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As someone who has filled a variety of roles in the Church, I have shopped for replacements for the Bibles in our pews, and can appreciate the sensitive nature of the deliberations between price and quality, and I have witnessed errors that have resulted on both ends of this equation.
Charged with replacing the Bibles in the pews of your Church, the objectives are simple. First, your congregation or pastor probably has a specific translation in mind. In all probability, if you are replacing the Bibles in the pews because they are worn out, then you're probably not going to change translations, at least not unless you've been directed to. A new pastor may want to replace the King James Version Bibles in the pews with an updated translation, such as the New International Version or New American Standard Bible, probably to match the version he preaches from.
Your first task is to determine which translation, or version, you'll be looking for; and there are a great many excellent translations to choose from, many of which we've featured or reviewed on this site. Before you place an order, make sure you know which translation you're looking for.
Generally, pew Bibles are bound with a hardcover of a solid, probably a dark color. If you have not been directed otherwise, a safe decision would be to stick with the color you have, or to opt for a black or brown cover; which is not to say that I have a problem with red.
You will also want Bibles that are of durable construction, since we all know that they’ll be subjected to stress.
As a good steward, you'll want to look for a good price. I was a member of one Church, where someone ordered a couple of hundred new pew Bibles from a nearby Bible bookstore, paying more than twice the necessary cost. When you are buying one Bible, the difference between $10 and $20 might not seem like much, but when you're ordering 200 of them, it makes a considerable difference. Of course, different Churches will have varying resources and needs.
If there are other considerations that I'm not thinking of, please let me know so that I can add them to a future update of these pages.
We've done the shopping for you. Please don't hesitate to buy them from somewhere else if you can get a better deal, but I think that this is a good place to start.
-- Ken Anderson
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