3 Best Android Bible Study Apps for 2019
Here are the 3 best Android Bible study apps for 2019. This focuses on serious study and not just Bible reading apps.
It's been a while since we rounded up the best Android Bible study apps so lets take another shot at it for 2019. This list of the best Android Bible study apps for 2019 includes Bible study apps as opposed to Bible reading apps. What’s the difference?
- Study original language with more than just Strong’s
- Offers modern translations and powerful searching
- Offers modern scholarly, pastoral and devotional commentaries
- May also offer other eBooks and digital reference books like dictionaries, lexicons and atlases
Please note that we've updated this to the 5 Best Bible Apps for Android. Click here to see it.
Many Bible apps will include a few of the above, but they usually only include public domain or just one or two. Instead the Android apps we're offering helps users study the Bible on a deeper level. A scholar or pastor could use them while mobile. Maybe they won't fully replace a desktop Bible research tool, but they can help the studier stay productive on the go while they wait at a restaurant for a spouse who’s shopping or while sitting in the car picking up their child from school or soccer practice.
To test these out and compare them, we'll give them a score of 1 to 20 in a five different areas.
- Ease of Use
- Cost of Ownership (app plus books)
- Quality of Features
- Library Size and Quality
- Attractiveness of the App’s Design
To get a full score in each of these the app would mean the app’s perfect in that area. So let’s take a look at the 5 Best Android Bible Study Apps for 2019!
Olive Tree Bible
It's not surprising that we'd put Olive Tree Bible (Free plus cost of add-on books) on this list since it made our list of top Kindle Fire Bible apps.
Olive Tree looks beautiful on most platforms. It's not as pretty on Android as it is on other devices, but does look nice and professional. You can tell that designers made the buttons and menus instead of just coders cobbling together something that's functional.
Olive Tree does a great job of quickly showing the user all of their content thanks to the Resource Guide. This section looks at the current passage and then display all the content in the user's library related to that passage. You can quickly find all the commentary entries, all the cross references and more.
For original language study, you tap a word with Strong's tagging added and a popup will show a definition of the Greek or Hebrew word. This will also let you look the word up in other lexicons and dictionaries as well as search the Bible for that word.
It's one of the easiest of the five to use, but could be easier. For example, it's a little clunky to add personal notes. A pop up note editor blocks your content. You can also use the Resource Guide to add and view notes, however, you can't do that and see your Bible and commentary or lexicon or dictionary at the same time.
The app is free but add-on books cost extra. They aren't the most expensive, but you can end up paying thousands for a scholarly level library. The company offers one of the biggest libraries of add-on books and their not just public domain books. You can get high-quality content.
Olive Tree packed more features into this app in a way that's easy to get at them.
- Ease of Use - 3
- Cost of Ownership (app plus books) - 2
- Quality of Features - 3
- Library Size and Quality - 4
- Attractiveness of the App’s Design - 3
- TOTAL SCORE - 15
We could say a lot more about this excellent app. Instead read my full review over at ChurchTechToday. Also see the video above.
Logos
Faithlife publishes the Logos Bible suite of apps. They don’t just offer one, but multiple apps. You can get the following apps.
- Logos Bible Study Tools - their main app with more advanced features.
- Study Bible by Faithlife - the same app with a focus on their Faithlife Study Bible book which is a nice study Bible.
- Verbum Catholic Bible Study - Like the main app (first above) but focused on Catholic students.
- Faithlife Ebooks (formerly Vyrso) - Focused mainly on reading eBooks instead of serious Bible study and not recommended for this list.
Logos offers an excellent collection of training videos, so that's one of the best ways for you to learn more about the Logos Bible apps.
The app opens to show you how to the main features work the first time you start it. Then it shows the main home page. From there you can use the tabs at the bottom to view the various sections of the app.
The app shows Bibles and books in a tabbed environment. The center button is where you open these tabs. You can connect them so they all advance to the same passages or just connect certain tabs.
The library shows all your books and lets you check out new books in the store. There's also a store button on the toolbar of the app. Open the menu to see all the advanced features like the Passage Guide (looks for content related to a passage and shows a list of entries), Exegetical Guide (same as passage guide but focuses on language study tools) and more.
The app includes a ton of features. In fact it's the most feature packed app in our roundup. You can use things like...
- Atlas
- Prayer lists
- Clippings (collections of things you find in your study)
- Word studies
- Text comparisons (show more than one translation at a time)
- Audio books
- Courses (Faithlife has a rich collection of high-quality courses similar to what you might get in a seminary or Bible college)
We scored Logos as follows:
- Ease of Use - 2
- Cost of Ownership (app plus books) - 2
- Quality of Features - 4
- Library Size and Quality - 4
- Attractiveness of the App’s Design - 2
- TOTAL SCORE - 14
We're just scraping the surface in this description. Take a look at my post about which Logos Mobile App to Use and my series on how to do creative digital sermon prep using Logos. I also wrote a review last year at ChurchTechToday.
Accordance Mobile
Accordance Mobile brings us one of the latest entries into the Android Bible app space. Their iOS version never really measured up till recently, but now they're doing a great job on both iOS and Android.
The app seems deceptively simple at first. However, under the hood, it has a lot of advanced features for you to discover. You can view two books at once with the main book and secondary book syncing up to scroll through a passage together if you wish.
Tap on verses to get more study options and tap on words to learn more about the word, especially if the Bible has strong's numbers attached.
The powerful Accordance search engine comes to mobile in the app. They're still adding more advanced features and it's growing more powerful all the time.
Here's how I'm rating the app:
- Ease of Use - 2
- Cost of Ownership (app plus books) - 3
- Quality of Features - 3
- Library Size and Quality - 4
- Attractiveness of the App’s Design - 3
- TOTAL SCORE - 15
While the app looks deceptively simple, it does have some powerful features. However, it's not as strong as it could be. In a year I expect that to change. You also have to play around to discover the advanced language study features it does have. Be sure to check out their excellent tutorials. Accordance also offers a great library of add-ons available to buy at great prices. If you already own a book on another platform, ask the company and they will likely give you a deal. I've saved hundreds by buying that way from Accordance.
I should probably add a category for support, because Accordance really shines in this area with some of the best training post purchase of any of the companies. They have live webinars both online and in person. Here's a recent podcast covering the Accordance Mobile app on iOS.
Here's a link to an episode of their podcast covering Android.
7 Great Sources for Sermon Illustrations
Do you need to find the perfect sermon illustrations to bring life and grab attention for the message for modern-day listeners with limited attention spans? I do and so I seek them from many sources, but a few websites help me find them.In the old days preachers would sometimes find sermon illustrations by consulting books that collected these illustrations by topic and sometimes by scripture reference. These books often suffered from a big problem; they were stale and usually dominated by old missionary stories or quotes of preachers from the 19th century. However, we still bought the books because in Saturday night emergencies we might find something we can use. These illustrations seldom will amaze listens, but they'll get the job done.
Problem with Sermon Illustrations Sites
Today's sermon illustrations databases suffer the same problem as those old illustration books. They can get stale and don't always show us the most interesting or exciting stories or quotes. There's good news because website publishers can update them. Some will also ask users to give their own sites. A few of these offer an incentive, like paying them or giving them access to the site at reduced or free rate.Aside from poor content, users struggle to search the database effectively. Google has billions of dollars to throw at improving their search features, yet they still fail more than succeed in delivering quality results on page one. It's no wonder that even the best funded sermon illustrations websites still struggle to produce useful search results.In spite of the weaknesses of these sites dedicated to sermon illustrations, we'll look at the best sites for finding good sermon illustrations. Not all of them will be these dedicated illustration database sites.
Preaching Today
My favorite website for finding sermon illustrations comes from Christianity Today. PreachingToday.com gives preachers more than a database of sermon illustrations. It includes...
- Sermon Illustrations - database searchable by keyword, scripture passage and general search. It shows passages that it might fit and topics for preaching. Some even include links to photos that the preacher can display as part of a sermon presentation. If it refers to a movie scene it gives the scene time code (when it occurs in the movie).
- Sermons - database of sermons also searchable the same way the user can search illustrations database with both outlines, sermon series and full text sermons. Search by text, theme, or key word.
- Skill Builders - tips and articles for improving the preaching craft. This can include creative ideas for preaching, tips on how to preach better and more.
- Holidays - section devoted to both holidays and events of the church year like baptism, funerals, etc. that groups all the content available (Illustrations, sermons, videos, and images) by holiday or church event.
- Videos - videos that churches can use in their church if they do presentations.
Preaching Today doesn't come free. Get one year for $69.95 for two for $119.95. You can get some things for free, but not a lot. I pay for a subscription gladly because I have found plenty of fresh and interesting illustrations.
Here are the site's strengths:
- Fresh illustrations
- Narrow the search by things like...
- Kind of illustration - the source, audience, type (humor, quote, stats, stories, et. al.)
- Word or Phrase v. Keyword - search the text of the illustrations for the word grace or find all illustrations about keyword grace even if it doesn't include the word grace itself.
- Searching for illustration also searches the other areas (sermons, videos, and more) and shows them in tabs at the top fo the page.
- If you use an illustration you can record this and it will remember that you did so you don't reuse them repeatedly.
Now for the cons:
- Sometimes a search returns illustrations that doesn't really seem to relate to your topic, keyword or passage even though they claim to.
- The cost of the site will keep some from using it.
I often find a true story on Preaching Today and then I'll do a Google search of the story, especially if it's a news story. Then I can fill in details and rewrite the illustration to better fit my preaching idea. I can also find media that fits to display during my sermon. Of course obey all copyright laws.
Google News
As I said above, I'll often find a good news story in a sermon illustrations from Preaching Today, but I need more information. I'll head over to Google and do a search. When. the main page shows few valuable results, then I click on the News tab and often find more pertinent information.Google News will let me find current events to illustrate my preaching idea. This gives the sermon fresh content and they'll come alive in listeners' minds. That's what makes Google News such a valuable tool and it's free.
In the example above (see image) I searched for the term "redemption". We get some dictionary definitions and then link to the Internet Movie Database description of the movie titled Redemption. Down the page (not seen above) the results offered very little useful content. I can keep clicking for the next page of results or I can click on the News tab (see the middle tab in image above) and it shows stories about redemption.The second result took me to a NASDAQ news article about redemption of "senior notes". Reading the article helps me think the term redemption as a financial concept, which sparks ideas about relatable sermon illustrations. People might not understand the concept of this article since it covers complex economic issues. However, it serves to spark thoughts about more relatable ideas like covering debt to "redeem" someone's property that might be in foreclosure. I have a friend and family member who went through this. I can relate to it, so many of the people in my audience probably will too.
WingClips
Movies dominate culture, especially very popular blockbusters. They often include interesting scenes that we can use to illustrate our sermon ideas. WingClips partners with the movie studios to let users show these clips without breaking copyright laws.
Along the left hand column you'll notice the themes they cover and it shows the number of clips on that theme. You can also search for clips by keyword, movie title, category (meaning film genre like action adventure or animated) and scripture reference. The scripture reference doesn't always work. I'm preaching through Ezekiel so I clicked on Ezekiel 7:25-26 since I'll soon preach that text. WingClips had a link for that passage but showed no results. Stick with the themes. I searched for redemption and came up with a number of useful clips from movies like Les Miserables, The Mummy and Courageous.Most of the clips come in HD and show user ratings (5-star scale) along with written reviews. Preview the clip and see other clips from the same movie on a clip page.WingClips offers some free illustrations and a free subscription. However, to really get the most out of the site, you'll have to either subscribe or pay for clips. They offer subscriptions either monthly or annually. See the image below for costs. 
Monthly subscription prices are as follows:
- $10/month for one clip a month.
- $16/month for 2 clips a month.
- $29/month for 4 clips a month.
If you prefer to save money and will pay annually the cost as follows:
- $89/year for 10 clips a year
- $165/year for 20 clips a year
- $299/year for 40 clips ay ear
If you prefer, you can buy clips one at a time without a subscription. They cost...
- $15 for one clip
- $25 for 2 clips
- $48 for 4 clips
- $219 for 20 clips
Compare paying monthly, annually to buying clips as needed and you'll see that you save some money by subscribing annually. I'd suggest starting out by subscribing to the 10 clips/year and then buy more clips as you need them. If you find you're using more you can upgrade to the 20 or 40 clips per year at any time.
Pixabay
Frederick R. Barnard once said, "A picture paints a thousand words." Pictures can say quickly what we want to express in our sermons. Here's how I use them in my preaching.
- To illustrate main points - I create a slide with a picture that illustrates the concept of my preaching point. I may never even reference the photo if it obviously says what I want to say (see image above).
- Represent a Sermon Illustration - If I'm sharing a quote, I'll put a photo of the person on the screen with the quote or with a key phrase from the quote. If I'm telling a story about a guy in a fishing boat, then I'll find a photo of a fishing boat to display as I tell the story.
- Comics - these are good ways to share a joke. Just let the people read it. I'm not a great joke teller. Off-the-cuff humor is my thing. So comics are sometimes more powerful than telling a joke. I use this primarily at the beginning of a sermon. I tell the person running my presentation to put the joke up while I'm praying before my sermon. Then I just turn and look at it as I give the audience a chance to read it or look at it. Then I will turn back to the crowd and start preaching, often referring to the joke in the comic.
- Backgrounds to my sermon Bible text - put an image behind a verse that represents what that verse says.
Those are a few ways I use images. I include from 10 to 30 slides in most sermons. I get most of these images from a site called Pixabay, which gives users free images they can download and use under the Creative Commons license agreement. Creative Commons means you can reuse it so long as you give the original creator of the photo credit.
Users can search Pixabay's free database of images. Users add to the database and then other users can download the images and use them in their work. The site's free to use. If you're a skilled photographer or artist please consider adding to the site.
I searched for redemption as I have on the other sites. It showed the above results, including some "adult content" meaning some of the photos show nudes. By default Pixabay blacks out such content and you have to click them to see them. I just ignore them. When the images on the site don't match what I'm looking for, I will either search using a different synonymous term or I'll use the sponsored links to Shutterstock that show up at the top of the page (see below)
When I find an image I like, then I'll save it and put it in my presentation software. We use MediaShout. I'll usually put something like "Used by permission from Pixabay.com USERNAME - by Creative Commons". If I need to add text for a quote or for my sermon points, then I'll add the attribution on Photoshop or Affinity Photo on my iPad.
freesound
To add some spice to sermon illustrations, my friend Wes Allen who's part of the Theotek Podcast team, uses sound. For example, he said that he was once talking about a criminal investigation and so he used the Law Oder TV show sound. In another instance he was talking about the great cloud of witnesses from Hebrews and used a crowd roar to illustrate it audibly (listen below). I've used sound in this way maybe 2 or 3 times in my life. But it sounds like an interesting tool and church presentation tools like MediaShout can play sound easily.Wes uses freesound as his preferred place to find audio clips. It has a large database of free sound clips. Like Pixabay, it requires attribution since it's a Creative Commons license. Just create an account, sign in and search. Download the audio clip of your choice and play it with an image displayed. On the image show something like this...
Image sed by permission from Pixabay.com USERNAME; Sound used by permission from freesound.org USERNAME - by Creative Commons.
Here's a crowd cheer from freesound user Veridiansunrise; used by permission by Creative Commons. If I used this for a sermon, I'd cut it down since it's pretty long.
Bible Software Illustration Databases
Most of the better Bible software programs include sermon illustrations or let you buy databases of them. For example, Rick Mansfield from Accordance uses his collection in Accordance Bible Software.
Rick uses the Research Search function of Accordance. He said:
I run a research search through this group I’ve made according to the subject I’m looking for.
Here's a video where Rick demonstrates how he does this in Accordance.Logos and WORDsearch also offer similar features, so check your Bible software to see if it includes these kinds of tools. If the program doesn't have illustration databases or you don't own any, search your general library for a topic. For example, search redemption in books other than the Bible, commentaries and dictionaries. You will probably find devotional books, Christian Living books and more that cover that topic with stories by the authors.
Personal Experience
You can always access the most important source for sermon illustrations - your personal experience. Wayne McDill offers a great tool for brainstorming sermon illustrations in his book 12 Essential Skills for Great Preaching. Here's how it works.
- Write down your theological idea, such as: Jesus redeemed us by his blood.
- Convert that idea to a non-theological idea: someone acts to free us from our own mistakes through a personal sacrifice.
- Now think of how that might happen in various areas of life, like...
- Family
- Politics
- Sports
- Neighborhoods
- Schools
- Work
- Church
- History
- Current Events
- Now pick two or three that you think you can relate to and your audience can relate to and write out a story to illustrate the idea of personal sacrifice to free someone from their mistakes.
Here's an example from my personal history.
At Christmas my mom would always make Christmas sugar cookies and my three sisters and I got to help decorate them. One of the favorite decorations were the chocolate Jimmies, little chocolate slivers that to be honest looked like rabbit droppings. However, they tasted great so we often ate them before they made it to the cookies.One year, when I was very young, my mom got home from somewhere and discovered that someone at all the chocolate Jimmies. She was not happy because she made us all promise we would stay away from the sugar cookie decorations while she was out.Nobody admitted their guilt so she sent us all to our rooms. I hated being sent to my room, because like most kids in the seventies, I wanted to play outside. After about an hour I decided that I didn't want to spend another minute in my room, so I worked up some fake tears and then walked down the hall looking as repentant as I could. I found my mom in the kitchen and told her, "I'm sorry. I at the chocolate Jimmies."She was so moved by my performance that she forgave my theft and commuted her intended sentence of grounding the guilty party the rest of the week. I got to go outside.There was one problem. I didn't eat the Chocolate Jimmies. For years, my mom kept telling the story of how sweet I was that day. I never admitted to my deception until I was grown and married. During a Christmas gathering of the family, the story came up. It was then that I admitted to my lie.By then my mom didn't hold that against me. However, none of my three sisters would admit they did it. Either they were liars or more likely forgot. But what I'll never forget is how much my mom chose to forgive me on that day and years earlier. It thought I was really doing something great by admitting to something I didn't do. I thought I was being sacrificial to end this house arrest. But I wasn't the real hero, my mom chose to forgive me not once, but twice.Jesus in his grace will forgive us not just one or twice, but anytime we confess our sins and repent. He's always faithful to forgive us because he also took the blame for something he didn't do. He didn't do it selfishly, l like me. He did it selflessly to redeem me from my prison of sin and hell.