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INTRODUCTION: It may be that you already own Bible Study software. For those of you who still haven’t bought a Bible Study software package — don’t wait any longer! There is a lot to be gained from even the simplest Bible software packages. This month we will explore why Sunday school teachers should consider such software. In the section for advanced users “Digging Deeper” we will explore some of the pitfalls of computer aided Bible study.

    There are a lot of advantages to using Bible study software. The first advantage is cost. It is expensive to print high quality books but the cost to produce CD ROMS is minimal. Although there are a few exceptions, you will often find that the same books that you can buy in print are a lot less expensive on disk. This fact alone makes the use of Bible software attractive.

    The next advantage is size. A small library can be carried on one CD ROM. I use a notebook computer to teach in Sunday School. My hard disk and CD ROM contain a whole stack of Bibles, commentaries and concordances. The text of these books is instantly available to me as I teach my class.

    Another advantage of study software is power searching. Computer Bible study software allows you to search and analyze the text like never before. Unlike a simple concordance, Bible software allows you to search the Bible by phrase rather than just by words. Looking for the expression “God is love” in the Bible? Go to a standard concordance and look up either the word “God” or the word “love” and you will find hundreds of entries. In even the most rudimentary Bible software packages you can look up the whole phrase “God is love” and immediately find the verse that you are looking for.

    Perhaps most important advantage of Bible software is speed. I estimate that preparing for my class with the computer easily cuts my Bible study time in half. I used to spend a lot of my time just paging through concordances and dictionaries to find the right information. Now, I let the computer do that tedious work and I spend my time composing and thinking. Until you get proficient with your software, computer aided study may slow you down but over the long run I think that you will agree with me and thousands of others that using Bible study software makes a big improvement in speed.

    Don’t be fooled into thinking that everything is great about computer aided Bible study. There are a few traps to avoid also.

• “Tunnel Vision Trap” The same thing that makes computerized Bible Study so efficient can create problems as well. Being able to “zero-in” on the exact word or phrase of your study can result in tunnel vision of a text or topic. Don’t let yourself be trapped into such narrow views that you don ‘t get the whole picture of the text or book that you are studying. The computer may only present to you the specific paragraph from a book that you are searching. Make sure that you get the contextual meaning by looking at the whole book or chapter.

• “Laziness Trap” Don’t let the fact that the computer saves you time result in decreased efforts to be a good teacher. Resist the temptation to simply cut and paste your lessons together from other’s work. Put the message in your own words. Even though the computer allows you to study faster, don’t reduce the length of your study time — just get more done in the time you have. You and your class will both benefit.

• “Verse Dumping Trap” Don’t let the computer turn you into a “verse dumper”. This is a common trap for people who use the computer to prepare for teaching. It is so easy to use your computer to compile a large list of verses on a particular subject. “Verse dumping” is when you simply cut and paste a long list of verses into your word processor and print them out as your class lesson. There is nothing wrong with using the computer to compile a list of relevant verses as part of your lesson preparation. Just don’t do this one thing and fool yourself into thinking that you have prepared for class.

• “Greek Geek Trap” — It is often easy for users of Bible study software to do things that they have never done before. Some software allows users to access ancient Hebrew and Greek definitions. Don’t be fooled into thinking that just because you can now get to these words on your computer that suddenly makes you a Greek or Hebrew language scholar. Looking at the original languages is often an interesting thing to do but the meaning of a word is more than just it’s dictionary definition. Resist the urge to think that you are suddenly capable of more than you really are.

• “Sunday School Pirate Trap” The Internet, software, and scanners allow us to easily capture the work of others and put it into our own lessons. Do your best to give credit when you use other’s work and don’t use so much material that you violate the copyright of the originators of the material. Many items are copyrighted and it is easy to become a “Sunday School Pirate.”

    Most of the downfalls of computer aided Bible study can be avoided with a little discipline. Despite the traps I am really glad that I started using Bible study software to help prepare for Sunday School — you may be too.

FREE IMAGE OF THE MONTH: babylon.gif (23KB) -- This is a thumbnail image of the Babylonian Empire as described in the Bible. Click on the image to download the full sized 23 KB version. For more free images, visit www.ebibleteacher.com

LINK OF THE MONTH: www.lordibelieve.org -- A great website for Sunday School teachers looking for information concerning evidences for believing in God. Roberts has a great page of web links for similar material. Make sure that you visit his pages of downloadable documents and online PowerPoint presentations.

© 2000, Terry Taylor. Used by permission.