Proclaimer Blog
Learn to search
The real value of the enormous amount of information we now have at our fingertips is knowing how to search for it. And it’s in the intricacies of a search string that there is real power. To be honest, there are a whole load of features in my Bible software, as just one example, that I simply don’t use, nor do I want to. I need to do the hard work of exegesis myself rather than pressing a button and some algorithm coming up with all the answers. But my Bible software (which could, for you, be offline, online or simply how you use Google) is more than a repository. It allows me to search for genuinely useful things alongside dancing kittens.
So, for example, knowing how to search a Greek text for apo+dative is a really useful tool. It would take ages manually and most online and offline Bible tools will help you to do this. But it takes some time to learn that entering “g:apo WITHIN 4 WORDS @nd” is the way to get the answer. But it is (in Logos at least) and once you know that it ensures the software serves you, as a tool, rather than the other way around. The same can be said of Google searches or BBC News searches. The key to these tools is always to learn how to search. And then keep practising.