bibleworks9

Here I continue on my short series of posts about BibleWorks 9, a Bible study software I have used for many years.

In preparation for any lesson, a teacher may have many epiphanies, ideas, and intriguing thoughts about what he may be reading in the Scriptures. Often, these discoveries are very exciting. Unfortunately, they can also be too good to be true. There is a verification process that a reader must go through in order to see if what they have learned is truly so. In bygone days, people used to call the comparison of Scripture with Scripture the “analogy of Scripture.” This is where a reader checked to see if other parts of Scripture verified his interpretation. This is simply cross-referencing across the Bible to get some good backing for your discovery.

Frankly, I don’t know how people cross-referenced before the invention of the computer. The labors that must have gone into so many good works such as Nave’s Topical Bible’s and The Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge!

One of the greatest advantages of BibleWorks is that it performs an incredible amount of cross-referencing in milliseconds just by the movement of the cursor over the verse in question. Notice here:

Bibleworks2click on image to increase size

The third column shows all the places in the Bible that speak about something similar to Romans 3:21. And one of the great things about this tool here is that the verses suggested are an aggregate of all the greatest cross-referencing works available, organized using BibleWorks’ incredible ability to determine which have the best chance of relating to the subject of the verse.

I cannot tell you how many times this tool has saved my time and furthered my insights into the theology of the Scripture.

How does this compare to Logos? Logos is my other great love and I have nothing but great things to say about that program as well. However, BibleWorks runs circles around Logos for this sort of thing, as the power of the program is so incredibly focused on the generation of such specific exegetical data. That is why I normally open BibleWorks first and if further resources are needed, then I open Logos.


C Michael Patton
C Michael Patton

C. Michael Patton is the primary contributor to the Parchment and Pen/Credo House Blog. He has been in ministry for nearly twenty years as a pastor, author, speaker, and blogger. Th.M. Dallas Theological Seminary (2001), president of Credo House Ministries and Credo Courses, author of Now that I'm a Christian (Crossway, 2014) Increase My Faith (Credo House, 2011), and The Theology Program (Reclaiming the Mind Ministries, 2001-2006), host of Theology Unplugged, and primary blogger here at Parchment and Pen. But, most importantly, husband to a beautiful wife and father to four awesome children. Michael is available for speaking engagements. Find him everywhere: Find him everywhere

    4 replies to "Bibleworks 9 Cross Reference Tools"

    • C Michael Patton

      It does not look like the entire post is showing up on my iPhone.

    • Recovering

      @Michael: It’s a pretty short post. I’m getting up to “….than I open Logos” on my Mac

    • Michael T.

      If you have a choice between Bibleworks and Logos and can only choose one which do you choose?

    • C Michael Patton

      That is a hard one, but for me and the way I study, it would have to be BibleWorks. I just use it so much more.

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