Awesome Plugin Displays Bible References as Pop-Ups
Author Sherri Sand regularly includes scripture references in her devotional blog posts. She asked me whether there is a WordPress plugin that will automatically search her posts for scripture references and display the text of the Bible verses in a pop-up box.
Sure enough, there is! It’s called ESV CrossRef (or just CrossRef, once it’s installed on your site).
How it works
ESV CrossRef scans your site for Old and New Testament Bible references. Once it finds a Bible reference on the page, it converts the reference(s) into a hover-able link. Each time a converted link is hovered over, a small pop up will appear containing the scripture reference.
As Sherri and I were chatting on the phone, I searched for this plugin, installed it, activated it, and we immediately evaluated the results. We were pleased with how it “grabbed” verses from her most recent blog post as well as from EVERY post and page that included scripture references.
How it looks
Read Sherri’s post, “The Great Exchange” to see the plugin in action. Here’s a visual example of what the pop-up verse reference looks like in Sherri’s post:
If you include Bible references on your website or blog, this plugin is a huge time saver. Instead of manually linking to the passage on a Bible website or typing in the verses by hand, the plugin does the heavy lifting for you. You can also customize the color, size, and font of your links.
Since the plugin is called “ESV,” I’m making an educated guess that it displays verses from the English Standard Version of the Bible. The ESV is a revision of the 1971 edition of the Revised Standard Version.
If you’re comfortable with that translation, give the plugin a whirl.
Tweet It!
Here are a couple of ready-made tweets so you can share what you just learned:
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[Tweet “Display Bible verse refs as pop-ups with this cool WordPress plugin”]
So cool! Am forwarding this to several blogging friends who may benefit from this helpful feature. Thanks!
And Laura is a genius! My beautiful web site is because of her and her fantastic team!
Laura, This sounds amazing, BUT, when I clicked on the link to install the plugin I received a warning that it is over 2 years old. :(…Can you check into it?
You’re right, Carrie. The plugin is showing that it hasn’t been tested with the latest version of WordPress. But you could still try installing it and seeing how it works. If it doesn’t do the trick, simply deactivate the plugin and then uninstall it. (I just looked at the plugin in action on a client’s site — she has the latest version of WP installed, and the plugin is working perfectly.)