Be Thou My Vision: A Liturgy for Daily Worship

We studied the concept and article of Anglican homilies a few weeks back and my first thought was "that sounds like it'd make family worship easier." I'm not Anglican, I was raised PCA before the PCA was weird. I'm some form of reformed Baptist at this point, so I wanted a reformed and liturgically structured family study. This one has some solid structure and has all the resources contained within it. Aside from a bible, everything you need to work through this study is within the book. I've led my family in a weekly study in the New City Catechism, and was brought up with Heidelberg and Westminster. I love that they're both contained in this single volume, along with the three creeds it goes through daily. My parents catechised me with those catechisms and creeds, but they didn't have a simple book like this with everything contained in one. Praise God for this Gibson fella making it easier for me to worship God with my family. No, it is not a replacement for meeting to worship on Sundays with a faithful body of believers. The first 35 pages are introductions, acknowledgements, and instructions on how to use the book. There are five appendixes: Musical Tunes for Doxology and Gloria Patri, Heidelberg Catechism (1563) and Westminster Shorter Catechism (1657), M'Cheyne Bible Reading Plan, Collects from the Book of Common Prayer (1552), and Author and Liturgy Index. The bible reading plan contained roughly four chapters of reading a day starting in separate books with the goal of reading through the bible in 365 days. It'll be good for getting the kiddos involved, as there'll be plenty of reading to go around. I found out after placing my order that Westminster has a cowhide leather version that comes in the same hard cover. That hard cover sold me, it adds to the durability and beauty of this volume. If I'd known ahead of time, I'd've bought that edition for $15 more. Maybe I'll get it in the future as well. Now to find a small Bible to keep with it so they'll always be handy for morning worship...

For a few years now, I have tried several prayer books and liturgies such as the Book of Common Prayer. I still love those resources (and still use them often) but have found Be Thou My Vision to be the most user friendly and the easiest one to read daily on a consistent basis. One of my favorite things about this is how beautiful the box, book cover, and font/pages are. This book is enjoyable to hold, open, and read which is something a lot of Protestant resources have neglected. At the same time it also feels very durable and like it will last a life time if you take care of it. But above all, I love the content of this book the most. The main issue I have ran into with other liturgies is that they repeat the same prayers too much and introduce new prayers too little. This book has a perfect balance of prayers that are repeated every day like the Lord’s Prayer and new prayers for each day like the Prayer of Intercession. Also since you get a full month of readings to repeat, there is enough variety to use this for a long a time where the prayers will continue to feel fresh and new. This book will help your prayer life tremendously. I love that there is a time for confession but also an assurance of pardon right after that gives you the opportunity to receive the forgiveness and mercy of the Lord. The structure is well thought out and flows really well. The prayers from church history are so beautiful and worth memorizing as well. The creeds and catechisms are also very beneficial and I surprisingly enjoyed reading them more than I thought I would. Overall, if you are just getting into liturgy or are looking for a daily devotion full of Scripture and wonderful prayers of the church, look no further than Be Thou My Vision.

I love this thing. Such a beautiful book visually and in content. Crossway always gets it done. Will be using this and recommending it for years to come

Great devotional resource! Recommended!

I love this book, not just for the contents, but also for how it is typeset and bound, it is just such a beautiful book. I come from a non-liturgical tradition, so this book and its two companion books are really such breaths of fresh air.

This book has been a wonderful guide on placing me in a mindset of worship when I do my Scripture readings and prayer time. Two habits every Christian needs to develop are daily Scripture reading and prayer time. When life becomes hectic, these two things can easily become like all the other items we need to check off of our To-Do lists. But, they are supposed to be so much more than that. This book has helped me tremendously in getting into the mindset of worship on a daily basis. The liturgy acts as a bit of a warm-up/calm down to get my head in the right place to really hear what the Lord has for me in the Scripture reading that day and to help clear my head as I enter into prayer time. The first part of the book talks about the foundation and the format of the daily liturgy. The bulk of the time will be spent in the second part of the book (the 31 days of liturgy) and the appendices (The Heidelberg/Westminster Catechisms and a Scripture reading plan). Every day, there are various Scripture readings, prayers, recitation of creeds, and reading from the catechisms. The book gives you a Bible reading plan, but I've been using one of my own and it works just fine. If you need help getting into the rhythm like I do then this book is for you!

During the 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns, Jonathan Gibson became dissatisfied with the “content and structure” of his devotional routine. He described that routine as “reading and petitioning, with a few praise points thrown in.” He decided to experiment by incorporating elements of a corporate liturgy into his devotions—a “mini church service,” as it were. Be Thou My Vision is the result of those experiments. It is a 31-day devotional structured around the following elements: call to worship, adoration, reading of the Law (by which Gibson means divine commandments generally, not Torah specifically), confession of sin, assurance of pardon, creed, praise, catechism, prayer for illumination, Scripture reading, prayer of intercession, and Lord’s Prayer. The elements of the resulting “liturgy for daily worship” (in the words of the book’s subtitle) draw heavily on Scripture and Christian tradition. Gibson takes the texts of the call to worship, reading of the Law, assurance of pardon, Scripture reading, and Lord’s Prayer from the English Standard Version. The call to worship consists of 31 readings from both Old and New Testament that are repeated monthly. The reading of the Law is a weekly cycle of seven passages. And the Scripture reading follows the M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan, which requires reader to peruse chapters in four different books of the Bible every day. The Christian tradition provides texts for the elements of adoration, confession of sin, creed, praise, catechism, prayer for illumination, and prayers of intercession. The catechism element uses the Heidelberg Catechism and the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and readers recite the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed on a weekly basis. An appendix includes collects from the 1552 edition of the Book of Common Prayer, though language (basically, “thees” and “thous” and verbs that end in “-th”) have been updated. “The fixed order of the elements is to aid concentration,” Gibson writes, “while the variety of content in the elements is to avoid boredom. The repetition of Scripture readings, prayers, creeds, praises … encourages familiarity and memorization.” Be Thou My Vision is printed beautifully and durably. My copy is hardcover in a slipcase with three ribbons to make place. I used theme to mark the day, the catechetical question, and the M’Cheyne Bible reading. I wish more Christian publishers would follow Crossway’s lead in producing aesthetically pleasing books. On the whole, I found Gibson’s order of worship helpful. Like him, my quiet time mostly consisted of Bible reading and petitionary prayer. Organizing devotions like a “mini church service” was an improvement. The repetition also helped. The reading of the Law—Matthew 22:37–40, Deuteronomy 6:4–9; Matthew 5:3–10; John 15:9–12; Matthew 5:20, 48; 6:1, 33; 7:12; Exodus 20:1–17; 1 John 4:7–11 repeated every seven days—reminded me how central love is to the Christian ethic. And the weekly recitation of the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds drilled home the Trinitarian character of Christian doctrine. In light of recent evangelical wrangling over the so-called eternal functional subordination of the Son to the Father, repeated readings of the Athanasian Creed, which repudiates any such subordination in strong terms—was a tonic. That said, I don’t think I will continue using Be Thou My Vision in my daily quiet times. The biggest reason is that I am Arminian, while this book—especially in its use of the Heidelberg and Westminster catechisms—is most definitely Reformed (i.e., Calvinist). Also, while I can appreciate many aspects of the English Standard Version, the Bible translation underlying all of the book’s Scripture quotations, the ESV is not my go-to translation. I’m a long-time New International Version reader, and I don’t plan to jump ship for the ESV any time soon. Even so, I have learned much from Gibson’s private daily liturgy. It is helpful to structure one’s devotions and draw on the Christian tradition even as you center your private worship around the proclamation of Scripture. That is what I will take from my month-long use of Be Thou My Vision.

Was like new

I bought this on the strength of Gibson's 'O Come, O Come Emmanuel' book and this is just as good. This is a high quality work of art which is beautiful to use with its monthly liturgy cycle, fantastic references and appendices. Highly recommended.

I like the design of this book. It's high quality and is a pleasure to use. However a major drawback for me is the modern language it uses. It updates the thees and thous to You and Yours. It uses the ESV version of the bible for the Scriptures which I dislike too. If they made a Traditional language version id be very happy but for me this is unusable atm.

Purchased for my father and he really likes it. It is a daily devotional that he now uses for 15-20 mins as part of his worship. Fast delivery.

Fantastic for daily devotional. Longer, meatier, and works me through devotional time with God every day.

As someone who has come from a liturgically poor background this book not only provides an amazing structure but connects it to Church history ensuring that what is read and taught is the faith once for all delivered to the saints.