Many people have asked questions regarding the history of e‑Sword, this ministry, and who I am. This page will hopefully answer some of those questions, as well as provide a timeline of how GOD has blessed this effort over the years.
I was born in 1962 in sunny southern California, saved by the grace of GOD in 1980, and married to my beautiful wife since 1988. GOD has blessed us with two wonderful children — a daughter and a son, in that order.
In 1991, the Holy Spirit gave me the gift of teaching, which I have been using ever since. That same year, He also placed in me a desire to program computers — funny how those two gifts would later come together. In 2000, GOD combined my passion for His Word with my enjoyment of programming, and e‑Sword was born.
The first lines of code for e‑Sword were written in January, with a clear vision from the very beginning: keep it simple and do the obvious. By April, e‑Sword version 1.0 was released, complete with its unique user interface layout, popup ToolTips, a Study Notes editor, verse comparison, and synchronized commentaries and dictionaries. It was immediately posted on the Internet — now if only people could find it. In August, version 2.0 followed, adding the ability to search commentaries and dictionaries and to highlight Scripture. By September, people were beginning to find e‑Sword on the Internet, and it became time to find a new host capable of handling bandwidth requirements that now exceeded 10GB per month.
January brought version 3.0, with many enhancements to the Study Notes editor — including a spell checker and thesaurus — along with a new Topic Notes mode and complete control over the layout and appearance of e‑Sword, including which resources were displayed. By March, hosting problems had escalated: bandwidth requirements exceeded 50GB per month, and no commercial solution could be found. The LORD intervened, providing a brother with a couple of T-1 lines to use, even as favorable reviews of e‑Sword began appearing all over the Internet and driving even more traffic to the web site. In April, the Equipping Ministries Foundation was founded to allow users to contribute financially to the ministry, since the first year of development had been financed entirely out of pocket and could no longer continue that way.
May brought version 4.0, focused on making e‑Sword even easier to use and enjoy, along with a new Graphics Viewer so that maps and charts could become part of the growing library of resources. In June, the Lockman Foundation granted permission for the use of the "New American Standard Bible" and "La Biblia de las Americas" — the first major publisher to cooperate with e‑Sword. July brought the 100,000th download, along with bandwidth needs exceeding 100GB per month; once again the LORD provided, this time through another brother offering a T-3 line.
August proved that GOD is good: by a miracle, He directed the mouse clicks of a man who discovered the e‑Sword web site and offered the ultimate hosting solution, directly on the Internet through his data center on the Tier One national backbone, while another brother donated a web server — just in time, as downloads now exceeded 500GB per month. September brought version 5.0, with a new parallel Bible feature and the ability to maximize the Bible, commentary, and dictionary views; in the three weeks following September 11th alone, e‑Sword was downloaded over 40,000 times.
In October, Sovereign Grace Publishers began including e‑Sword with all new editions of the "Modern King James Bible" and "Literal Translation Version." November brought a turning point: the company I worked for filed for bankruptcy, and through much prayer and confirmation, I began working on e‑Sword full time, with this ministry becoming the sole means of support for my family. The year closed in December with the release of version 5.5, adding Extended Search and Analyze Verses and pushing the resource library past 500MB, along with the 250,000th download of e‑Sword.
April brought version 6.0, which introduced a STEP Reader and a Daily Devotion feature, and tied Study Notes to individual verses rather than whole chapters. By June, the 500,000th download of e‑Sword had occurred. October brought version 6.5, adding Prayer Requests and separating the Topic Notes editor from the Study Notes editor, with the resource library now exceeding 1 gigabyte of disk space. That same season, the American Bible Society granted free permission for the use of the "Contemporary English Version" and "Good News Translation," while Heritage Educational Systems made STEP libraries available so that anyone could have a seminary library in their own home.
February brought fresh bandwidth challenges when the gracious provider FNSI was sold to Cogent, leaving e‑Sword without a home — but "But GOD...," one of my favorite phrases in the Bible, already had a plan in place, and a fellow Christian brother running AO Technologies reached out that very same day with an equally gracious offer, just as downloads exceeded a terabyte each month. In March, version 7.0 arrived with a customizable Bible Reading Plan, Bible Split View, and search capability added to the STEP Reader. April brought the 1,000,000th download of e‑Sword. By December, Pocket e‑Sword version 1.0 launched for Pocket PC platforms, allowing users to carry a complete seminary library with them wherever they went.
The year opened with 1.5 million downloads of e‑Sword so far, and Pocket e‑Sword downloaded nearly 20,000 times in its very first month. That same January, the Lockman Foundation granted permission for the use of the "Amplified Bible." In March, AMG Publishers granted permission for "The Complete Word Study Dictionary" series by Dr. Spiros Zodhiates, Dr. Warren Baker, and Dr. Eugene Carpenter, and in April, Good News Publishers granted free permission for the "English Standard Version." August brought two milestones at once — the 2,000,000th download of e‑Sword and the 100,000th download of Pocket e‑Sword. In October, Pocket e‑Sword was named a finalist in the Best Bible Software category of the 2004 Pocket PC Magazine Best Software Awards.
February brought permission from AMG Publishers to use "Key Word Commentary" and "Encyclopedia of Bible Facts", along with the 250,000th download of Pocket e‑Sword, as monthly bandwidth usage climbed past 5 terabytes. In July, version 7.7 was released with a new Scripture Memory tool, and by August the 3,000,000th download of e‑Sword had occurred. October brought another honor, as Pocket e‑Sword was again named a finalist in the Best Bible Software category of the 2005 Pocket PC Magazine Best Software Awards.
January opened with the 500,000th download of Pocket e‑Sword. In March, a partnership with eStudySource was formed to provide popular, copyright-protected resources for e‑Sword users, even as monthly downloads of Bibles and add-on modules surpassed 1 million — a good problem, but one that meant bandwidth could no longer be provided free of charge. May brought the 4,000,000th download of e‑Sword.
In August, the President of the United States signed the "Pension Protection Act of 2006" into law; while the bill contained many good changes, one specific provision rendered the Equipping Ministries Foundation unable to fulfill its original purpose of funding e‑Sword's continued development, leading to its dissolution at year's end and the loss of tax-deductible giving. Satisfaction remained in knowing that e‑Sword was reaching people in over 160 countries and territories, with more than 5 million users blessed so far.
In September, Christian Computing Magazine published an article about e‑Sword, and December closed the year with the release of version 7.8, adding a Gospel Harmony tool.
January brought the 5,000,000th download of e‑Sword, followed in May by the 1,000,000th download of Pocket e‑Sword, and in July the 6,000,000th download of e‑Sword itself. In October, Pocket e‑Sword was named a finalist in the Best Bible Software category of the 2007 Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine Best Software Awards, and in November, Christian Computing Magazine published a second article about e‑Sword.
January brought version 7.9, adding a Sermon Illustrations tool and a stronger implementation of Strong's numbers throughout the program, along with the 7,000,000th download of e‑Sword. After 18 months in development, e‑Sword LIVE launched in May, giving Mac users, those in Internet cafes, and anyone away from their home PC an unparalleled online Bible study experience.
July brought the 8,000,000th download, and December closed the year with version 8.0, featuring a completely localized user interface with numerous languages already supported, along with new support for the Orthodox Apocrypha alongside the Catholic Deuterocanon.
After 9 years and 9,000,000 downloads, version 9.0 arrived in April with a completely new database architecture, case-sensitive searches, and the ability to add Study Notes to any verse in the Bible, including the Orthodox Apocrypha and Catholic Deuterocanon. September brought version 9.5, introducing a fully dockable user interface that enabled complete customization of the layout in hundreds of different ways.
The year opened with news of 2.5 million downloads of e‑Sword in 2009 alone. April brought version 9.6, adding highlighting and marking in commentaries and dictionaries, and September brought version 9.7, with a new Journal Notes editor and the ability to search using Regular Expressions — the same month Christian Computing Magazine published yet another article about e‑Sword. By October, e‑Sword had been downloaded in 225 countries and territories around the world over the previous six months alone, a reminder that the Gospel continues to find its way into every corner of the earth.
January opened with news that over 3.5 million downloads had occurred in 2010, bringing the grand total past 15 million, alongside the release of version 9.8, which introduced a Module Downloader built directly into the program for downloading any available resource. April brought version 9.9, with completely redesigned Search dialogs providing even more information for study. The year closed strong in November with version 10.0, featuring completely redesigned Editors with greater functionality, a new Reference Library, and integrated audio sermons from SermonAudio.com.
January brought news of nearly 5 million downloads in 2011, pushing the grand total to 20 million. In March, version 10.1 gave Commentary, Dictionary, and Devotion views the ability to display pictures, allowing modules to be created with images included. October marked a major milestone with the release of e‑Sword HD version 1.0 for the iPad, bringing the world's most popular Bible study software to the world's most advanced mobile operating system.
January brought the 25,000,000th download of e‑Sword, now reaching 230 countries and territories worldwide. In March, e‑Sword LT version 1.0 launched for the iPhone, extending that same reach to Apple's mobile platform.
June brought version 10.2, with a built-in Downloader allowing direct downloading of Premium modules without separate installer files, the same month Christian Computing Magazine published another feature on e‑Sword — a pattern that continued in July and August with two more articles.
September closed the year's major releases with e‑Sword HD version 2.0, introducing a new Locate feature that displayed a popover and pinned selected Bible locations on a zoomable, pannable map.
March brought the 30,000,000th download of e‑Sword. In April, version 10.3 added support for right-to-left languages, such as Hebrew, within the Editors, and July brought version 10.4, introducing a User Files Location field in the Resources dialog so users could customize where their files were stored — a convenient option for backup or synchronization tools such as Dropbox.
March brought e‑Sword X version 1.0 to the Mac, extending the world's most popular Bible study software to the world's most advanced desktop operating system. December followed with e‑Sword LT version 5.0, introducing a new Study Notes feature that displayed a small note icon beside any verse with a note, which could be tapped to view it in a popover.
May brought the 35,000,000th download of e‑Sword, now reaching 235 countries and territories worldwide. In July, version 11.0 introduced all-new HTML-based resources, including a new Lexicon module type, along with a new Pericope feature that placed section headings throughout the Bible.
In April, e‑Sword HD version 6.0 introduced a new Audio Bibles feature, allowing users to listen to the Bible read aloud in dramatic fashion.
In October, e‑Sword HD version 8.5 introduced the Ancient Hebrew Lexicon, including support for its specialized pictographic script.
February brought the 40,000,000th download of e‑Sword. In August, version 12.0 introduced Dark Mode and app themes, along with hundreds of refinements throughout the app.
March brought e‑Sword LT version 10.0, adding CarPlay support so users could listen to the Bible in their vehicles in an easier, safer way, along with a number of popular Christian radio and Internet stations. In April, e‑Sword HD version 10.0 opened access to teachings on any passage of the Bible from the SermonAudio.com library of nearly two million sermons. December closed the year with e‑Sword X version 7.5, introducing a new Analyze Verses feature that determined word-use counts for any range of Scripture and visualized the results for easy identification of themes.
March brought version 13.0, with a new Audio Bibles feature offering dramatic readings across the KJV, KJV-BRG, ESV, CEV, WEB, NRSV, and Spanish PDT Bibles. In May, e‑Sword LT version 11.0 introduced a new Scripture Memory feature, using scientific algorithms designed to maximize retention and help users memorize Scripture in just a few minutes each day. August brought e‑Sword HD version 11.0, adding the ability to search the Bible using Regular Expressions.
January brought e‑Sword version 1.0 to Android, extending the world's most popular Bible study software to the world's most popular mobile operating system. May brought version 4.0, with a new Audio Bibles feature for dramatic readings, and August brought two further releases: version 5.0, introducing the same science-based Scripture Memory feature available on other platforms, and version 6.0, adding a new Google Maps feature for locating Biblical places on real maps.
This was a year of maintenance across the app family. Development of the Android app continued in earnest, working to bring it up to par with the Apple apps in terms of functionality, while the Apple apps themselves were fine-tuned into the powerful tools they are today.
July brought version 14.0, introducing compatible Notes files that could be shared across the other e‑Sword apps, whether on an Android phone, tablet, or Chromebook, or an Apple iPhone, iPad, or Mac. In August, e‑Sword reached its 45,000,000th download.
In April, e‑Sword turned 25 years old. The time had come to completely update the original PC version of e‑Sword.
In July, e‑Sword version 15.0 was released. The next generation was born. We went back to basics — super simple, super powerful — to make Bible study easier than ever.