Types of Concordances

Biblical concordances vary in their scope.

• An exhaustive concordance includes every word in the Bible in alphabetical order along with the book, chapter, and verse reference for every occurrence.

• An abridged concordance displays only important words along with representative Scripture references.

• A topical concordance attempts to classify passages of Scripture by subject rather than specific words. For example, searching for the word “prayer” in a general concordance will not yield any references to Jesus on the cross, even though the Gospels record Jesus spoke to His Father from there. A topical concordance, however, may list these verses under the subject of prayer. Nave’s Topical Bible contains more than 6,000 such topical headings listed in alphabetical order and accompanied by more than 100,000 Scripture references.