meet people who are ready to share the word to achieve the purpose of us being here Matt28:18-20.” (From Kenya)

“bible gateway is rad.”

The group is open to anyone, so if you’re interested do a search for “Official Bible Gateway Group” on Facebook and click on “Join Group”. Please let us know if there’s any features you would love to see on the Bible Gateway.

The Bible Gateway has a Facebook group! If you’re a Facebook user, head on over to the Official Bible Gateway Facebook group to join, or do a search on Facebook for the ‘official Bible Gateway’ group.

It’s a chance to meet the Bible Gateway team and interact with your fellow Bible Gateway users! It’s open for anyone to join, so stop by, say hello, and join the discussion!

Here’s a final round of stories we received during the Bible Gateway story giveaway. We went through the stories and picked out a few that show how the BG is being used to support the work of ministry and evangelism:

Using Bible Gateway has totally enhanced how my church does Bible Study. We are set up for wi-fi so members in our congregation will bring their laptops. As we study God’s word we use Bible Gateway because the ability to access many translations is so accessible through this website. We live in a technologically enhanced society and through Bible Gateway we have been able to bring computers into the church in a way that it doesn’t hinder but enhances our time of studying God’s word. — Jeanne

Bible Gateway is a wonderful resource because I can copy verses quickly and easily for use in this venue. I am often in conversations via the internet when I just look up a keyword or passage to use in the conversation. I have been sharing my faith with people in Dallas and Israel, in Tennessee and South Africa. Who would have thought that someone who is “just a wife and mom” in the eyes of the world could have effects for the Kingdom in the lives of her children, her neighbors, her community, and her world? — Jenny

I am a missionary in a “sensitive area” (where the work or my life could be compromised). I am the only American who has stayed and lived in this area for the last 9 years. Bringing in many reference books into the area draws attention, so having access to your study materials has been invaluable! I and a native colleague have used Biblegateway to translate the first written/printed materials into a local language — the plan of Salvation and basic materials on living the faith. As a result, we have evangelized and planted a church among Muslims! — a missionary

For a number of years we have been hosting Chinese university students for a week or more over Christmas when their dorms are closed. This has led to some great friendships and really interesting opportunities to share God’s Word. We are SO grateful for Bible Gateway and the many languages available that we don’t speak but God does! Less than 6 months ago, my husband was having a chat on MSN with one of our students, sharing the Gospel with him in his heart language by copying and pasting the Chinese script. “Kevin” put his faith in Jesus that night and Stuart had the privilege of baptizing him a few weeks later! — Mary

Thanks again to all who sent us your stories–we read all of them and appreciate the time you’ve taken to share with us!