Three Books uses four types of highlighting on the NET Bible text.
Bold and Bold-Italic Font used for Jesus and the Holy Spirit
One of the ultimate realities made evident in the New Testament is the Trinitarian God, meaning: that the One God is manifest in three Persons. This reality is commonly referred to as the Trinity, or Three-In-One. The Bible is unambiguous that there is but one God. So the Trinity does not, cannot, mean that there are three Gods.
So how is there a Trinity? The simple answer, and the best answer, is because the Bible makes clear that there are such Three Persons in One God: there is God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit. The purpose of Three Books is not to explain this (if even it is “explainable”). However, our three books–John, Acts, and Romans–makes frequent reference to each of the three Persons of the Trinity. Of particular interest to our purpose here is to understand the Person and Work of Jesus Christ in accomplishing His work of redemption on behalf of us imprisoned, trapped, and doomed, under the curse of sin. However, is the Holy Spirit of God who makes known to us that which we can and need to know about such work of redemption.
Accordingly, words in our three books giving the title, name, role, person of Jesus and the Holy Spirit have been highlighted to draw our attention to their importance in the text and to us.
References to Jesus are shown in bold font, such as: Lord, Lord Jesus, Jesus Christ, Lamb of God, the bread from heaven, etc. I have not highlighted the name “Jesus” itself, nor personal pronoun references to Jesus such as “he” or “him.”
References to the Holy Spirit are shown in bold-italic font, such as: Spirit, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, etc.
By way of example, in the Gospel of John we have:
Bold Font Highlighting examples of Jesus: John Chapter 1
Verses 1-14 of John1 contain numerous references to Jesus beginning with the Word (vs. 1), God, Life, Light, creator, and flesh (referencing His physical, space-time body). Later in this chapter, Jesus is identified as Lord (vs. 23), the Lamb of God (vs. 29), the Chosen One of God, and Rabbi. Not all of the titles / references ascribed to Jesus are fully descriptive of Him. For instance, as above noted He is called Rabbi, which means teacher. In this Chapter 1 reference it is likely that the disciples at this early point in the story were calling Jesus a teacher, not The Teacher-God who has entered space-time; so it was accurate to refer to Him as “teacher,” but He was far more than just “teacher” in the ordinary sense of reference. Later. Jesus is referred to as the Nazarene. Again, this is not inaccurate as Jesus was raised in the Galilean town of Nazareth. And Jesus was fully human (and God), so a true human reference, such as “Nazarene” accurately speaks to His humanity. But He was far more than (just) “a Nazarene.” So what we see in the Gospel of John is a journey of deeper understanding of the Person of Jesus reflected in the titles and names given to Jesus by those who made the inner journey to faith.
Bold Italic Font Highlighting examples of the Holy Spirit: John, Chapters 14 – 16
John chapters 13 through 17 all take place during Jesus’ final evening on earth, with His disciples, in the upper (dining) room of an undisclosed house in Jerusalem, before the night of His trial and the morning of His crucifixion. For that reason this portion of Scripture is commonly referred to as the “upper room discourse.”
An important introduction occurs in such discourse as Jesus presents to His disciples the third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. In John 14:16-17, and again in vs 26, the Holy Spirit is identified as our Advocate (in some translations the word “Comforter” is used instead), and the Spirit of truth. In John 15:25-26 the same pairing occurs of the Advocate and the Spirit of Truth. In John 16 the two phrases again occur: the Advocate (vs. 7), and the Spirit of truth (vs. 13), along with the Spirit (vs. 15).
Italics and Underlining used for physical and inner / spiritual journeys
Two additional highlighting tools have been used to assist the reader in understanding the twin journey perspective we are using to study these three books. Journeys taken in our ordinary, space-time world have been highlight in plain italic font. (Note not all such references have been highlighted so as not to overload the text and interfere with simple reading).
Those journeys of the inner, spiritual heart have been highlighted by underlining.
Italic Font Highlighting examples of a physical, space-time journey in John 1
One of the remarkable features of both the Gospel of John and the Book of Acts is the extensive reference to physical journeys. One could conceive of God coming to earth, even in the form of man, sitting on some kind of glorious throne, and making all manner of statements while seated there before various congregated audiences. This is not what happened. Jesus went back and forth, almost entirely on foot in multi-day segments of travel, to find His own, as well as to present His claims to those who would not believe.
In John 1:6 we seen John the Baptist as a man sent from God to be a herald (advance proclaimer of the Kind). Later, in vs. 14, we see Jesus Himself making the astonishing and unique journey into space-time: the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. In vs. 19, we see the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem having sent emissaries to figure out why John (the Baptist) was baptizing people: Jewish leaders sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem.
Underlined Font Highlight examples of the inner, spiritual journey in John 3 and 4
John Chapters 3 and 4 are a matched pair of opposites: Nicodemus, a Jewish ruler in Jerusalem (Ch. 3), and the unnamed, and not “important” woman in despised Samaria (Ch. 4). They were each confronted by Jesus with their need for an inner spiritual journey. In John 3:5, Jesus tells the self-reasoning, proud Nicodemus that his need is for a journey to new birth: unless a person is born of the water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. In John 4:10, Jesus tells the ‘downtrodden’ Samaritan woman that there was available to her a water that could make her spiritual alive: if you had known…you would have asked him [Jesus], and he would have given you living water.
Block Bold Highlighting of a Particular Verse
For certain key Bible verses in Three Books, I’ve highlighted the verse number using a bold, black box as, for example, John 3:3, and 3:6 and 3:7. My purpose in so doing is to aid in doing a quick re-read of Three Books by focusing on just such identified verses.
Further, I have collected all such highlighted verses on this website, here for John, here for Acts, and here for Romans. So an even easier way to focus on just the key verses would be to refer to the above three links for these three books. It may also be helpful to print out each of such lists as roadmap (in yet another sense of the word) aiding your reading in Three Books.