Topical
Analysis
of the Bible

General Editor

Walter A. Elwell

Associate Editor

Douglas Buckwalter

© 1991 by Baker Book House Company

Published by Baker Bytes, A division of the Baker Book House Company

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

ISBN: 0-8010-0067-X

Introduction

We live in a society that is gradually losing its sense of direction. Traditional Christian values, morals, attitudes, and ideas are slowly being eroded and are being replaced by a destructive relativism that will leave nothing but disorder in its wake. Moreover, polls taken throughout the last twenty years show a continual, appalling decline in knowledge of what the Bible teaches. If this were only a diminishing understanding of highly abstruse matters, that would be one thing, but it concerns instead the most fundamental knowledge of Scripture, such as the ability to name the Ten Commandments. In one poll 44 percent of the public could not identify Jesus’ statement to Nicodemus (even though the choices were listed), and those who claimed church membership were not far behind at 37 percent. The ignorance of one denominational group was even greater than that of the general public, with 47 percent saying they did not know the answer. Interestingly enough, this does not imply any massive loss of faith in the Bible. Almost 75 percent of the public said they believe that the Bible is the Word of God, and 84 percent said the Ten Commandments are still valid for today—they just do not happen to know what they are!

In the light of this, the Baker Bytes division of Baker Book House is offering a reference work in electronic form that will make the theological content of the Bible more accessible to the interested individual. Its purpose is to arrange the basic teachings of the Scriptures into a set of recognizable topics and present a full or representative collection of biblical passages that speak about each of those topics.

How to Use TAB

The reader may wish to scan the listing of contents in the Library Browser in order to get a sense of what is in each chapter. In this way the larger topics may be seen as parts of a whole. If the reader then wishes to pursue related ideas which are part of a single, larger topic, he or she may search the index. The various topics are arranged alphabetically, and references to each are cited. (Some topics are found necessarily in several contexts.) Using these resources, the reader may conveniently locate whatever topic is desired. The full search functions of Logos may be used to locate topics.

The wording used in the headings is usually that of the New International Version (niv) of the Bible, although in some instances theological terminology (e.g., omnipotence, millennium) not found in the niv is used because of its familiarity. For example, if one wishes to consider God’s omnipotence, one might look in the index under “omnipotence,” “all-powerful,” or “power.” Or one might be directed to the same information by scanning the complete ...