We have tried several Bible study setups, and you guys have been asking for tips and tricks on how to study the Bible with digital note-taking. Let’s go through what that looks like in Apple Notes.
Apps
Without a proper organisation strategy, all the digital notes you take for anything will quickly become messy. Disorganised notes also don’t serve you much. From the start, you need to decide how you’re going to organise your apps and notes. For your apps, you have two possibilities. You can either use two different apps: Apple Notes for your notes, and a Bible app. This is the setup we have mostly used. Where we read the Bible from the Olive Tree Bible app, and take notes in Apple Notes.
If you don’t like the idea of using two apps, then you can use one: Apple Notes for both. One notebook will keep your PDF Bible or Bibles if you prefer using different versions. I only have one version on my iPad, so that’s why I just have the one. You can then open the notebook with your Bible on one side and the other one for taking notes on the other side. Our team preferred the first setup, and that’s the one we’ll focus on.
Folders
The next part to organise are your folders. There is no right or wrong way to go about this. You can organise your notes according to dates, topics, activities, or a combination of different aspects. Personally, I always liked differentiating my personal study from sermons that others have preached. So, I’ll have a folder for each. Then inside each folder, I can combine dates and topics (depending on the situation).
iPhone study
The beauty of using Apple Notes and the Olive Tree Bible app for Bible study is that you can do it from pretty much anywhere, with whatever setup. My personal favourite is the phone, because of how portable it is. If you bump into a verse you want to take notes on, you can simply copy it to Apple Notes. The app also lets you share the verse with a reference link that you can refer to later.
I want it as a plain link, so I will quickly fix that (it’s an easy fix in Apple Notes). I’ll also add a topic for this study session, and highlight the words spoken by Jesus Christ. I am happy with that, so far. When I am on the go, or early in the morning when I’ve just woken up the phone is perfect. But, its steps can seem like much, especially compared to the setup you can get on the iPad.
iPad study
You can benefit from the bigger screen, on the iPad, which allows you to split view your Bible app with Apple Notes. Like I’ve already mentioned, you can pick any device to continue with your notes. For personal notes, you can use Monospace if you want to easily tell apart your personal notes from your bible verses. There are several ways to make that differentiation, though. This is just one example. But first, check out how much easier it is to copy and paste verses in split view when using the iPad. There’s not a lot of moving back and forth, between the apps. It’s also very easy to see what you’re copying and fix it immediately if you’ve made a mistake. Like in this case, I actually wanted the two verses.
Another way to differentiate your notes is using bullet points. Monospace is good but if you want to add a bit of structure to your notes, it won’t allow you. But, knowing when and how to use the different tools you have in Apple Notes can really make your Bible study notes beautiful and easier to refer to in the future.
Captured a bug
As a general rule, I am starting to handwrite less and less. But, it’s a great option for taking Bible study notes. You can easily drag and drop verses into text boxes and integrate them with your handwritten notes.
And my app is frozen! It hasn’t done that in a while, definitely didn’t miss it. It looks like trying to close it didn’t work… and then it crashed. Great. It’s very rare to capture bugs when recording, so I am always happy when we manage to do that. To show you guys. Apple Notes, especially on the Mac had this problem a while back but it’s since been fixed. Until now, of course.
And my handwritten notes have also disappeared. That hurts, coz I now have to redo this again. When Apple Notes crashes, usually it saves your notes. Occasionally, and this is the second time this has happened, you lose your notes. Once, I lost a complete notebook with a day’s work and I was devastated. Why we don’t have auto backup for Apple Notes, only God knows. Seriously, we should have an auto backup or version system in place.
Handwritten notes
Anyway, we were talking about handwritten notes for your Bible study, and how you can drag and drop verses into text boxes. Text boxes in Apple Notes are fun because they have more formatting options than what you get for body text on the iPad. You can change the alignment, font size, colour, and the type of font your text. My favourite is the ability to rotate the text box, it looks more fun than when it’s straight. A background for them would be useful, though. Unless you’re using a plain page template. These you can only have on the iPad only, though. That is why it probably makes more sense to use the iPad for your Bible study than an iPhone or Mac. I have tried using the Mac before, it doesn’t seem to work for me. No matter what I try.
Tips
As you add more notes to your Bible study folder, here are a few tips that can make it easier to find your notes. Always pin the notes you’re working on so they are easier to access from the top of your folder. Use tags to mark questions, verses for mediation and topics you’re researching on. Tags are very useful because you can easily delete them from your notebooks when you no longer need them. Use headings and subheadings for collapsible sections. They create an easy table of contents for your notebooks without extra work on your part. Lastly, link ideas in your notes as much as possible.
Final thoughts
Bible study in Apple Notes can be as simple or as sophisticated as you make it. We love that it is perfect for anyone, really. It is definitely the simplest app we have tried to Bible study in. Though the app is simple, the notes you can take in it are not and we love that. The only problem I have with this setup though, is that the links to Bible verses don’t take you to the Olive Tree Bible app. They take you to the web version of the app. This is not a problem with Apple Notes, it’s the Bible app so replacing it would solve that problem. However, for me, it was enough to look for other solutions that we’ll look at in other videos. If you’d mind the web version, then you’ll probably like this setup. You can also quickly change bible versions, which is a perk some of us might like.