How do I search for the Biblical answer to a theological question with Logos?

Kelli Bunner

I am a fairly new Christian so I have many questions about certain issues where there are different opinions in different denominations.  I want to study what the Bible says about these issues (for example, Sabbath-keeping, female pastors, once-saved-always-saved versus backsliding, etc).  Please do not give your opinion on those things here, because that's not what the forum is for!  I just want to know how to best use Logos for researching these types of questions.

I am not new to the Bible - I have a degree in Religious Studies, and I have read the Bible through more than once and I know some Hebrew.  (I used to believe in and practice Judaism).  I have attended different churches and of course, they have different views on these subjects, and I can understand why there are differences of opinions, but before I form my own opinion, I want to really know all that the Bible has to say about it, you know what I mean?

I love Logos, and have gained so much from it!  But I'm new to it, and am still learning how to get the most out of it.

 

(I'm sure this has been asked, but I've searched the wiki and quite a bit of the forum and couldn't really find an answer.)

 

toughski

in my view, different opinions of various Biblical passages stem from differences in interpretation, which is a hermeneutical issue. One must employ sound hermeneutical principles, such as allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture, considering context, historical setting, to whom it was written, etc.

Logos has plenty of resources on learning and employing sound hermeneutical principles. Apart from that, Logos is offering Exegetical guide for grammar related studies, Bible Word Study tool for, you guessed, word studies, Sentence Diagramming - in order to get a broader picture of context, Lexicons, Biblical manners and customs dictionaries, etc.

There are videos that can assist you in learning how to use these tools in Logos, and if you have a more specific question - please ask it in the forums, we would be glad to help you.

Allen Browne

Kelli Bunner said:

I am a fairly new Christian so I have many questions about certain issues where there are different opinions in different denominations.  I want to study what the Bible says about these issues (for example, Sabbath-keeping, female pastors, once-saved-always-saved versus backsliding, etc).  Please do not give your opinion on those things here, because that's not what the forum is for!  I just want to know how to best use Logos for researching these types of questions.

I am not new to the Bible - I have a degree in Religious Studies, and I have read the Bible through more than once and I know some Hebrew.  (I used to believe in and practice Judaism).  I have attended different churches and of course, they have different views on these subjects, and I can understand why there are differences of opinions, but before I form my own opinion, I want to really know all that the Bible has to say about it, you know what I mean?

Hi Kelli

Welcome to the forums! Like you, enjoy helping each other put Logos to good use to search out all kinds of things.

You probably realise there is no one-size-fits-all answer to your question, since the kinds of things we want to know vary so much. But here are some suggestions on how you might conduct your searches.

Firstly, to search the Bible, think of the words/phrases that could occur in your preferred translations, and to a Bible search:

This assumes you have prioritised your translations.

Next, you might want to search your Bible dictionaries for the topic. You can open a Bible dictionary and see if it has the topic, or you can make a collection of Bible dictionaries using a rule like this:
(type:(dictionary,encyclop) OR title:dictionary) ANDNOT (title:(Lexicon,Greek,Hebrew,Aramaic,Coptic,Cascadia,Latin,"Tense","Alten","Quotations","and women of the Bible","Morpho-Syntactic","theologians","A Manual of councils", "Who's who") OR type:media)
and then to a Basic search on that collection:

If you are searching for a theological topic, you could make a theology collection defined with a rule like this:
(title:("systematic theology",dogma,doctrine) OR subject:("theology doctrinal")) ANDNOT (pastoral OR (subject:periodicals) OR title:("30 days","Richard Lord Bishop","Ryrie's Practical"))

In some cases, you will need to know the jargon for the topic. For your example of "once-saved-always-saved", you might hit that phrase if you do a Basic search in your Entire Library, but it would be good to search on:
"eternal security" OR perseverence

You probaby already found the wiki for Detailed Search Help.

You may be aware of Hebrew, so might also like to use a Morphological search. The simplest way to do this is to right-click a word in an Interlinear, choose Lemma, and Search This Resource.

As I say, there's no simple answer to your question. In fact, the answers we get are only as good as the questions we ask.

Kelli Bunner

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/335701#Comment_335701

Thank you guys for your suggestions.  This does help a lot!

Rosie Perera

Good question, Kelli! And welcome to the Logos forums.

As you've gathered, there are many different viewpoints on theological issues, even when reference to Scripture is made to answer the questions. It can be very puzzling and bewildering as a new Christian. As you grow in relationship to God, you become more secure in the relationship without necessarily needing to have all the right answers, and you become more comfortable with the tenuousness of all human knowledge, including our knowledge of how to interpret God's Word to us.

That said, there are certainly ways to work towards more understanding.

There are two good series of books that explore multiple viewpoints on various contentious issues, that will help you look at what the Bible says about these things:

Zondervan Counterpoints Collection (14 vols.)

Perspectives Series (4 vols.)

In particular, there's one volume in the Zondervan series called Four Views on Eternal Security which can be bought stand-alone and will address your questions on once-saved-always-saved versus backsliding.

You can also use Topical reference works to find all Scripture passages relevant to a particular topic. What base package do you have? The New Nave's Topical Bible is in all the base packages, so you probably have that. In that you could look up topics alphabetically, such as Sabbath; Women; Minister, Character and Qualifications of; etc. If Nave's isn't sufficient for you, there are a bunch of other Topical Bible Indexes available in Logos:

Mark Barnes

Kelli Bunner said:

 I want to study what the Bible says about these issues

As you're particularly interested in what the Bible says (rather than what various denominations say, or what individual authors say, or what church history says), then I suggest you start with the Topical Bible Indexes (such as Collins Thesaurus of the Bible, the MacArthur Topical Bible, Nelson's Topical Bible Index, New Nave's Topical Bible, The New Thematic Concordance, New Topical Textbook, Topical Analysis on the Bible, Where to Find it in the Bible).

That should enable you to find the main parts of the Bible that are relevant. If you wish, you could dig deeper by using the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (or The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge), to find still more references that may be relevant.

At some point, of course, you're going to need help in interpreting what you've found. Then I would use Bible Dictionaries to look up topics (at this stage, Bible Dictionaries not dictionaries of theology).

Later on, you'll then need to weigh the opinions of others - there'll inevitably be things you've missed or misunderstood. You can bring commentaries, then theological dictionaries, then systematic theologies in (ideally in that order), and interact with those views. For a list of commentaries, use the passage guide on the most relevant verses. For theological dictionaries search your entire library for the topic and use the 'topics' section of the search results. For systematic theologies create a collection of Systematic Theologies and search that for the topic and/or the Bible references.

David Thomas

Kelli, GREAT question!! Previous posts have given excellent suggestions. As you process these questions and seek to find answers, could I gently encourage you to search for these answers within community? Just as this forum gives multiple suggestions, by reading widely and being in dialogue with those with whom you agree (and peaceably disagree) you will come to find orthodox answers. I also appreciate "the Mosaic of Christian Belief" by Roger Olsen published by IVP (don't believe it is available in Logos) which will help you sort through historical understandings within the Body of Christ. I love that Olsen reminds us that the same Holy Spirit who indwells believers today has been communicating through the Body of Christ for centuries.

George Somsel

Kelli Bunner said:

I want to study what the Bible says about these issues (for example, Sabbath-keeping, female pastors, once-saved-always-saved versus backsliding, etc).

I would suggest that you might start with some works on theology.  These will undoubtedly contain some of their proof-texts to support their position which you can then study.  One note regarding "once saved, always saved"—theologians don't use that term; it's "perseverance of the saints."  Loraine Boetner has a section on that in his The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination.