The newly released NLT Pastors Bible is essentially a Large Print ThinLine Reference Bible with 2 awkwardly placed sections of pastoral helps. But, the price of the NLT Pastors Bible is about $20 higher than the NLT ThinLine Reference Bible.

The most important part of any Bible is the translation. The NLT is the most accurate and understandable translation, which employs the dynamic equivalence method of translation. I love reading the Bible in an essentially literal translation such as the ESV, NKJV or NASB and then reading the same passage in the NLT. This has aided my understanding of the Old Testament immensely because Hebrew and Aramaic do not translate literally, into understandable English, nearly as well as New Testament Greek. The NLT shines when it comes to translating the meaning of the text.

Unfortunately, the Table of Contents in the NLT Pastors Bible shows the Pastoral Resources Part 1 located between the Old and New Testaments, but in reality it is located between Proverbs chapter 29 and 30 - an odd placement to say the least, but not unexpected when a Bible is produced in China. Part 2 of the pastoral helps begins after page 1106, at the end of the Bible. The pastoral helps are useful, but minimal when compared to other Pastors Bibles. As the previous review stated, a verse-by-verse presentation of the text would have been more helpful for pastors.

That said, the NLT translation, the supple leather cover with raised spine hubs, the filament enabled study and devotional materials, the Tyndale Verse Finder, the Visual Overview of the Bible and the addition of 3 ribbon markers make for a very nice Bible. The cover liner is a synthetic material, the binding is sewn and line-matched printing is used to minimize ghosting. This could have been a great Bible, but unfortunately, it is only a good Bible. I purchased the Bible from Christianbook.com.

So disappointed to learn this wont help my favorite translation become better suited for preaching by providing a verse by verse format or at least bold verse markings. I want to use NLT but teaching and preaching extemporaneously from it is needlessly tough because of the hard to find verse markings. Hope the genuine leather is better than the binding on the wide margins. Love that Bible but the cover is no bueno.