For the time being, I’ve also been impressed with Tyndale’s new center-column NLT Reference Bible, which is a little larger than the Pitt-Minion. Same design layout as Mosaic, but the text is just enough larger that it makes a difference. The typography is cleaner than the older slimline Reference Bibles, even with a little page ghosting. And it does include the word study notes.

T.C.

My Congregationalist church already observes the Christian year. We have two ministers, an interim head pastor whose sermons are engaging the congregation in biblical text more directly and studiously than his predecessor, and a Christian education minister who’s in seminary and who’s been encouraging us to grow our prayer practices inspired by lectio divina. It’s an exciting time in the life of the congregation. If I’m lucky enough to win a copy of Mosaic, I would give it to my congregation’s Christian education minister, because I think she could make great use of it in helping our congregation deepen our commitment to spiritual disciplines through an encounter with the wider Church across history as presented in Mosaic and through the NLT itself, which to date has not been a much-used translation for preaching or teaching in my congregation. (We get a lot of NRSV and The Message! Both fine in their place, but I personally think the current edition of NLT preserves most of the virtues of the NRSV while significantly improving the clarity of the language for a contemporary reader.)

scott (at) madforjam.com