BibleMarker

Lists & Flow

If you’ve ever studied with a notebook open beside your Bible, you know the habit: as you read, you keep a running list in the margin — every name Jesus is called, everything a passage says about love. BibleMarker’s Lists tab is that margin, and it never runs out of room. And when the text draws a conclusion — a “therefore,” a “so that” — the Flow tab gives you a place to write down where the argument is going.

Both live in the Observe panel: tap Observe (🔍), the second of the five buttons along the bottom of the screen. Lists is the first tab in the row across the top; Flow is the last.

Don’t worry: Lists are just collections of notes. You can rename them, add to them, or remove entries any time — nothing is set in stone.

What a list is

A list is a simple question you keep asking as you read. Take John chapter 1 and ask: what is Jesus called here? The Word. The Lamb of God. Rabbi. The Son of God. The King of Israel. Each answer becomes an entry in a list called “Names of Jesus in John 1.”

The Lists tab showing a list called "Names of Jesus in John 1" with 5 verses

Tap a list to open it, and you’ll see every entry with its verse — the noted phrase highlighted right in the verse text, so each one stays in context.

The list expanded, showing entries like "the Word" and "the Lamb of God" with their verses

Make a list and add to it

The natural way to build a list is straight from the text, as you read:

  1. In the reading view, drag your finger across the phrase you want to keep — “the Lamb of God,” for example.
  2. A little menu appears. Tap Observe.
  3. Choose the list it belongs to — or create a new one right there, with a name like “Names of Jesus in John 1.”
  4. The phrase and its verse are added to the list. Keep reading; when you spot the next one, do it again.

You can also tap the verse number at the start of a verse and choose Add Observation — handy when the whole verse belongs on the list. And from the Lists tab itself, the + New List button starts an empty list you can fill as you go.

Tip: The Current Chapter Only checkbox near the top shows just the entries from the chapter you’re reading — useful once your lists start to grow.

There’s no limit and no wrong topic. “Everything light does.” “Commands in this chapter.” “Promises to believers.” If you’d write it in a margin, it belongs in a list.

The Flow tab

Now for the last tab in the row: Flow. This one is about the logic of a passage — the moments where the writer stops describing and starts concluding. Watch for little words like therefore, so that, for this reason. Whenever you see one, it’s worth pausing to ask: what came before, and what follows from it?

The first time you open Flow, it will be empty, with a friendly nudge: “No conclusions recorded yet. Record conclusion terms and logical flow you observe in the text. Use the → symbol to mark conclusion terms, then add details here.”

The Flow tab's empty state with the Create Your First Conclusion button

Here’s the idea:

  1. As you read, when you hit a conclusion word like “therefore,” mark it in the text with the → symbol — a little arrow that says this points somewhere. (Symbols are part of marking key words; see Marking Key Words if you haven’t done that yet.)
  2. Then open the Flow tab and tap Create Your First Conclusion (or + New Conclusion, once you have a few).
  3. Write out the conclusion in your own words — what the “therefore” is there for.

Think of it as the arrows you’d draw in a paper Bible’s margin, connecting a truth to what it leads to — except here, your notes about each arrow are kept together in one place.

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