If you’re anything like me, you love a good set of sticky notes, highlighters, and washi tape to kick off your Bible studying. Your Bible’s pages are probably adorned with 66 Bible tabs for every book and like mine, those little guys are probably hanging on by a thread. Or honestly, you don’t even have 66 tabs anymore. More like 57 of the Bible tabs are left, and you have no idea where the other nine went. They’re just… gone. Living their best life somewhere in the bottom of your bag… maybe.
For those of us who love decorating our Bibles and study journals until there are so many stickers and sticky notes we can barely see the scripture underneath, Bible tabs are an obvious grab. Bible tabs pitch themselves as a quick-flip guide to all 66 books. Unfortunately, nobody warns you at the craft store though, Bible tabs are not good for the health of your Bible.
The tabs tear your pages. They curl but so slowly so you barely notice. Eventually the tabs just give up, and on their way out, they take a little piece of your Bible with them. Like a roommate who takes your favorite mug when they move out.
Once when I used a tab to flip to a book in my Bible during church, the entire tab just ripped right out. I just sat there staring at it in disbelief. I’m like “are these tabs just going to keep tearing my Bible like that?”
And wouldn’t you know it, like God was speaking to me through sermon, our church just went over Ephesians 5, and a Greek word in there is actually what brought all this full circle recently.
Our church was in Ephesians 5: 1-21, and if you haven’t read that passage recently, I highly recommend it. Paul is writing to the church about what it actually looks like to live your like you’ve accepted Jesus and been saved. Not just saved on paper. But, genuinely, from the inside out, changed.
Born again. Filled with the Holy Spirit. Different.
And in the middle of all of that, he keeps using this one word that I completely glossed over for way too long.
The word is walk.
1 Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, 2 and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God. 3 But sexual immorality and any impurity or greed should not even be heard of among you, as is proper for saints. 4 Obscene and foolish talking or crude joking are not suitable, but rather giving thanks. 5 For know and recognize this: Every sexually immoral or impure or greedy person, who is an idolater, does not have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty arguments, for God's wrath is coming on the disobedient because of these things. 7 Therefore, do not become their partners. 8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light — 9 for the fruit of the light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth — 10 testing what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Don't participate in the fruitless works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to mention what is done by them in secret. 13 Everything exposed by the light is made visible, 14 for what makes everything visible is light. Therefore it is said: Get up, sleeper, and rise up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. 15 Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk — not as unwise people but as wise — 16 making the most of the time, because the days are evil. 17 So don't be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. 18 And don't get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit: 19 speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord, 20 giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.
Three times in the same chapter.
“Walk in love.” v. 2
“Walk as children of light.” v. 8
“Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk.” v. 15
I read it like filler for the longest time. Like Paul just needed an action and grabbed the first word that walked in (pun intended). But then I remembered that when God chooses to repeat words, it’s usually important, and y’all. This word is anything but filler.
So I jumped onto Blue Letter Bible and found that the Greek word for walk in these verses is peripateō.
Peh-ree-pah-TEH-oh. Very fun to say. Extremely fun at parties. You’re welcome.
The word breaks into two parts. Peri, meaning “around” or “about.” And pateo, meaning “to step,” or “to put your foot down.”
Now that sounds pretty normal, right? To walk around. Sure. Except here’s where it gets interesting: that root word, pateo, is the same word used in Luke 10:19 for stomping on scorpions. And it shows up in Revelation 14: 19, in reference to trampling grapes in a winepress.
This is not a casual word, not a Sunday afternoon stroll word. This is a put your whole foot down, move with total intention, type of word.
Paul wasn’t telling the church in Ephesus to just sort of mosey in the right direction and hope for the best. He was saying stomp with purpose. He was telling them the life God gave us, this born again, Spirit-filled life he bought back for us. You walk it. With intention and on purpose. Every. Single. Day.
That realization sank deeper than I expected it to.
That meant God intended every instruction to walk in the Bible with that same purpose and intentionality.
And here’s the thing about that word. Once you see it, you start seeing that red string connect all over scripture.
Pull this thread and the whole Bible starts talking at once.
First in John 3:7 – You must be born again. Anothen in Greek: born from above. Not upgraded. Brand new starting line.
Next, Acts 1:4 – Wait. Don’t move yet. Receive the Spirit first. You cannot walk in the Spirit if you haven’t received the Spirit.
Lastly, Acts 16:31 – Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. The faith that saves you is the same faith you walk in. Belief isn’t a destination. It’s a direction.
And then Ephesians 5 says: okay. Born again. Spirit received. Belief in hand. Now, peripateō. Walk. Every day. In love, in light, in wisdom.
The whole Christian life is a walk. A purposeful, Spirit-filled, stomp-with-intention walk through 66 books that are all somehow talking to each other and somehow talking to you on your couch on a Tuesday morning.
Which made me look at what was hanging out of my Bible by a tread and think, ‘we can do better than this.’
Okay. So. Bible tabs.
You know the tabs. Little colorful flaps of optimism sticking out the side of your Bible. And listen, bless them. They meant well.
They claim to help you find every book instantly, and they come in like every Bible kit ever.
Put them in and your Bible looks so organized, color-coded, you feel like a person who has their entire spiritual life completely together.
And then you actually live your life with that Bible.
Your Bible goes in your bag, comes out of your bag, rides in the car, sits in the chair at church, gets shoved back in a bag and carried everywhere, because that’s what it’s for. It goes with you. A Bible is not a shelf piece.
And the tabs? Nobody built them for that life.
They catch on EVERYTHING, push and crinkle pages inward, peel and snag and bend, and eventually just quietly give up, sometimes taking little bits of your Bible pages with them on the way out.
I remember installing my first set of Bible Tabs, I was so excited. Just a doe eyed 11 yo who had just gotten baptized for the first time, with a new Bible and fresh set of Bible tabs. And I wasted no time installing them. Buuuuuuuuuuuuut wow, was I terrible at it. Kept sticking pages together, tore them apart trying to fix it, nothing lined up nicely. And after all was said and done, after not too long a time, when I’d use the tabs to flip to pages, they’d rip right out.
It was so frustrating, I never wanted to put tabs on my Bible ever again. But I did. LOL. Twice more; before I learned my lesson.
After this most recent time, I kept thinking, if I need to carry this with me everywhere [because our Bible isn’t a stay-at-home type of thing], why does the best tool available for it, fall apart in a tote bag?
There had to be something better.
So I finally got to work
My first concept was just a copy of the Table of Contents on a separate page that “folded” out of my Bible, attached to the original Table of Contents page. This worked well for a time, I still had to find the page it was attached to at first and flip it out. Then, whenever it got in my way, I would just fold it back in. Unfortunately, this soon got beat up and stopped being helpful.
SO BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD, I went.
Okay, so imagine those old pop-up books you had as a kid. It had parts that you could spin, flip open, and tabs that let you pull out an undiscovered image. That. That pull tab. Now imagine one on the inside of the cover of your Bible. Front or back. However, instead of an image, it’s your Bible’s Table of Contents.
That’s what I created Testament Tab to be. A handmade Bible tab insert that adheres to the inside cover of your Bible. All 66 books, right there, instant. Slide it back and it’s gone. No bulk, bent pages, or silent destruction happening in your bag.
One tab. All 66 books. Built for the Bible you actually carry.
It comes in Standard and Large print sizes, left or right handed orientations, and in addition to our design options, you can upload your own personal image. Because not everyone’s Bible looks the same and everyone deserves something that actually fits their Bible and their life.
I have loved every minute of creating and designing Testament Tab to be the most beneficial tool in my Bible study tool kit. I no longer waste precious time during church or Bible study, missing the discussion, flipping around my Bible. And I’m first to the verse when we have multiple verses to hop to. It gets me reading my Bible out loud to the group, and I no longer feel left behind.
Now that I have a helpful navigation tool in my Bible study tool kit, study time has been way less friction than before. However, we always need to remember Paul doesn’t say have it all figured out before you start. He says walk. Keep walking. In love, in light, in wisdom, every day, even on a Tuesday, even in yesterday’s hoodie, even when you still occasionally open to the wrong Testament.
God made us to stomp with purpose through all 66 books. And I want to help you find them.
Before you go, I just want to pray for you,
Dear Heavenly Father,
I want to thank you for all the love you pour out on us, God. May we all be blessed in your favor, be joyful and healthy.
Amen.
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15 Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk, not as unwise people but as wise.