Do you want to know your Bible better? This innovative dictionary of the Bible will guide you through its central themes, such as God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, sin and salvation, the church, suffering, hope, and eternal life. You will gain a full and fresh appreciation of the richness of the Bible. This unique and comprehensive topical dictionary covers over 2,000 themes, giving explanations, key Bible references, and cross-references to related themes. Produced by the highly respected editorial team of Martin H. Manser, Alister E. McGrath, J. I. Packer, Donald J. Wiseman, J. Gordon McConville, and Stephen H. Travis. The study of the Bible lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It is therefore important that readers of the Bible are given every means of help so that they may get as much benefit and enjoyment as possible out of reading the Bible. The Dictionary of Bible Themes is designed to allow its users to appreciate to the full the unfolding of the unity and richness of the Bible by studying its central themes. What is the Bible all about? The Dictionary of Bible Themes was planned to allow its users to identify and explore the leading themes of Scripture – themes such as God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the human race, sin and salvation, the Christian life, the church and the hope of glory. This Dictionary identifies these, and many other key themes, and traces them throughout the course of Scripture. The Bible is here allowed to speak for itself, with a minimum of comment and explanation. The approach adopted in this volume allows its users to come into contact directly with Scripture, rather than having to approach it through the views of commentators. The main themes of Scripture are identified, key biblical references are provided and the mutual relationship of themes is set out clearly. Over 2,000 themes detailed in this work cover doctrinal, ethical, historical and cultural subjects. In addition to dealing with the great themes of the Christian message of salvation, the themes thus also deal with practical issues of Christian living. This approach allows a unifying of Christian wisdom, both theological and practical, for the edification of God's people. The thematic approach The approach adopted in this work differs significantly from a more lexical approach found in some older reference works. A thematic approach is based on related ideas; a lexical approach is based on individual words. The difference between them can easily be appreciated by considering the theme of "assurance". A word-based approach would be limited to identifying biblical passages in which words such as "assure" or "assurance" appear. A thematic approach, however, goes far beyond this and explores all the basic elements of the theme. It identifies its basic ideas, its presuppositions and its consequences, in order that the theme in all its fullness can be unfolded to the reader. Thus the material that deals with assurance covers the grounds of assurance (e.g., the knowledge of God, the certainty of his word, the work of the Holy Spirit), the nature of assurance (of a relationship with God, of salvation, of eternal life and a future hope) and the relationship between assurance and the life of faith. An extensive system of indexing and cross-referencing allows the dynamic relationship of the many biblical themes to be understood and further explored. A further advantage of the thematic approach of the Dictionary of Bible Themes is that it can be used with any Bible translation. Although the verse references provided are intended to be illustrative rather than exhaustive, the reader will nevertheless find a wealth of biblical material arranged thematically.
