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"...
rightly dividing the word of truth" 2 Timothy 2:15
How to do a Topical Bible Study
First things first
Make every endeavor before starting to have a computer
with a Bible program and a word-processing program. Neither requires more
than minimal knowledge and skill. Also, be advised that a Topical Bible
Study requires consideration of every single scripture which has anything to
do with the Topic.
There are ways to find these verses and the process is not
difficult, but it does take time. This is what this paper is about.
This is much more time consuming that studying the Bible,
and is exactly why so few do a good job or even make an attempt to do it at
all. It takes deliberate, methodical work to find what the entire Bible has
to say about a particular Topic.
Most Bible students believe they know the answers or
assume to know.
Example:
While in Bible College, one of the professors asked the class what the Bible
said about Borrowing and Lending Money. There was no lack of comments and
all of them Bible based (verses to back-up their statements). The problem
was that the comments contradicted each other, indicating errors in all of
them or all but one. But, which one?
When asked to defend the comments, students referred to
Bible passages, which proved most of them to be at least partially correct.
Each also interjected that their stand was the same as their Pastor back
home, whose comments, they found out later, was not part of the criteria for
proof.
The professor then told the class that the way to know
when you have the right answer, is when the whole Bible has been considered,
the text examined, reasonable common sense employed and your answer does not
contradict the Bible in any way. In the case of our class, except for the
most narrow minded, everyone agreed with the conclusion. Not by compromise,
but by truth from the Bible. The truth must contain the syntax for all the
verses in the Bible on the topic and vice-versa. The Bible cannot contradict
itself from one passage to another.
What is the Topic?
Decide on a narrow field of study. If it is too broad the
research will be so vast that literally hundreds of pages will be needed to
contain the verses pertinent to the Topic
and those you teach will lose theme of the study and not be able to remember
how it all fits together.
Example: Prayer as a Topic
Prayer is too broad. Narrow it down to ...
1. Prayers of Jesus
2. Intercessory prayer
3. How to pray
4. Bible character prayers
5. etc.
If you insist on Prayer being the topic, break it down into
several studies, or instance, intercessory prayer, importunic prayer, etc.
Then do not teach them consecutively because you will want to employ what
you have taught in your preaching or teaching in other
Topics and you will want to ground the
students a little at a time.
Find the verses
The first objective is to find all the verses in the Bible
that have to do with the Topic in
mind. Finding these verses takes the most time. There are definite methods
that will show you the path to each verse needed.
1. Boil the name of the
Topic (the subject of the study
- it may be a question or statement or a single word)
down to the fewest possible number of words. This condensation will
of course become the Topic
Title. Topic Words,
are the nouns and verbs in the Topic Title
which will be the building blocks for the whole research and study. Their
exact definitions will not be as important as their exact context in the
verses found in the research. These will also dictate the course of the
research.
2. Look-up synonyms for the
Topic Words. Write down every one that relates to the correct
area of the Topic Title. If
synonyms are found that seem to be close to the
Topic Words, include them in the list.
Do the same for Antonyms, but only for the basic
Topic Words found in the
Topic Title.
Put all the Topic Words
in the Topic - Synonyms Antonyms.doc
file in the computer (do not attempt to write-out all these verses or
even type them, paste them from the Bible Program). You will create the
above file from the Topic - Synonyms
Antonyms.dot file and name it to suit your needs.
When looking-up the Topic
Verses containing the Topic Words
and synonyms, watch for ...
* Bible synonyms
* Bible analogies
* Bible parables
* Bible illustrations or illustrative verse
Example of an
illustrative verse
Matt 7:6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast
ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and
turn again and rend you.
These types of illustrative verses are very revealing, but
even harder to find searching topically, because the topic most often
associated with the one above does not contain the topic word: judge. A good
place to look for them is at the end of an important Bible discussion on the
topic. Matt7:6 is typical, occuring at the end of the great area on judging,
“Judge not, that you be not judged”, Matt 7:1 through 6.
The resulting Topic Words are then placed in the
Topic - Synonyms Antonyms.doc
file which you have renamed to suit your needs.
Ordinary dictionary definitions are not very helpful.
Definitions for topic study are determined strictly by Bible context, usage.
A dictionary can be useful with words whose meaning is completely obscured
or simply unknown to you, but do not rely on it, not even the famous 1827
dictionary with all the Bible verses and references.
3. Look-up each Topic Word
on the Topic - Synonyms Antonyms.doc
file in a Bible concordance. The
concordance will display a Greek or Hebrew word and list words that this
Greek or Hebrew word can be “translated as”. If there are words in the
“translated as” list that are not one of the
Topic Words on the
Topic - Synonyms Antonyms.doc
file, add them if they are close to what is being researched. The
concordance may also have a root-word from which the Greek or Hebrew word
originated. Look-up this word in the Greek or Hebrew dictionary and see if
there is a list of words that the root-word is “translated as”, which are
pertinent to the Topic. If so, add these as
Topic Words to the
Topic - Synonyms Antonyms.doc
file.
The Topic - Synonyms
Antonyms.doc file may now contain a good list or Topic Words, are
there may be just a few. This is why the scope of the
Topic must be as narrow as possible.
Just a word of explanation about the “translated as”
list.
In the Strong’s Concordance and Greek and Hebrew Dictionary, look up the
word Create. You will see the following or something very close to it.
4. The concordance will also list the verses in which the
look-up Topic
Words appear. Look at each of these verses to judge whether
applicable or not.
Those which fit the Topic are copied and pasted in the
Topic - Synonyms Antonyms.doc or
whatever name you assigned to this file. Do this with each
Topic Word.
Do not forget to look up each
Topic Word on the Topic - Synonyms
Antonyms.doc file for other endings, like ...
* -ed
* -eth
* -s
* -es
* -ing
* -ies instead of -y
* -or instead of -er
* -our instead of -or
* etc.
Remember there may be other spellings ...
* forget
* forgot
* forgotten
* labour
* Saviour
* endeavour
* etc.
Also, a word in the Bible may be split
* for ever instead of forever
Or just the opposite
5. When all the Topic
Words have been searched in the concordance and the
Topic Verses in which the
Topic
Words appear have been listed on the
Topic - Verse List.doc begin to sift
though those verses looking for occasions that do not mention the
Topic, but actually do say something
about the Topic.
Categorize all verses in the
Topic - Verse List.doc by labeling
them with categories like ...
* Results
* Cause
* Define (this often occurs in the first mentioning of the word)
* etc.
Every time a verse is added to the
Topic - Verse List.doc, it should be
categorized in this manner.
6. Every categorized verse then should be looked-up in a
Topical Book such as Treasury of Scripture Knowledge and Thompson Chain
Reference Bible and Scofield Bible and any other book available or that may
be in the Bible program in the computer.
As each verse is researched in Topical Books other verses
may be found and they should be added to the
Topic - Verse List.doc and categorized, then researched also in
all the topical books until every verse and word has been exhaustively
researched.
Do something similar with parables and Bible stories
related to the Topic.
7. Go through the Topic -
Verse List.doc and pick a category and copy all the verses in
that category pasting them in the Topic -
Category Compilation.doc. There may be only two or three
categories or as many as twenty or thirty. Refine these categories and make
sure they do not contradict each other. If they do, a category has been
mislabeled.
Assembling the material
The research is over. Now that all the topic verses in
each category have been gathered together, read through the topic verses to
make sure they have not been mis-categorized. Some may belong in several
categories. Copy those topic verses to all the categories in which they
belong.
New categories may become apparent. Create them as needed.
The categories will become the chapters of the topic study
and could represent a single Wednesday Evening Bible Study or a single
Sunday School Class session.
Summation
Go back through the categories and refine their wording.
Boil the wording down to the least possible number of words that still
describes the category. Do not be redundant in the wording, but do not
whittle-out the meaning of the category. Too long is better than losing the
meaning.
List all the categories without the topic verses. On the
Topic - Summary Paragraph.doc
compose the Topic Summary Paragraph
by attempting to write a single paragraph with all the categories
included. If there are too many categories, sort them into sub-categories
and attempt to write a paragraph for each of these sub-category groups.
The point is to get this study into a manageable number of
words that can be easily remembered. This will become the
Topic Summary Paragraph.
Example:
Our own Bible Study on Cremation produced the following
Topic
Summary Paragraph.
Should the body of a deceased person be burned and the ashes scattered? The
Bible indicates that a burned body for burial is a shame to the deceased.
There should be a burial, a tombstone or marker, a eulogy
and a mourning.
Each underlined word(s) in the paragraph above was a
category in the topic: Cremation.
Warning
Retain all of the work sheets, so if an over-looked aspect of the study
should arise, a comparison can be made to see what was actually done. It may
be the new aspect was considered and rejected and a review of the notes
covering the thoughts at the time will show it.
Tools for Topic Study
* Bible
Hard copy or computer installed software
*
Concordance
Hard copy or computer installed software, which lists every word appearing
in Bible and gives the verses reference where they are found.
* Nave’s Topical Reference
Lists many Bible topics with verses where they are found.
* Torrey’s Topical Reference
Lists many Bible topics with verses where they are found.
* Thompson Chain Reference Bible
Is a regular Bible, but with many cross references on topical type words
* Scofield Bible
Is a regular Bible with many references and notes on topical type words
* Treasury
of Scripture Knowledge
Is a list of all Bible verses with references to other pertinent verses.
* Topic
or Topic Title
The topic subject and can be expressed as a statement, question or single
word.
* Topic -
Verse List.doc file
From template Topic - Verse List.dot
This file holds are the verses involved in the topic and is where verses are
categorized.
* Topic -
Synonyms Antonyms.doc file
From template Topic - Synonyms Antonyms.dot
This file holds all the words relevant of the topic. These words will be
researched for topic verses.
* Topic
- Summary Paragraph.doc
file
From template Topic - Summary Paragraph.dot
This file is where the Summary Paragraph is developed
* Topic - Category Compiler.doc
file
From template Topic - Category Compiler.dot
This file is where all the topic verses are pasted according to the
categories in which they belong.
* Topic -
Lesson.doc file
From template Topic - Lesson.dot
This file is where the weekly lessons are developed from a category. |
