I hesitate to call this a “Book” Review, because there’s not a lot of book to it. So I went with “Product.” Officially, the title of this product is Acts: Journible the 17:18 Series but that’s a clunky label when you have to retype it a lot. So, Journible for Acts is what you get. This product was provided through Cross-Focused Reviews in exchange for the review.
The printing press. It was a glorious invention. It remains the helpful concept underlying such things as copiers and inkjet printers. Thanks to the press, we have the ability to have multitudes of books and acres of other printed material. We can read, read, read, and read until our eyes go bad and our brains get overfull. We can read, read silently, and then find that we do not retain what we have put in our minds.
These days, there are suggestions that we should reconsider using the printer for everything. Items that need remembering are more often remembered when written down. My grocery list serves as a prime example: the one I keep on my Droid? If I don’t see it, I don’t remember a blasted thing on it. I can, however, recreate a list I wrote out a month ago. We remember what we write better than what we try to brain alone or what we put in the digital banks of our lives.
This long intro comes around to the product I want to point you to today: it’s called a Journible. I’m thinking that should pronounce like a cross between journal and Bible, but I’m just happy to be doing this via type and not audio. Specifically, I have the one for Acts from the New Testament, but the format is available for several other Scripture texts—some as stand-alones, and some in groups. (Oh, and Psalms takes 2.)
First, the concept: the Journible is a hardcover journal. Easy enough. Lined pages, ribbon marker to hold your spot. The binding on the Acts volume has held up well, and it is also minimalist in its labeling: the spine just says “Acts” with a small “17:18” at the bottom. The left-side pages have writing prompt questions, while the right-sides are numbered for the user to write out the text of the connected Scripture passage.
That’s right, the idea here is that you will read through a passage of Scripture, journal out a few thoughts on it, and then hand-copy the text that you read onto the right-side pages of the Journible. When you are done, you will have written out your own copy of that section of Scripture. It should help with memory, and it forces the user to really notice every word.
Next, the Acts volume specifically. This one runs 328 pages, and the writing prompts are mostly helpful to get the reader to consider what is going on in the text. The questions vary from “how deep is a fathom?” to pry at technical details to “summarize the Gospel as presented in this section” to pry some serious thoughts. I found the varied questions helpful, as was the extra space around them. One could easily answer the questions and still have plenty of room for personal thoughts.
I only had an issue with one question, but that was more personal than anything—in discussing Paul’s journeys, there’s a prompt to show Paul’s travels on a map. The idea is that the user will draw in the map. Which, for me, is a “yeah, right” kind of moment. I just went on and used the space for other thoughts, because the space was still nice and lined.
In all, I liked what I saw in the Acts Journible. Ann and I will probably take a stab at working through one of these when we finished our current devotional material. Basically, if you want to take a steady read through a Biblical section, this is a great tool to have on hand for it.
Product provided in exchange for review.
