A Quick Study
Investing In Bible-Research Software is Great Stewardship

By Nick B. Nicholaou

WHEN IS A COMPUTER MORE THAN A TOY? WHEN IT HELPS YOU DO SOMETHING IN LESS TIME AND WITH BETTER QUALITY.

Pastors, Sunday School teachers and Bible-study leaders are finding that their lessons and messages are coming together faster and with greater focus with the use of Bible-study software. Raul Ries, Ph.D., senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Golden Springs in Diamond Bar, Calif. — where weekly attendance exceeds 10,000 — says his preparation time has been cut by more than one-third, thanks to Bible-study software. “It saves me a lot of time,” Ries says.

My own experience has been a time savings of nearly 50 percent! God is able to guide me in a more focused way to the message He wants me to communicate, using Bible-study software.

Using Bible-study software is easy. After praying, my first step is to click a button that asks what part of the Bible I want to visit, chapter and verse. I’m given eight popular versions from which to choose. If my study will be topical, I start with a different button that’s an electronic concordance, or one that opens Nave’s Topical Bible.

The text opens up on my screen without any other helps. This allows me to read it at hand, without distraction. Having done so, I can begin to get a deeper sense of the passage. Using my mouse or the arrows on my keyboard, I can scroll up or down to read the context of the passage. Then, with a simple button click, I can change Bible versions, scrolling through all eight on my system to see how each approaches the passage.

My next step often is to look at the words in their original language — Greek or Hebrew. I can do that by simply clicking a button. Available to me are Strong’s Greek and Hebrew dictionaries, as well as interlinear Bibles. This shows me meanings of words; if the word is a derivative of a root, I can click on that root and see its definition. I can also go to other passages that use the same word or root to see how it’s used there. For the research scholar — whether a teaching pastor or a professor — some packages include various versions of the actual Greek and Hebrew text.

All the time I’m doing this, I can write notes in my study software, in my word processor or whatever other software tool I use to build my speaking notes. I can highlight any information that interests me in the study software and copy it to my word processor as well. There, it writes the information, with all of the appropriate copyright information for future reference.

Some Bible-study software optionally includes reference works such as Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, Vincent’s New Testament Word Studies and Robertson’s New Testament Word Pictures. You can simply click on a button that brings these options up and automatically looks at the very passage you’re seeking.

Some software also has commentaries available, such as The Wycliffe Commentary; Matthew Henry’s Commentary; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Commentary; Adam Clarke’s Commentary and more. Again, choosing any of these automatically lets you know what the commentator had to say about the very passage you’re studying. It’s fast, and it’s all right at your fingertips.

An option many users enjoy is the ability to look up sermon illustrations. Some software even has this ability, including the works of such preaching greats as Spurgeon.

Some Bible-study software also lets users add further reference works. These can be added from the Bible-study company and from others as well. If you have a favorite reference work that the Bible-study company doesn’t offer, you might be able to add it to your study software on your own. I’ve done it, and it’s not difficult. I called the study-software company and asked their technical support reps to walk me through it.

Many Bible-study software programs feature outlines of books to help your audience see the subject in context. For instance, maps and pictures often help place an audience in the setting where an event took place. If you use projector-presentation tools, adding these to your slides can be very helpful in improving communication.

As our firm consults with hundreds of churches nationwide, this is a common question that can be approached very simply.

Who will be using the software? Study software is offered at many different levels to help match its capabilities with the needs of the user. A layperson might not need or want all the tools a pastor or professor might need, so the first question to answer is one of capability: What should the study software be able to do?

How will the software be used? If you’re a layperson who only wants to be able to read the Bible on your computer, it’s available that way. If you need more lesson- or message-preparation tools, they’re also available.

What kind of computer will the software be loaded onto? If you’ll be using a laptop or older desktop, hard-drive size limitations might be an issue. Some might want to put it on their PDA (personal digital assistant — Palm Pilot, for example), and that can be done, too.

How much flexibility do you need? Do you want to add reference works that might not be available directly from the study-software company? If so, that will require software that allows doing so.

What can you afford? When advising clients, I recommend they look at the time-savings value from an annual perspective. For instance, if a pastor typically spends eight hours preparing the week’s message — and as Ries found, Bible-study software can shorten that preparation by 30 percent — that’s an annual savings of 138 hours. I think any software or hardware that can pay for itself in time or money savings within a year is worth the investment.

Is Bible study software good stewardship? You bet. Any tool that can save you lots of time — or simply get you into God’s Word more often — is a value.

Nick Nicholaou is the president of Ministry Business Services in Huntington Beach, Calif. Reach him by e-mail at nick@mbsinc.com, or log on to www.mbsinc.com for more information.

QuickVerse Bible-study software for Macintosh. QuickVerse Mac doesn’t draw from Windows user-interface features; rather, with intuitive functionality, QuickVerse Mac uses predictive user interaction and automatically links and synchronizes numerous books simultaneously.

Users aren’t forced to search through a clutter of library books or tens of thousands of hit results; instead, they can select only open books, a small subset of books, or just the current book for simple searching. And since even the most advanced Bible scholars rarely use more than a few translations and a few dozen reference works, QuickVerse Mac offers access to more than 400 of the most popular Bible translations and reference works on the market.

Green Key books, publishers of God’s Word® Translation Bible, offers the complete New Testament in audio MP3 format for people on-the-go. With the help of MP3 technology, the complete audio version of the New Testament fits on a single disc.

Green Key Books has also created One on One: An Invitation to Inspiration, an interactive outreach tool in CD-ROM format that equips individuals, groups and churches with an innovative and unique way to share the gospel using modern-day technology.

Those who take studying the Bible seriously often must delve into study resources that are so heavy and cumbersome that it makes it difficult to take them along as they go about their days. One solution is digital versions of these resources that can be viewed on a handheld computer that slips into your pocket.

Laridian Electronic Publishing’s New International Version Bible for Palm OS and Pocket PC devices are a great example of this trend toward convenience. Some of the resources available for PDAs include Bible glossaries that use Dr. James Strong’s system for assigning numbers to each word of the original Greek script used in the Bible; and Easton’s Bible Dictionary, featuring about 4,000 words from the Bible in a 1.2- megabyte, highly compressed database. Easton’s is regarded as one of the most popular biblical dictionaries in America.

The Talking Bible from World Mission opens the scripture in an audio format, allowing missionaries to respond to the growing demands from illiterate people in the fields of harvest around the world. It’s a self-contained, battery-operated listening device that contains the entire New Testament on one inserted tape. The Talking Bible is made to withstand harsh conditions and is designed to be easier to operate than turning a page. Available languages include English KJV, English NIV, Albanian, Hindi, Mandarin (Chinese), Navajo, Nepali, Spanish, Swahili, Turkish, Vietnamese and many more. The Talking Bible is a product of the partnership between Audio Scriptures International (ASI) and World Mission.