The Best Free, Online Tools for Maximizing Your Book of Mormon Scripture Study

With the new year of “Come, Follow Me” on the horizon, it can feel tempting to want to stock up on a ton of great books on The Book of Mormon. But those price tags quickly add up, and the reality is that you don’t need to buy extra materials to have an enriching, deep dive into the scriptures. There are a number of free, online tools that can greatly enhance your scripture study experience, either on your mobile phone or Web browser. Here’s a selection of just five of those tools that can really take your scripture study to the next level without having to crack open any heavy books or leave your favorite, comfortable seat.

1. Book of Mormon Resource Guides 

Your most comprehensive, go-to source for all things “Come, Follow Me” is going to be Scripture Central’s Resource Guides. These webpages compile all of the best resources around the web for that week’s lesson of “Come, Follow Me.” In addition to highlighting the newest videos from Scripture Central, we pull together the best videos from other creators as well, so if Taylor and Tyler aren’t your thing, you can choose from any number of awesome content creators such as Hank Smith and Jon Bytheway’s podcast Follow Him and many others. More than just videos, we curate the best selection of free articles, images, charts, and commentaries to help enhance your “Come, Follow Me” scripture study.

If you scroll down to the Bibliography section of each page, you can find a fairly comprehensive collection of all the free, online scholarly articles that have ever been published on these passages of scripture. This is particularly helpful to teachers, podcasters, and researchers looking to know the literature on a passage of scripture. 

Scripture Study Resource Guide 

2. ScripturePlus 

This app is hands-down the best way to do your daily Book of Mormon scripture study. It can help you dive deep or keep it simple, depending on what you prefer. If you want to immerse yourself in a rich and rigorous scripture study session, the ScripturePlus app allows you to read through the text of The Book of Mormon alongside verse-by-verse commentaries, short videos, instructive charts, artwork, maps, timelines, character bios, and more.

If you prefer to simplify your life with a structured guide, our Reading Plans feature short, guided reading assignments for every single day of 2024. Our Reading Plan will take you through the entire “Come, Follow Me” curriculum step by step, with a daily reading from The Book of Mormon, as well as a few supplementary materials to help you understand the scriptures, such as videos or commentaries. 

And don’t forget to follow ScripturePlus on Instagram or TikTok to gain scripture study insights from Jasmin Rappleye as she highlights the best of the app’s Book of Mormon gems. 

Download ScripturePlus 

3. Scripture Central Archive 

The Scripture Central Archive is a thorough library of Book of Mormon scholarship and publications that build faith and help explain the scriptures. This page contains a Scripture Filter to help you discover all Latter-day Saint publications that have been published on every passage of The Book of Mormon. 

Search Scholarship by Book of Mormon Passage 

4. Book of Mormon Onomasticon 

This is perhaps the best-kept secret of BYU, especially if you enjoy linguistics and are curious about Book of Mormon names. This website is a comprehensive encyclopedia into all the names of The Book of Mormon. Scholars Stephen Ricks, Paul Hoskisson, and others contributed to this massive compendium where you can look up any name in The Book of Mormon and learn about its possible meaning in Hebrew, Egyptian, and more. 

Explore the Onomasticon 

5. Scripture Citation Index 

This tool is an exhaustive collection of General Conference quotes paired to every verse of The Book of Mormon. If you are preparing a lesson and would like a good, thoughtful General Authority quote on a specific passage in The Book of Mormon, you can look it up to see a list of every time that passage has ever been referenced in General Conference. On the website there are two menus that allow you to navigate through every book, chapter, and verse of the scriptures to find every time a verse or passage has been quoted or cited in General Conference. 

Scripture Citation Index 

Other great resources 

Joseph Smith Papers – This resource is the best way to learn more about the variations in the text of The Book of Mormon for yourself. The Joseph Smith Papers website has digitized and transcribed both the Original and the Printer’s manuscript of The Book of Mormon so that you can compare the earlier manuscripts of The Book of Mormon with what you have in your scriptures today. The Original Manuscript is our earliest copy of The Book of Mormon, as Oliver Cowdery and others penned the words that fell from Joseph Smith’s mouth. The Printer’s Manuscript is the copy that Oliver Cowdery made to take to the printer and protect the original manuscript. Only a portion of the Original Manuscript has survived, but what is extant can be studied for free on the Joseph Smith Papers website. 

Gospel Learning App – This app focuses on helping you become a better teacher, with its topical gallery of videos from gospel instructors across YouTube and its classroom feature that allows you to build and share your Sunday School lesson directly within the app. 

Book of Mormon Online – This website dives in deep to provide commentary on The Book of Mormon. It features an interactive timeline, multiple interactive maps based on different geography models, and a comprehensive compendium of all the people and places in The Book of Mormon. 

We Believe App – This app is for those who want “Come, Follow Me” as simple as possible to help you build a scripture study habit, with daily, 5-minute devotionals that follow along with the “Come, Follow Me curriculum. 

Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon – If you ever wanted an exhaustive collection of every change made in the manuscripts of The Book of Mormon, Volume 4 of Royal Skousen's Book of Mormon Critical Text Project contains six parts that detail the textual variants found throughout the text of The Book of Mormon. The Interpreter Foundation currently hosts digital versions of all six parts of this volume. 

Webster’s 1828 Dictionary – The English text of The Book of Mormon wasn’t written in 2023, so sometimes it can be instructive to look up how words were used in 1829, when Joseph Smith translated the text of The Book of Mormon. This website produces the entirety of the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary for free online. 

Charting the Book of Mormon – This collection of charts helps to visualize The Book of Mormon in new ways. It contains maps, timelines, explanations of weights and measures, quotes, comparisons between passages, royal lineages, and helpful lists of different prophetic voices.