Understanding the Bible w/ Amy Senter

➡️Get Your FREE Guide "How to Study the Bible" at www.coffeeandbibletime.com!

Join us for a conversation with Amy Senter, a former teacher and artist, who took an unexpected path toward biblical literacy. Her journey is one of passion and perseverance, overcoming a severe illness, becoming transformed by the power of personal Bible study.

Learn the importance of developing a strong foundation in scripture to confidently navigate life and faith. Amy shares practical tips for effective study, including the use of visual aids and timelines. She highlights the value of spiritual disciplines and self-care, emphasizing how these practices can lead to personal transformation.

Amy's Links:
Website: amysenter.com
Go To Bible: Illustrating Bible
Go-To Bible: Parallel Bible
Journaling Supplies: Apple Pencil for iPad
Journaling Supplies: Apple iPad
Journaling Supplies: Sharpies
App/Website: Logos

Use code POD2025Q1-Q2 to get 3 months free when you download and register for the Glorify app!

If you are a Christian woman seeking to know God deeper, study Scriptures, pray with and for others, strengthen your faith, and support other in doing the same, this is the place for you! 

Transcript

Ellen Krause: 0:04

At the Coffee and Bible Time podcast, Our goal is to help you delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living. Each week, we talk to subject matter experts who broaden your biblical understanding, encourage you in hard times and provide life-building tips to enhance your Christian walk. We are so glad you have joined us. Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. I'm Ellen, your host.

Ellen Krause: 0:32

You know, in today's world, many people struggle to fully understand the Bible. We hear so many voices, whether that's online, in the media or even from well-meaning friends, that it's easy to get confused about what we believe. The problem is, when we don't know scripture well, we might end up misinterpreting it or relying on someone else's version of the truth. Well, in this episode, I'm joined by Amy Senter, who shares with us a passion for biblical literacy. We'll talk about how biblical literacy can help us discern truth and share our beliefs with confidence. By learning how to study and understand the Bible for ourselves, we build a strong foundation that helps us navigate both our faith and the world around us. We will explore some simple steps to get there. First and foremost is to make time for regular Bible study.

Ellen Krause: 1:34

Well, Aamy Senter is a former teacher and artist turned advocate for biblical literacy. With a heart for helping Christians of all ages and learning styles to deepen their understanding of scripture, amy has created a range of faith-based resources, including her popular books of the Bible cheat sheets, which have been sold in over 45 countries. Her products are specifically designed to cater to visual learners as well as those with dyslexia and ADHD, ensuring that everyone can connect with the Bible in a way that resonates with them. Amy's journey into biblical literacy began with her own struggles to understand and apply scripture in her daily life apply scripture in her daily life. Drawing from her background in education and the arts, she has developed a unique approach to study the Bible that combines creativity and practicality.

Amy Senter: 2:36

Hey, thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here, thank you.

Ellen Krause: 2:47

Oh, Amy, when you guys reached out to us and I went on your website for the first time, I was just blown away because you're so creative and I just love the way you combine all the gifts that God has given you to help people you know increase their knowledge of the Bible. Why don't you start out by just telling us a little bit about your own personal story and journey into faith?

Amy Senter: 3:08

Yeah, of course, I grew up in the church. I had, you know, pretty typical church upbringing, and then I went to Christian college at ACU in Abilene, texas, and then I married a guy who grew up in the same faith but, um, you know, we were raised in the same denomination but we had very different views of what the Bible said on just kind of, uh, just the rules, basically. Um, and so a lot of us, a lot of it, was like well, I was raised this way, I was raised this way. So that was the first time I really realized, okay, not everybody who has a name Christian has my exact beliefs. And then it kind of turned into, um, it wasn't a big deal until we had children. Then we want to pass our beliefs onto our children. So it was like, well, what matters and what is just you know the side notes, um, what's the core of our foundation, of what our beliefs, and all of that was the same and we wanted to pass that onto our kids. And so, uh, we kind of went from there. But we felt very, uh, even as young adults with and young parents, we just felt so unequipped to teach our children about this faith, because a lot of it was well, that's how we were raised or that's how my parents told us, and so we'd never fully claimed it as our own. Yes, we believed it and we wanted to pass it on, but we hadn't really done the work to understand. Is this something that I believe, rather than I'm just passing on this family tradition? And so that when we became, when I became a parent, that was very like, okay, I need to dig into this more. But I didn't really dig into the biblical literacy aspect, and what I mean by that is understanding how the story worked together. So I thought, you know, okay, I need to read my Bible more, I need to start going to church more, I need to pray more and do those little checklist things.

Amy Senter: 5:10

But I ended up getting sick after the birth of my daughter, where they couldn't figure out what it was. It was just like chronic pain, excruciating pain, a lot of like memory loss type things, trying out different medicines. At one point they said I had fibromyalgia, you know. Another. They're like let's do exploratory surgery. So it was always very stressful of I don't know what's wrong and nobody can tell me how to fix it. And so it went on to three years in and I ended up being on uh in a wheelchair and needed a nanny for my kids. I could not physically even take myself to the bathroom.

Amy Senter: 5:49

It was so terrifying and it was in that time that I really realized okay, this whole my family believes this, so we're going to believe this isn't really cutting it anymore. Um, because I'm going through something really, really hard right now and I've been told my whole life God is good, and right now I'm. I've been crying out to God, I've been turning to God, I've been trying to get advice and I'm not getting. I'm not getting any help. This isn't going away. Um, and so I realized my faith was based on this idea of that If God is good, then I'm going to be safe. I'm never going to, you know, have to worry about anything. He's going to protect me Like he's my. He protects me basically from anything wrong happening. And I realized that's not what's happening here.

Amy Senter: 6:39

So I had to kind of dig into my faith, in the point of it almost made more sense to believe there wasn't a God than there was a God who was allowing this to happen, because that just seemed cruel to me. But I knew that just didn't line up, that didn't settle well, believing either God wasn't good or God wasn't real. And so I had to decide what do I believe about God? And what I believed about God in that horrible time was God is real and God is good, despite what was happening to me. So that helped me understand. Well then, maybe God still allows this stuff not because he's bad, but he's still good. So what in the world does that mean? So I really had to dig into who God was.

Amy Senter: 7:24

Honestly, I had done a lot of the which there's nothing wrong with the reading your Bible every day and praying every day but I did a lot of the kind of like pick and choose every day. What mood am I in? You know, what's our church studying? Or what's my friend the latest book topic? That's like New York best time seller and things like that, and so a lot of it was more like me following other people's leads or those trends and stuff. And when it came to, nobody could help me and I was so overwhelmed I realized all I've got left is God. And what do I believe about God?

Amy Senter: 8:04

And so in doing so, I realized I need to understand who God is, and the only way you can do that is, through reading his word you can pray to him for insight as well. But you really need to understand his word. And I didn't understand it. I knew we got Shadrach, meshach and Abednego, we've got Jesus's story, we've got Noah's story, but how? I don't understand how they fit together. It was like more of a. I went through it as like I know these are real but they don't really feel real. They feel more like a fairy tale and then kind of marrying all that schooling that you've gone through I've learned about the Roman Empire and all these things that happened, but I never understood how it connected to if the Bible story is real. That stuff was going on at the same time.

Amy Senter: 8:52

And so to me, using my teaching background, I kind of approached my Bible in a way I'd never done before and was like I want to understand what's happening when I open Micah. Who is Micah? What is happening? What year is this? How is he related to everybody else? And I just needed I was so desperate to be like I need to understand the story. And so that's basically where my journey into biblical literacy started was in desperation, I wanted to know God. Literacy started was in desperation, I wanted to know God. I wanted to know who God truly was, not who my parents said or my husband said, or my school said, or I wanted to know who God was, and so the place I started was his word.

Ellen Krause: 9:37

Oh, Amy, that your story is so incredible because you can see how the depths of this awful experience that you went through has produced such incredible fruit in all of the materials that you've created to help others understand the Bible. Why don't you give our listeners just a little bit of background on what you're teaching and your artistic background? Because I'm just curious too, because it's how you use it together is so beautiful.

Amy Senter: 10:18

And that's one of those things I love to encourage people in. Like so many times we are like what's our purpose, what is this? And you try one thing and you're like, well, that didn't amount to anything and this didn't amount to anything. And what I've found through this journey is every single thing I've done in my life has mattered. It has shaped this spot that I'm in right now.

Amy Senter: 10:41

I went to school or when I was young I love to read, I still love to read. I thought I'll be an author. I want to write stuff. I want to, you know, just do that kind of thing. And now I'm writing things. I'm writing blog posts, I'm sharing this stuff.

Amy Senter: 10:56

I wanted to be an artist. I went to school actually wanting to be an art teacher and in a kind way, they told me yeah, you're not very good at drawing people and realistic things, so you might want to try something different. So I ended up being totally discouraged. I stopped doing artwork altogether. I became an elementary school teacher. I was a second grade teacher. I loved it. I love the teaching. So I wasn't disappointed about being a teacher. I knew I wanted to do that, but what I did was I doodled constantly in second grade using my artwork and of course the seven-year-olds think I'm amazing. So that's you know. I don't have the critique of a college professor. So to me I was like all that art was a waste.

Amy Senter: 11:42

The teaching I ended up teaching, or I ended up teaching until I had my kids. So I got this degree, I taught for four years and then I stayed at home. So I was like, well, that was kind of a waste, because now I'm not going back to it. So it's like all these little things I thought are one and done, these little dreams I had that it was like, well, if I want this, I can't have that anymore. Um, I opened little Etsy shops trying to make money here and there and it's like all of that came full circle.

Amy Senter: 12:11

Right now I make a living drawing and teaching and, uh, just, I have a shop, I even have an Etsy shop still go. And I mean I've got all those little pieces, have just come together. And God has told me every single time somebody says you can't, I'm going to tell you you can. And it's so funny to me that I'm drawing stick figures because I like let my audience know like I might be able to draw this flower, like really well. But when it comes to people, I'm going to draw this little stick figure and you can draw a stick figure and that's okay too, and people will come to me and be like I'm so intimidated by drawings but I love yours, which shows me that they believe I'm gifted in that, which is something I've had to almost reclaim as yes that you know who is to say that this gift isn't worthy?

Amy Senter: 13:05

It's something that God has given me and in my teaching experience, what ended up happening there was I was very um, wanting to use my artistic ability but not feeling confident in it, and I ended up getting a lot of or most of the dyslexic kids in our grade level because I was a really visual teacher and I simplified things as much as I could for these kids and in doing so, I also have a son with ADD, my husband has ADD and I had kids with ADD and all those things were just, you know, we're trying to like entertain these kids but not give them. We're trying to like entertain these kids but not give them fluff, we're trying to give them substance. So in that I trained myself how can I explain this concept in the most basic way that makes sense and they can actually learn it? And a lot of that was through, you know, graphic organizers and doodles and hands on and using your senses and hands-on and using your senses, and so that's another skill that I ended up using in this, which I didn't even recognize.

Amy Senter: 14:09

I'll get feedback from adults saying I've used your Bible study materials. I have dyslexia. I could never sit down and read the Bible and understand it until I had your sheets to look at next to it and that just blew my mind of how have I not seen that that's what is happening here?

Amy Senter: 14:27

God is every little aspect. It was all come together to glorify him, and that's what has brought me so much joy in this process is that it's not about me, it's about him and just how all these little pieces of the story that I thought were just a waste of time or something I wanted to pursue, that somebody closed that door, are able to create these visual learning tools.

Ellen Krause: 15:11

I think originally, Amy and this has been a while ago that I found your website and looked on it and I did not realize until I read your bio that you had created these with people with ADD in mind and dyslexia, because we have that in our family and I have ADHD and I remember thinking, oh my goodness, like the visual diagrams bring everything to life, like it just helps you kind of see and visualize what's going on there, and I think people will be surprised that that you can use that kind of a tool with the Bible. So why don't you tell us, like, how can someone start understanding the Bible If it feels, if they feel, overwhelmed, what, what tools would you suggest for just starting out?

Amy Senter: 16:03

Yeah, sure. Well, one big thing that I teach and it's like the very first thing you'll see on my site is that the Bible's not put together in chronological order, and that was something. When I realized it, I was like more embarrassed, like, oh my, how have I been in church this my whole life? And I just figured this out, you know. And so I didn't want to talk about it very much. And I, when I did start sharing things on a blog, like talking about my health stuff, and then I was like I'm reading my Bible and I just put together this little chronological sheet, I thought, you know, I didn't know this. How silly. And everybody. That one went viral and I wasn't even selling, it wasn't a business, it was just talking and it like went on Pinterest and it was just like a screenshot.

Amy Senter: 16:50

I had taken up these notes and I was like, wow, there are so many Christians, including myself, that have no idea how the Bible story fits together. And so that's where I always start people now is do you know the Bible is not in chronological order and do you know, like, how to figure out the order? So, basically, the Bible is was put together by genre. So there's, you know the the law in the history books, and in there there's the story of David and the prophets and the kingdom is splitting and the kingdom is exiled and all that stuff. But then you have Psalms and Proverbs and Isaiah and Daniel, and those are separate books that are about the poems of David or the wisdom of Solomon or the prophecies of Ezekiel and all those things that were happening in those history books. So they've organized it, because it's hard to kind of sprinkle those in and throughout in a Bible. To be like this is the exact order, because they're all kind of intermingled. So they decided to organize it by genre.

Amy Senter: 18:02

But if you are not aware of this and you're trying to read the Bible Genesis through Revelation it's going to be extremely confusing. And then you get to the whole. Well, they just had that story. Why am I reading it again and why is it different this time? And then people start to focus on well, that means it's not true, or that means we can't trust it, or things like that. And so when you read it through a lens that's out of context, then there becomes a lot of discrepancies in what you're reading and a lot of opinions, and so that's why I encourage people to figure out the chronological order of the story and read it that way and you'll have so many aha moments of what is going on. You'll be able to relate who is related to who. What time period is this? Did this happen before or after? And there's, that's just the jumping off point. I mean you could study that the rest of your life, but that's what's exciting about it is you feel.

Amy Senter: 19:01

I feel like a lot of times we're equipped just read every day, it doesn't matter what, and just read the whole thing at some point, maybe in a year, and none of those things are bad. But if you have no context for what you're reading, it's just kind of like, uh, how are you growing? And I believe the point of it is not. You know the quality, it's the, or the quantity, it's the quality of what you're putting into your Bible study. So I always tell people figure out the chronological order and then it'll give you a lot of insights, and I've created a chronological order guide on my website. I also recommend there's a book called the Story.

Amy Senter: 19:42

I believe Max Lucado helped put it together and it's basically like they've done the Bible in chronological order and they put it together with biblical text. But it looks like a novel and you just read it cover to cover, but it's actually in order and it's a quick read. You could read in a couple of days if you wanted to, but that will help you kind of get the basis of it. Um, and then the other thing is so once you have that kind of foundation, then I think a lot of people are afraid to study the Bible as like a textbook, cause you don't want to turn it into um, I don't want to turn it into school or devalue what the Bible is because it's not a textbook.

Amy Senter: 20:27

But I feel like when you do yourself a disservice, because if you're not studying it in that way, all those skills you learned as a kid, use those skills on understand the goal of spiritual maturity in Christ, not to finish the whole thing, it's, but you can read it like a textbook and you'll start to learn those things so that you can apply them and discern. Make all those discernments and that's kind of what I teach is the Bible is your primary source, but use everything else to help you study it, and so you should always be going back to the Bible. And then a lot of people are like I don't know how to study it like a textbook or take notes, and so that's kind of what I teach too. I love using journaling Bibles and walking people through videos on how to take notes and so that you can learn how to study it in a way that you're understanding, you can explain it back to people, you can use it to help you discern what other people are teaching you as well.

Ellen Krause: 21:28

Amy, I love your suggestion there with the chronological order, and I also have done the chronological Bible and it's it's always incredible to me too how let's say something in the Psalms will further elaborate or give more details to one of the other parts of scripture that it's referring to. Let's say something in David's life. It just enriches everything when you can put it together in that chronological order. So I love that suggestion. I thought it might be fun to ask you sort of a practical question as far as, let's say, someone listening to this and I'm just going to use my own example but our church is going through a study on Moses and the Exodus, what would you suggest like? What tools would you have available that someone could just go and look at on your website that might help them in a particular aspect of scripture?

Amy Senter: 24:42

Okay. So what I suggest is I've created these tools that are just kind of. They're supposed to supplement anything you're studying. So when I'm telling, when people are like I'm studying Exodus, I'm like, great, here's what would help you understand it a little better is I've got, um, I've outlined every single book of the Bible, um, into these two page, one to two page cheat sheets that are a quick overview of the context. So if you're an Exodus, you're going to get a cheat sheet that says here's the main events, here are the 10 plagues, here's who Moses is. This is what happened right before Moses. This time, this is what's about to happen.

Amy Senter: 25:24

Who are the Jews? Who are the Israelites, the Hebrews, what are all three of those words? Why are we seeing all three of those words in the Bible? It just gives you a lot of insight that when you're reading it you're like, okay, so Miriam and Aaron are Moses' brother and sister, and then you can do those kinds of things without having to do all that heavy lifting while you're reading it. But it's supposed to be a. It's like the cliff notes in school. Don't read the cliff notes and act like you read the book. Use the cliff notes to help you on the test or learning your subject matter, so it's supposed to be something that's helping you, not replacing it. And then another thing I make is and so I have those for every single book of the Bible, so no matter what you're studying, you could find one.

Amy Senter: 26:10

And then the other thing I have that I came out with this year is a Bible timeline chart, which is three pages, I believe, and you just print it and you tape them together and it's got the entire overview of all the people and events that happened in the Bible. And so I can see, okay, moses' story was here, and I can see an overview of his story in relation to every single event in the Bible. I also have Bible maps where you can see, okay, this is modern day Saudi Arabia, this is where Moses was, or he traveled here when he was wandering the wilderness. So you get that that was part of what I struggled with was I was like, okay, great, I'm hearing these names, but I don't know where this place is. To visualize it myself. I needed that visual. And so when you see, okay, I can actually go on a plane right now and follow this path of where we think this happened, it becomes so much more real in our mind of this is not a fairy tale.

Amy Senter: 27:11

This is actually a real thing that happened and so I love, love to pull in the real life application so that you can and take the opinion out of it. It's all just research based very heavy research, and Bible based, so that you are learning the basics to be able to connect deeper to God's story.

Ellen Krause: 27:37

Awesome. Well be sure, if you're listening to this, you're going to have to definitely check out Amy's site and maybe, depending on what you're going through in your church or your Bible study, I'm sure there's some resource that can help you there. Amy, how about in the area of Bible memorization and really application of scripture to your life? What are the best ways that you suggest in going about that?

Amy Senter: 28:06

I always love having memory verses around the house, like on, like I've got a verse of the week up here back on my wall and then I've got, you know, artwork that I've gotten from Mardell or things like that that I've got on the wall. I just love surrounding myself with those that are meaningful to me and, whether you remember the actual verse or not, remembering that phrase, having that in your head can be really comforting and you'll be surprised how many times those things pop up in your mind when you need them. So just kind of surrounding yourself with verses whether it's like a card you change out every day or they're on your wall. But when it comes to like getting really specific on what verse should I memorize or how do I memorize, I love to recommend to find a verse that's relating to what you're going through. So if you're having a parenting issue, find a verse that's going to encourage you, so every time that issue comes up you can go back to that verse. For example, philippians 4, 6, do not be anxious about anything and everything. In every situation, by prayer and petition, with Thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Or if you're feeling bitter or in a rut in your career, uh, colossians 3, 23,. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters. And um, another one is like in your marriage, if you're overwhelmed or if you're just stressed out in general with life Psalm 46, 10, be still and know that I am God. Just having those things as tools rather than I should probably memorize scripture. But understanding this is why I'm understanding it, because it's calling me back to God and remembering him, and I love to use my senses when I memorize things.

Amy Senter: 29:49

I'll write them on a card. Just the kinesthetic aspect helps, just the visual of seeing it. You can say it out loud. I draw a doodle on it. It's my favorite. You could cut the cards out, rearrange them, try to make a game out of it. But I love to practice these skills with my kids and that might seem silly to you, but there's a ton of us out there that we want to. We find joy in doing these things in the bible and if that's you go for it, because the Bible is filled with so many joyful moments. It doesn't have to be a deeply serious spiritual thing. It can be a joyful sound of worship in just playing a silly memorization game with your kids.

Amy Senter: 30:37

It's such a good skill to pass on to your kids that reading your Bible is a joyful activity.

Ellen Krause: 30:45

Absolutely. I think you really pointed out something so important and that is memorizing some scripture verses that are really applicable in your life at the moment, and you can just keep adding to your repertoire of verses that you know. I know for me, when I was working in corporate America there was management roles and presentations and things I would get anxiety. And I memorized 2 Timothy 1.7. That says for God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and love and sound mind, and I literally had it taped on my monitor and sound mine. And I literally had it taped on my monitor and it just, it would call me, remind me we're all people here, you know, um, and so it just uh. That one really helped. And then for my kids it was always waking them up in the morning and saying this is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Ellen Krause: 31:42

And you know their sleepy heads would be so groggy. They would be like, oh you know, but now they love that verse. You know it just it hits home and it's a great way to start your day. So thank you for those tips on the Bible memorization. You know I wanted to kind of talk a little bit about this how understanding the Bible can help us deal with today's challenges, or whatever challenges people might be facing in their life.

Amy Senter: 32:18

Yeah, and that's really where this whole journey of biblical literacy started was I was begging God to heal me physically and what I learned was he was asking me let me heal you spiritually first, and that it was more important. And that sounds like a bummer, but it really was such a blessing Because I found, when I was being healed spiritually, that I was healing in all kinds of ways. I was healing mentally. I started prioritizing self care and learning how to reduce stress, which I, when the doctor told me, start reducing stress, I laughed. I didn't know you could even do that. I thought that was more of a circumstantial thing. But I realized there's so much that we can do to help ourselves mentally and I started looking into that. Physically, I started healing because emotionally, I started getting counseling. I started dealing with my anxiety and depression and actually taking action. And what do I want my purpose to be in this? Um? So as I began to let control, let go of control and begin to trust, it was like all this wisdom and um just poured into me. It was like all this wisdom and just poured into me, and it wasn't always a doctor's answer, you know. He gave me the wisdom of how to discern things instead of just being like this isn't working, let's do the next thing. So it was that spirit of peace and discernment and wisdom, and so I teach.

Amy Senter: 33:47

In addition to teaching biblical literacy, I teach my site is biblical literacy and spiritual growth, and I want you to learn how they're interconnected, and so I teach things like spiritual goal setting, such as spiritual disciplines, creating spiritual disciplines as goals, like prayer and fasting and worship. I talk about spiritual or self-care, and if it's Christian, if Jesus practiced self-care, what does biblical self-care look like? Which it is? There's Sabbath rest, there's community, there's times of solitude, all those kinds of things. And then, just for those people wanting to discover your purpose, absolutely, the Bible can help you with that.

Amy Senter: 34:26

It talks about how we all have spiritual gifts. I've talked about mine. Help you with that. It talks about how we all have spiritual gifts. I've talked about mine. You have yours, um, and that's another thing I love to help people explore theirs.

Amy Senter: 34:37

And then how to deal with hardships talking about um you know even the memory versus equipping yourself. That's a tool of what Paul talks about um, going through his uh, difficulties, and we've got spiritual armor and all that stuff to equip yourself. These are all tools to help you that God has given you that we just need to pick up and start using, and so I love to teach people how to use these tools. But absolutely, the Bible helps us deal with today's challenges, and there's so much more to it than just a desperation of I'm just going to flip and whatever I point to God, speak to me. There's so much more to it than that, and so, if that's where you're at I've been there I encourage you to really kind of be honest with yourself about your Bible study.

Amy Senter: 35:26

Is it bringing you life? Are you doing it just to do it? Are you doing it at all? Do you want to do it? You know what does that look like, and if you're seeking that peace and that guidance and all those things that we're talking about, the Bible and relate is is the building block for relationship with God. It's not about the Bible, it's about God, and there's so much guidance to be found in reading it to grow closer to who God is and wants you to be.

Ellen Krause: 35:55

Absolutely, absolutely. It's that life transformation that if we allow ourselves the discipline of studying God's word, you will see your life transformed. And in all of that we want to give God the glory. So I just I love what you're doing, amy. Tell people how they can find you and your resources.

Amy Senter: 36:24

Yeah, my website is just amysenter. com and that's an S. So Amy S E N T E R, I have to say that all the time. So amysenter. com If you go there, you can see how to subscribe to my newsletter and that's really the best way to find all of the things. You can have a shop discount, you get links to my blog articles, all my social media, and then I've got goodies in there, downloads and stuff you can get. But yeah, that would be my place to connect is just to subscribe to my newsletter on amysenter. com and that'll connect you with all my goodies.

Ellen Krause: 37:02

Awesome. Well, we will make sure we include that link in our show notes. Before we go, Amy, I have to ask you some of our favorite Bible study tool questions. What Bible is your go-to Bible and what translation is it?

Amy Senter: 37:16

Okay, so I grew up on the NIV, so I've always been partial to NIV. But as I grew older and, you know, wanted to dig into the context, I started buying parallel Bibles which I hadn't heard of, which are very, very cool. You can have up to probably more now, but you could have up to four translations on one page and so you could see the same verse in four different types of translations. So those parallel Bibles are awesome.

Amy Senter: 37:40

As far as note-taking, there's like no room in there and I love to take notes in my Bible. So I have my parallel Bible but I've been transitioning the past couple years to using that as another reference material and my go-to is this ginormous, gorgeous Bible called the Illustrating Bible, which comes in NIV and CSB and it's from Dayspring, I believe, and it's got these big spirals gold spirals and the page is almost half of the pages free for you to draw and the pages are a little bit thicker. So for those of us who like to get a little artsy in there, there's a lot of room. So I always do my lessons based out of that one with people because it I love having the notes directly in the Bible. But of course I use lots of resources as well.

Ellen Krause: 38:32

Yes, I'm sure, I'm sure. All right, I love. Those are excellent suggestions. Okay. The Parallel Bible and the Illustrated Bible? Yes, by Dayspring, those are great. How about? I know you as an artist? You must have your favorite journaling supplies, which I'm dying to know what they are. Amy, tell us. Okay, I think you're gonna be a little disappointed.

Amy Senter: 38:55

Oh well, first to create my notes, I do have to say I create everything on my iPad with an Apple Pencil. It is so fun. I'm Procreate. So if you want to doodle digitally or take notes digitally, I love Procreate and Apple Pencil it writes just like a pencil or a marker, whatever you want it to be. So I create everything on there. But for my writing in my Bible, I have tried so many things and I just love Sharpies. I love yellow Sharpies. Okay, so you'll always always. My kids always roll their eyes. They need a pencil or pen. I'm like well, I've got 12 different colors of Sharpies. Would you like one of those? So I love color coding with my Sharpies in my Bible, which is why I like the thicker pages.

Ellen Krause: 39:41

All right, awesome, those are good, okay. Lastly, what is your favorite app or website for Bible study tools?

Amy Senter: 39:48

Lately I have gone ahead and purchased Logos Bible study software and it is so amazing because I've been using all these different tools and it addresses all those tools in one place and it even has Bible journaling stuff in it. So I love Logos Bible study software. So if you're serious about Bible study, it is well worth the investment, because it's like research and note taking in one place and I love it. Love it.

Ellen Krause: 40:21

Absolutely. You know Logos is an awesome, awesome suggestion and stay tuned because I believe this fall sometime they are going to be coming out with a monthly subscription that you can get for Logos. So that's, I think, really, really super exciting and, like you said there, I mean it is everything you could possibly ever, for the greatest Bible scholar you know on the earth would use it to just someone doing their everyday Bible study. It's incredible.

Amy Senter: 40:53

Yeah, I never looked into it because I thought you had to only be doing your Greek word studies on there and I'm like oh, they've got the parallel Bibles, they've got the journaling tools, they've got the commentaries, they've got concordance it's. It's a great, really diverse tool.

Ellen Krause: 41:08

Yes, yes, okay, we will make sure we include a link to the Logos software as well in our show notes. Well, Amy, thank you so much for being here today joining us. You know understanding the Bible. It can feel overwhelming, and I just pray that the people that have been listening to you today that this was just maybe a stepping stone for them to either begin or recommit to making Bible reading part of their daily routine and doing it with confidence. So, thank you so much.

Amy Senter: 41:43

Thank you for having me.

Ellen Krause: 41:45

All right Listeners, be sure to check out Amy's resources, as her mission is to empower Christians to grow in their faith, live intentionally and experience the transformative power of God's word. We will have all of her information linked in the show notes. Thank you all so much for listening today. We appreciate you. We value you. We would love if you would leave us some feedback and have a blessed day.