Servant
Leadership School
October 5, 2003
Homework review
Share insights from the assignment on John 4 – share your lesson, support,
illustration
Bible Software
A loving reminder: Nothing in your
library, whether it’s on paper or on a hard drive can help you in Bible Study
preparation like being on your knees and simply reading the Word.
Illustration
H. A. Ironside told of visiting a godly Irishman, Andrew Frazer, who had
come to southern California to recover
from a serious illness. Though quite weak, he opened his worn Bible and began
expounding the deep truths of God in a way that Ironside had never heard
before. Ironside was so moved by Frazer’s words that he asked him, “Where did
you get these things? Could you tell me
where I could find a book that would open them up to me? Did you learn them in
some seminary or college?” The sickly
man gave an answer that Ironside said he would never forget. “My dear young man, I learned these things on
my knees on the mud floor of a little sod cottage in the north of Ireland.
There with my open Bible before me I used to kneel for hours at a time and ask
the Spirit of God to reveal Christ to my soul and to open the Word to my
heart. He taught me more on my knees on
that mud floor than I ever could have learned in all the seminaries or colleges
in the world.”
The Computer: The Online Bible
Installing and setting it up
I’m giving you a scaled down version of the Online Bible. You can download additional commentaries and
Bible versions by going to their website at:
Or, you can purchase a CD with tons of commentaries and Bible versions, as
well as purchase some of the “locked” Bible versions (such as New Living
Translation, best package is $65) by also going to the website and clicking on
“Ordering Info” and ordering online.
First time from scratch –
Insert CD
For the Basic Starter Pack: Find the
file on the CD (using Windows Explorer or My Computer) called “install_advance.exe”
Double click on the file. The
program should take care of the rest. This should install the program itself,
the King James version of the Bible, Greek and Hebrew dictionaries, and
I’ve also included some extra things I’ve downloaded. If you find these files on the CD and double
click on them, they should install themselves (but install the starter pack
first)
mapeng.exe – Bible maps
jfb.exe – Jamison, Fausset and Brown commentary
on the whole Bible
psalms.exe – Spurgeon’s “Treasury of David” commentary on the Psalms
mhcc.exe – Matthew Henry (short version) Concise Commentary on the whole
Bible
rwp.exe – Robertson’s Word Pictures – commentary on the New Testament
maclaren – Alexander Maclaren’s
commentary on the Bible
asv.exe – The 1901 American Standard Version (not NEW American
Standard)
bbe.exe – the Bible in Basic English (an easy to read version, meant for
kids)
Running off the CD versus running off your hard drive
If you purchase a CD, it’s a good idea to transfer all the files to the
hard drive and speed things up:
Go to “Tools”, click on “Copy CD Items to Hard Disk”. Select what you want on your hard drive, only
copy those items.
Setting up “Preselect” Items
This will determine which Bible versions and which commentaries will pop up
for your use. You may or may not want
all the versions available.
Go to “Library”, then “Selection Preferences”. Work your way through the various tabs
(Versions, Alternate, Notes, etc) and mark the items you want access to on your
desktop.
Window Tiling
Online offers several different ways to display the windows. Play around with it to find what works best
for you. I typically will use the “Tile
Vertical” to set up my main text window and main commentary, then take it off
for the “Custom Cascade” so any further windows that pop open (like Greek
definitions) open on top of the main windows.
Setting up the icons/function keys
If you want to use the icons, it’s not too difficult to set them up.
Go to “Tools”, then “Customize Settings”. Click on “Tool
Bar”. Make sure you mark “Show
Tool Bar” and/or “Icon Toolbar”. Click on “OK”.
To change the function of each Icon or Function Key, right click on the
button you want to change and use the window that pops up to change what that
button will do and what it will look like.
Options
There’s lots of ways to change the look of Online Bible. Try experimenting with different fonts and
colors. Go to “Tools” … try it all out …
Using various “Desktops”
Once you get things looking like you want them to, save the look as a
“Desktop”.
Go to “View”, then “Manage Desktop”
If you prepare more than one regular study, you may want to create
different desktops for each study.
Using different Bible Versions
There are two ways of looking at more than one Bible Version at a time for
a text.
1. Open a new window
If you haven’t already, open up a window with your text. Click on “File” then “Open” then “passage”,
or use CTRL-F1 for a shortcut.
To open another version of the same text –
Right click on the window you have open and choose “select version”. This will either open a new window with the
new version (if the View Passage was last used with the “open new window”
checked), or change the old version to the new selection.
2. Use an “alternate version”.
Right click on the window you have open and choose “alternate
version”. Click on the version you want
and a new line will appear below each verse with the new version’s
translation. To get rid of an
“alternate” version, just reverse the process (right click, alternate version,
uncheck the version you want to eliminate).
Synchronized Scrolling
There are two “switches” to be aware of with scrolling. There is a “global” switch that turns on the
ability for Online to have each window scroll in sync with the others. This is turned on or off at “Window” and then
“Synchronise Scrolling”. If this switch isn’t “on”, you won’t
synchronize anything.
After the “global” switch is on, each individual window may be turned on or
off. You may want your main text window
to stay synchronized with your commentary window, but you may not want a
secondary text window to synchronize.
Each individual window is turned off or on by right clicking on the
window and choosing “Sync Scroll Window”.
Language helps – using the dictionaries
Greek & Hebrew
To take advantage of Online’s Greek and Hebrew resources, you need to have
a text window open using the King James (called “AV” for “Authorized Version”).
You also need to “turn on” the Strong’s numbers that are hidden in the King
James. This is done by right clicking on
the window and choosing “Strong’s”, or by going to “View” and then “Strong’s” (or,
shortcut – press the letter “S”)
To view the Greek or Hebrew definition, simply double click on the Strong’s
number. As long as you have the dictionaries
installed, a window will pop open with the definition.
A word about Strong’s Verb Numbering
All verbs have two numbers listed after the word. The second number, contained in rounded
parentheses, is a “verb parsing”. This
is a grammar tool that tells you more information about the verb, giving things
like verb tense, mood, etc.
English
Online also uses “Easton’s Bible
Dictionary”. If you double click
on any English word, it will search Easton’s
and pull up the corresponding article.
Copying text
Highlight the text if you want more than one verse, otherwise, to copy just
a single passage, make sure the cursor is in the passage.
Methods of getting the text into the “clipboard”
1. Use Ctrl-C (or, “Edit” then
“Copy”)
2. Right click on the passage and
choose one of the formats.
Copy to Clipboard (or press the letter “H” without right clicking). The verse is copied to the Windows clipboard,
then your Word processor is pulled up and the contents are pasted into your
document.
Copy Window (or press the letter “D” without right clicking) – will do just
that. Be careful if you’re looking at a
passage, it will copy the entire passage.
This is a good choice though if you are copying a “definition”.
There are a couple of other choices (formatted, appending, etc) – play
around with them.
Paste into your word processor.
Either “Edit” then “Paste”, or use the common shortcut of “Ctrl-V”
Searches
Setting the range
Shortcuts:
Bible = the whole Bible / NT = New
Testament / OT = Old Testament
Abbreviation = an entire book (ie, Gen = Genesis)
Inclusions = “Gen-Exo” = All of Genesis through
all of Exodus
Word or Phrase Search
Decide on whether it will be a “word” search or a “phrase” search.
A phrase search requires that the words be in the exact order as
you type them with no words in between.
A word search can pull the words out in any order.
New Window or not
Choose whether to open a new window or not.
If you have just done a search and you don’t want to lose its results,
be sure to open a new window.
Number of Databases
Decide on whether to use a single database (like King James, “AV”) or
multiple databases, (like searching both AV and NAS)
Special Operators
You can connect words or phrases together using the following special
“operators”:
AND operator "&"
Example:
Jesus and Christ &
LORD
Matches verses with "Jesus and
Christ" and "LORD" in them.
OR operator "|"
Example:
Jesus and Christ |
LORD
Matches verses with "Jesus and
Christ" or "LORD" in them.
AND NOT operator "~"
Example:
Jesus and Christ ~
LORD
Matches verses having "Jesus and Christ" but not
"LORD" in them.
(try using “multiple databases”, adding NIV, NAS to AV)
PROXIMITY operator "@n"
Example:
Jesus Christ @5 Lord (do as a
“word search”)
Matches verses containing the phrase "Jesus and
Christ" where the word "LORD" is within 5 verses of this phrase.
Use "*" as a PREFIX
operator
To find words that START with "merc"
write: merc* . Or use
"*" as a ROOT operator: e.g., To find words that CONTAIN
"love" (love, loved, beloved, etc.) write: *love.
Examples:
*love
Finds all the words that end in love
love*
Finds all the words that start with love
*love*
Finds all the words that contain love
(try “*love* ~ love” = all words with “love” in the middle
of the word, but not the word “love” itself)
The AMBIGUOUS PHRASE operator
"..."
Matches any ONE OR MORE WORDS; there must be a SINGLE WORD (not a phrase)
FOLLOWING the "..." operator.
Examples:
Jesus ... Christ
Matches all verses with phrases that
START with the word "Jesus" and END with the word "Christ".
Jesus ... Christ ~ Jesus Christ
Matches all verses with phrases that START with the word
"Jesus" and END with the word "Christ", but eliminates the
specific two-word phrase “Jesus Christ”.
STRONG'S numbers
This is one of Online’s most powerful abilities. You can do some pretty hefty language
research by finding out how a particular Hebrew or Greek word is used.
Can substitute for words. Prefix OT numbers with zero.
Examples:
0157
Searches for the Hebrew word ahab and shows all its
occurrences.
0157 ~ *love*
Searches for the Hebrew word ahab and shows all the times that
it is not translated as a form of
“love”.
Shortcut – highlight the number in the AV text, then go to the Search menu
and the number automatically carries into the menu.
Searching for Titles of God
God - El, Elah, or Elohim
Lord - Adon,
or Adonai
JAH, LORD - YH (contraction of
YHWH)
LORD - YHWH
Lord GOD - Adonai
YHWH
LORD of Hosts - YHWH Sabaoth
LORD JEHOVAH - YHWH YH
Almighty God - El Shaddai
Everlasting God - El Olam
Mighty God - El Gibbor
Most High, or Most High God - El
Elyon
Hint
A given search can use more than one operator. Operators are evaluated from left to
right. The word "LORD" is now
the same as "Lord" in version 7 and greater. Searching is NOT case insensitive in the
English versions after version 7.0. The
names GOD and LORD are now the same as God, god or Lord, lord.
Topics
There is an incredible amount of material on the CD stored in the “Topics”
section. Click on “Library” then on “Library Index”. Take a look at all the
stuff!!
Maps
Cool maps! You can copy and paste
them into your study, or separate paper to print out on an overhead. Click on
“Library” then on “Library Index” then on “Maps and Images”