The author of the studies found on this site is Tony Thomas, a retired pastor in Essex, United Kingdom.
The designer/author of the pages of this online ‘easyread’ NIV study Bible is Tony Thomas, a retired pastor and bible teacher in Essex, United Kingdom, who has been teaching the Bible for over fifty years. The text is the NIV and the only difference found in this version is in the layout, formatting, and explanatory notes built into the text. The goal is to provide an approach for beginners and experienced readers alike, beginners who may need some basic explanation along the way, and experienced readers who may wish for some more detailed background information. In both cases our desire is to encourage more than merely reading the text but seeking to assimilate, understand and digest what is being read, as you go.
Tony writes:
Having been teaching the Bible and writing Bible Notes for many years, it has always been my desire to make the Bible more accessible to its readers – actual and potential. In a lockdown period of Covid in 2020, I found myself trialling a more structured approach to reading and studying the Bible by the use of more subheadings and notes within the text, than are usually found. What started as a couple of New Testament books, eventually developed into the whole Bible.
Why the NIV version of the Bible? It just happened to be the one I used most of the time, although often referring to other excellent modern translations and paraphrases. I concluded that, with the vast ranges of versions now available online, the important thrust was to catch the overall meaning of passages – paragraphs, chapters, and whole books – as found by the ordinary everyday reader.Tony Thomas
For that reason I have not sought to represent any particular school of thought or approach beyond gratefully acknowledging my traditional evangelical background. Where – for example in prophecies – there are different schools of interpretation I have, where possible and as simply as possible, noted such differences of thinking within the text.
I hope you will find a measure of informality within the approach, that fits its title, Easy-Read Bible. The Bible – all of it! – is the most incredible record of God’s dealings with mankind. We hope you will find great pleasure and satisfaction as you read, stirring an even greater hunger to read it even more.
Our prayer is that as you read, study, meditate and reflect upon God’s word, you will find it makes you more God-aware (He is), more God-conscious (He is here), and more God-transformed by the work of Christ on the Cross, the working of the Holy Spirit, and the inspired word of God that we hope you will be seeing in a fresh light.