Contents
The Resource Guide is one of BibleReader’s most distinctive, powerful, and useful features. It collects and displays content in an easy-to-use manner that makes finding information related to what you are studying almost magical.
The Resource Guide intelligently links Bibles; commentaries; cross references; articles on people, places, and topics; maps; outlines; introductions; charts; images; sermons; and your notes and tags to the precise location in the specific book-chapter-verse structured resource you are viewing—a Bible, a study Bible, a commentary. (The Resource Guide only works with versified material.)
For example, if you are studying John 3:16 and you open the Resource Guide, BibleReader will list:
- Articles on people, places, and other topics
- Study Bible notes
- Commentaries
- Outlines
- Introductions to books of the Bible
- Cross references
- Maps
from resources that are linked to John 3:16—resources that have direct bearing on this verse. BibleReader’s built-in intelligence assists you in Bible study by providing smart links to information in resources in one easy-to-use location, thus reducing what could have been hours of research on your part to the few seconds it takes to tap a link in the Resource Guide!
This chapter explains how to use BibleReader’s Resource Guide to supercharge your Bible study!
Because the Resource Guide intelligently links Bibles; commentaries; cross references; articles on people, places, and topics; maps; outlines; introductions; charts; images; sermons; and your notes and tags to the the precise location in the specific book-chapter-verse structured resource you are viewing, it works in split-screen mode, where you have a Bible, a study Bible, a commentary, etc. open in the main window and the Resource Guide open in the secondary window.
To display the Resource Guide, open a text in BibleReader’s main window. We will use the ESV translation of the Bible in this example, open to Matthew 1:1.
Tap the Split-Screen icon at the bottom of the window to split the screen. (This icon looks like two horizontal lines, one above the other.) The main window will be on top, and the secondary window on the bottom. The last window you visited will be displayed as the secondary window, in this case a section in Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology.
Tap the Open button in the top left corner of the secondary window to display the Library and Tools menu.
Tap “Resource Guide” to open the Resource Guide.
The first time you start BibleReader and select the Resource Guide, you will be prompted to download the guide.
Tap the Download button to begin downloading the Resource Guide.
BibleReader downloads two files and notifies you how much time is remaining for the doanload.
After the download is complete, you will be prompted to check and see if any books in your library have been enhanced to work better with the Resource Guide (left graphic below). Tap Yes to check. In this case, all the books are up to date (right graphic below). If not, you will be prompted to download the enhanced versions of books in your library that you have not yet downloaded.
Should you need to redownload the Resource Guide, click here for instructions.
Updates to and Redownloading the Resource Guide
From time to time, Olive Tree updates the Resource Guide to make it more intelligent, powerful, and useful. This section explains how to redownload the Resource Guide so you can benefit from these enhancements.
In the example below, the main window is positioned to Romans 5:1 in the ESV translation, and the Resource Guide is open in the secondary window.
Tap the >> button in the top right corner of the Resource Guide window to display the Resource Guide menu.
Tap “Resource Guide Settings” to display the Resource Guide Settings Menu.
Scroll to the bottom of the Resource Guide Settings Menu and tap “Redownload the Resource Guide” to begin redownloading it. A progress window is displayed (right graphic below).
When the download is complete, BibleReader gives you an opportunity to check and see if any books have recently been updated to work better with the Resource Guide.
In addition to the procedure described above for redownloading the Resource Guide, in BibleReader’s main window you can tap the Library button, then the Store button, and then the Updates icon at the bottom of the Store window to check for updates to books and to the User Guide.
As discussed above in the Introduction to this chapter, the Resource Guide is one of BibleReader’s most distinctive, powerful, and useful features. It links all Bibles, study Bibles, commentaries, and dictionaries together to make it easy to find information related to what you are studying. Many of these resources are enhanced resources—resources that have enhanced content.
Enhanced Content refers to special, behind-the-scenes enhancements Olive Tree has made to various resources to intelligently link their contents to Bibles, study Bibles, and commentaries. BibleReader’s Resource Guide collects and displays Enhanced Content in an easy-to-use manner that makes finding information related to the verse or verses you are studying almost magical.
For example, if you are studying John 3:16 and you open the Resource Guide, BibleReader will list
- Articles on people, places, and other topics
- Study Bible notes
- Commentaries
- Outlines
- Introductions to books of the Bible
- Cross references
- Maps
from enhanced resources that otherwise would not be linked to John 3:16 but that have direct bearing on this verse. BibleReader’s built-in intelligence assists you in Bible study by providing smart links to information in enhanced resources in one easy-to-use location, thus reducing what could have been hours of research on your part to the few seconds it takes to tap a link in the Resource Guide!
Olive Tree has enhanced many Bibles, study Bibles, commentaries, maps, and other resources for BibleReader 5 and is hard at work enhancing more. You can see many of Olive Tree’s enhanced products by clicking here.
Enhanced Content Tags Two Kinds of Locations
Enhanced Content tags two kinds of locations: book-chapter-verse locations and ranges and people, places, and topic locations.
The screen shot below on the left shows some of the book-chapter-verse enhanced resources that are linked to Romans 5:1 by verse reference or range. The screen shot on the right shows some of the people, place, topics enhanced resources that are linked to Romans by topic.
The word tag refers to two things. (1) It refers to the behind-the-scenes cross-linking among Bibles, study Bibles, and commentaries so that each book-chapter-verse location in each of these enhanced resources is linked to all related book-chapter-verse locations in all the other enhanced Bibles, study Bibles, and commentaries. (2) It refers to the behind-the-scene cross-linking of dictionary articles on people, places, and other topics to corresponding items in enhanced Bibles, study Bibles, and commentaries.
Here’s an easy-to-follow example. Suppose you are a serious Bible student and you own many commentaries, translations of the Bible, study Bibles, dictionaries, and so forth. Imagine further that you are blessed with a really smart research assistant. We ’ll call him Ryan. One morning you tell Ryan that you plan to study Romans 5:1 in a few hours. (Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”) You inform Ryan that you will use the NIV as your primary translation, and you ask him to do the following.
- Place a sticky note at Romans 5:1 in the American Standard Version and the English Standard Version.
- Place a sticky note at Romans 5:1 in the Greek New Testament,
- Place a sticky note at Romans 5:1 in the ESV Study Bible and the Harper Collins Study Bible.
- Place a sticky note at Romans 5:1 in the Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary on the New Testament; the Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary; and McArthur’s New Testament Commentary,
- Place a sticky note to the introductory articles about Romans and Romans 5 in the ESV Study Bible, the Harper Collins Study Bible, the Reformation Study Bible, the NIV Study Bible, and the Expositor’s Bible Commentary.
- Open the file on your computer where you have taken notes on Romans, Romans 5, and Romans 5:1.
Locating those ten books, finding the correct locations in each one, and stacking them up for you might take Ryan 15 minutes or more. And you would end up with a pile of books a couple of feet tall! BibleReader’s Resource Guide can organize those enhanced-content resources and make them available to you in a split second, and you can access each of them with a couple of taps on a device you are holding in your hand!
Enhanced Content Tags the Location with the Kind of Data at the Location
Olive Tree enhances many types of resources—Bibles, study Bibles, commentaries, maps, outlines, cross references, images, articles (e.g., people, places, topics), sermons, introductions, and more. The enhancements Olive Tree adds to these many resources include “intelligent linking.” Intelligent linking means that each enhanced resource “knows” all the other resources it should link to, as well as when and where to link to them.
In the Romans 5:1 example above, BibleReader’s Resource Guide provides links to the precise location in every enhanced resource that includes information about this verse. Thus, for example, the Resource Guide provides cross references to Romans 5:1 but not to Romans 10:1. It provides links to articles about “Assurance,” “Atonement,” “Faith,” and “Justification,” for example, but not to articles about “Abraham,” “Sanctification,” or “Suffering.” The Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary on the New Testament opens to Romans 5:1, not to Romans 12:1, to give another example.
Here is one final example of the Resource Guide’s ability to contextualize information. While viewing Romans 5:1 in the main window, if you scroll the Resource Guide to Maps, “The Setting of Romans” is an option. Tapping on this link displays the following map, which can be sized (see second screen shot below).
How Do You Get Enhanced Content?
Products with enhanced content are available from here at the Olive Tree store. When viewing any product detail page in the store, under “Browse” on the right-hand side, clicking the “BibleReader 5 Enhanced” link will display the same list.
What Verse Range Does the Resource Guide Work With?
The Resource Guide works intelligently with a variety of verse ranges. Using the Romans 5:1 example above, scroll to Commentaries in the Resource Guide (left graphic below), then tap the link to the ESV Study Bible to see how three different verse ranges are linked to Romans 5:1.(right graphic below).
Note that Romans 5:1—8:39 is linked to Romans 5:1. So is Romans 5:1—11, as is Romans 5:1.
This type of intelligent linking makes BibleReader a powerful tool for Bible study.
Where Do the People, Places, and Topics Come From?
The articles listed in the People, Places, and Topics sections of the Resource Guide come from Bible dictionaries.
The top-level sections in the Resource Guide are
- Cross References
- Commentaries
- Bibles
- People
- Places
- Topics
- Maps
- Outlines
- Introductions
- My Notes
- Tags
- Charts
- Images
- Sermons
The next several sections in this chapter illustrate and comment on each of the Resource Guide’s top-level sections, using the Romans 5:1 example above.
Tapping “English Standard Version-Notes” (left graphic below) displays the cross references shown in the right graphic. Tapping a cross reference displays that verse in a pop-up window.
Tapping “Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary of the New Testament” (left graphic below) displays the portion of the commentary shown in the right graphic.
Tapping “Complete Word Study Bible” (left graphic below) displays the portion of that translation shown in the right graphic.
Tapping any of the articles listed under People, Places, and Topics (left graphic below) displays the contents of that article.
Tapping “The Setting of Romans” (left graphic below) displays the map shown in the right graphic.
Tapping “The Reformation Study Bible Notes” (left graphic below) displays the selections shown in the right graphic. Selecting “IV. God’s Righteousness for Justification (3:21—5:21)&rdquo displays the outline shown in the third graphic.
Tapping “NIV Study Notes” (left graphic below) displays the selections shown in the right graphic. Selecting “Date and Place of Writing&rdquo displays the information shown in the third graphic.
Tapping “My Notes” (left graphic below) displays any user-created notes for Romans 5:1. In the case of this example, there are none.
Tapping “Tags” (left graphic below) displays any user-created tags for Romans 5:1. In the case of this example, there are none. For a detailed explanation of Tags, click here.
Tapping “Charts” (left graphic below) displays the chart shown in the right graphic. The lower two graphics show how charts can be sized.
Tapping “Images” (left graphic below) displays the image shown in the right graphic. The lower two graphics show how images can be sized.
Tapping “Sermons” (left graphic below) displays the sermon selections shown in the right graphic.
If no sermon is available at the current location, tap “Find more sermons in the store” (left graphic below) to go to the Olive Tree store (right graphic below).
Tapping“ John Piper’s Sermons (over 1200 sermons)” (right graphic above), displays the product detail page for this product in the Olive Tree store (right graphic below).
This is one of Olive Tree’s many free, downloadable products.
At the bottom of the Resource Guide screen, you will see a “Find more resource guide content in the store” button (left graphic below). Tap that button to display Olive Tree’s list of books with enhanced content (right graphic below). The list is much, much longer than the six books shown in the graphic.
Gestures To Make Using Resource Guide Better
For an explanation of gestures and how to use them to open the Resource Guide, click here.
