This prayer book is the best all around prayer book for daily personal (or even family)use. The Scriptures are addressed back to God and arranged by category (with direction to add certain categories of requests inbetween the sections). This adds structure to ones prayer life and breaks the monotony of "grocery list" praying. This one is a little longer than, "Praying the Scriptures for Spiritual Growth" or the "Simple Prayers" books; in my own personal devotions, it takes me about 7 minutes per daily prayer segment.

Boa has written several prayer books, all great, all solid. This is my favorite to date.

Many times when we pray we don't know where to get started, what to do, many times we just want a deeper prayer life.

This book will scripturally guide you through praying...not only the scriptures, but will guide you in praying for your world around you. It begins with praise and worship of Almighty God, leads you in a confession of Who He is, then guides you through personal renewal, petitions, intercession, and then a prayer of thanksgiving.

One of the things I liked best about this book was that it started out with each section, declaring the Word of God, then it guides you (differently each day) to pray for your leaders one day, your family the next, that you will be a faithful steward of your time and money, for God's wisdom...the list goes on and on.

Both this book and "Praying the Scriptures for Spiritual Growth" are two of the best prayer/devotional books I have ever used. If I could only keep two, these would be the two I would keep. Not only are they easy to follow, they are taken directly from the Word of God.

Face to Face is a wonderful tool to help you pray. Boa has assembled scripture into eight sections for each day. You pray through scripture for Adoration, Confession, Renewal, Petition, Intercession, Affirmation, Thanksgiving and Closing. It helps you focus and it gives a marvelous sense of the completeness of God's word. I do not recommend very many books but this is one that I would recommend to anyone. I have already given away 20 copies.

The NIV Study Bible is of outstanding value for providing readers a greatly enhanced understanding of The Bible.

1. GENERAL EVALUATION: There are many Study Bibles on the market. Including the NIV Study Bible [Zondervan Press], I own and use three. While my two other versions, one is the older RSV and the other the newer NRSV, give some information to explain the more difficult to understand passages and add commentaries, none go into the depth that the NIV does. The commentaries and explanations in the NIV Study Bible are, to say the least, profuse. Yet, not overwhelming in long elucidations that tend to make you forget what you just read. Rather, the commentaries are brief, to the point and very well develop understanding. The commentaries are not biased toward any single religious canon. They are simply information. Commentaries are cross-referenced, thus allowing the reader to gain further insight from related passages.

2. FORMAT: The page format is exceptionally well planned and implemented. The design is the traditional two-column format with references in a column between the texts. The commentaries are located at the bottom of the page to which they refer. The type font is large enough to easily read and is crisp.

Icons are used to quickly identify to what the commentary refers. These icons are: Character Profile, Archeology and Personal Application.

Maps relating to the particular text are on the same page as are diagrams. The four-color maps, located at the back of the book, are excellent. There are also time lines to assist the reader in grasping the time frames.

3. SUGGETSIONS: The following comments/suggestions may only apply to those who embark on an in depth study of the Bible. Since The New Testament documents were originally in Greek, a wise choice of a companion Bible to further augment the NIV Study Bible would be the NSRV-NIV Interlinear Greek and English Bible. The NRSV and the NIV texts are on either side of the Greek text in three columns. Under the Greek, is a word for word translation. Greek of New Testament times was a rich, scholarly language and some words, like English, had varying meanings and implications. A Greek Lexicon would be helpful to understand those shades of meaning.

4. CONCLUSION: No matter for what reason(s) any person cares to study The Bible, the NIV Study Bible, in my opinion, is the most readable and understandable on today's market. For those of you who may wonder about my qualifications to comment on this Bible, my minor was theology. My studies included Greek and Hebrew; I base my opinions on those studies and having read many-many works on the Bible, the culture of the times and recent archeological finds.

I own a first edition of The NIV Study Bible. The Bible was a gift from my grandparents on my 25th birthday. It is the best Bible I have ever owned. The study notes are outstanding and send me on a journey of discovery everytime I follow a cross reference (no pun intended). I find it impossible not to follow the references on any subject throughout my NIV Study Bible. The New International Version translation makes scripture understandable to the lay person. Each book of the Bible is preceded by an introduction and outline. There are many maps and outlines throughout the NIV Study Bible. Most verses have a study note listed at the bottom of the page and references are listed down between columns. At the end of The NIV Study Bible are indexes to subjects, maps and color maps as well as an extensive concordance. I have left out many features of this excellent scriptural resource. The best recommendation I can give is that I am at this writing ordering copies of The NIV Study Bible for two of my sunday school students.

I have not read the Bible in it's entirety, nor most of it. I also do not pretend to be a Bible scholar. However, I have begun to read the gospels and appreciate the NIV Study Bible as illuminating and interesting.

This version of The Book will appeal to those who, like myself, have a great interest in history or who appreciate contextual explanations and clarifications. There are maps, timelines and an incredible amount of footnotes. There are also discussions of authors of the various books which serve to explain, as best as anyone can 1800 years or so after the fact, the objectives of those who first recorded and transmitted the word and teachings of God.

Writings this old contain many anarchism's and unfamiliarity's, both of place and practice. While it is not necessary to unravel those mysteries of another time in order to understand the meaning of the Bible, standard versions can lead one with a lot of musings about the location of towns, the value of coinage, the everyday practices for which the authors' original audiences needed no explanation and the broader lives of historical figures mentioned in scripture. If you are prone to want to know more about these types of things, than this version of the Bible will be deeply satisfying. (The footnotes also point out cross-references to different books of the Bible in order to underscore prophecy and help tie in the various writings to the whole).

I find this a very enjoyable, fascinating and educational Bible that enhances the Message with historical and contextual depth that in no way diminishes the focus on the Word of God.