Almost ready to give up on Accordance

[LylePhillips]

I find that the the on sale products and new releases so often reflect the Reformed theological position and rarely the Dispensatational viewpoint. Whereas Logos has by far more Dispensational resources. After so many years using Accordance (and I love the ease of use) I am contemplating switching over to Logos. From a practical perspective, Accordance is much easier to use. Logos has a steep learning curve and has taken me some time to adjust to the approach that Logos uses. Maybe it is because Logos was originally written for Windows whereas Accordance was originally written for Mac. Oh how I wish the Accordance staff were more balanced with the resources that are available.

[dandennison]

I don’t see this as an either or anymore.

 

I have resources in every platform due to what is available and I keep coming back to Accordance because I love the Bible text and it gives me the most flexibility to learn and study it.

 

Personally I’d love to see stuff from Ariel ministries in Accordance and in general more dispensational works. But my solution has been to have books across a variety of distribution platforms including Kindle. 
 

Dan

[Sean Nelson]

We're always interested in adding to our resource library, but licensing and developing books does take time. That said, we do have a couple new dispensational titles that should be released soon.

 

In addition, if you haven't already checked them out, we recently released the "A Biblical Theology of the Old Testament" and "A Biblical Theology of the New Testament" works produced by DTS. Also, for those who don't have them, our current sale on theological resources contains Lewis Sperry Chafer's Systematic Theology and Charles Ryrie's Basic Theology. And while not completely dispensational in outlook, the same sale contains two multi-perspective discussion sets which include contributions by dispensational authors.

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

@LylePhillips I’ve collected all of your feedback for dispensational books, and we’ll look into them. As @Sean Nelson mentioned, it does take time for us to license and produce modules, but we’re always open to feedback on where to improve.

 

I’m not sure how true this is, but just by browsing around on the new releases of other Bible software apps, I’ve noticed they are also focusing heavily on the Reformed theological position in their new releases as well. Part of it is likely that there is simply a wealth of resources from a Reformed theological position out there!

 

As someone who attended Bible college and seminary studying under multiple dispensationalists, I’m always open to seeing more dispensational modules in Accordance!

[marco sanchez]

Dispensationalism? Is that being used as the alternative view to reformed theology? I thought arminianism or "traditional view" was the other side of reformed theology? Dr. Michael Brown from askdrbrown.org is a very scholarly writer, teacher that has many resources, one of which accordance offers of his commentary on Jeremiah in the Expositor's Bible Commentary. He answers reformed theology. It would sure be nice to have some more of his writings for accordance. He has a five part volume set on "Jewish objections to Jesus". Very thorough. And haswritten many books.

 

Marco

[josephbradford]

Steak always costs more than hamburgers. Lol

[josephbradford]

3 hours ago, marco sanchez said:

Is that being used as the alternative view to reformed theology? I thought arminianism or "traditional view" was the other side of reformed theology?

No, Jacob was a Calvinist more or less. He just objected to some of the TULIP. He preferred LILY. 

 

I think dispensationalism does have more to do with eschatology than systematic theology. But it has probably become more synonymous with "not Calvinism;" and since Calvinists have rebranded to "reformed theology" (probably because Paul said it was divisive to say I am of Paul or I am of Calvin), I think the "not Calvinists" need to do the same, even more so because they were never really Arminians to begin with.

 

I'm rebranding as well. My pronouns are IN/CHRIST. LOL

[Sean Nelson]

7 hours ago, john_2022 said:

 

with the passing of some of the most respected Dispensational scholars such as Ryrie in 2016, does not have much current day support.

 

I don't know that I'd go so far as to say that dispensationalism doesn't have much support in the current day. In my area at least, there are still a great number of dispensationalist preachers and teachers (if I remember right the largest Bible Colleges in our area are dispensational as well).

 

Where I do see dispensationalism lagging behind other "in vogue" theological systems today though is in its lack of popularizers. I think, more than anything else, the sudden rise in interest in Calvinistic theology over the last generation or so can be put down to a number of popular voices such as Piper, Keller, etc.. Outside of someone like a John MacArthur though, I'm struggling to think of anyone with a large audience that teaches dispensational ideas.

 

Who knows what the next generation will gravitate toward however? The next pastoral megastar might be in a dispensational seminary right now.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that in the theological word, as in most spheres, trends come and go, but once an idea enters into the theological consciousness it never really goes away. Honestly, I think it would really only take a handful of young, popular preachers to start promoting dispensationalism for it to see a resurgence in our modern day.

 

[Dan Langston]

I think it has more to do with the fact that volume by volume, there are so MANY more written, scholarly, published books from a reformed perspective than Armninian, or non-Calvinist, or dispensational resources (however you classify it) For example, Logos suffered under the accusation of "only reformed products" for years.  It took FOREVER for them to get the Fire Bible, for example.  It wasn't until the Assemblies of God formed the "Bible project" that more resources came, but it had been CLOSE TO A DECADE delay. 

 

By contrast, Accordance had the Fire Bible early on (very dispensational in it's eschatology). Also, "The Complete Biblical Library" is a non-Calvinist work. 

 

I'm much more comfortable in Accordance's embrace of comprehensive resources than Logos, because LOGOS STILL struggles in hyping primarily reformed-type products. IMHO

Edited April 22, 2023 by Dan Langston

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

The comparison between Dispensationalism and Reformed Theology (as well as Calvinism vs Arminianism) would be far too extensive for me to discuss here, plus I’d be dipping into violating our guidelines by discussing theological topics.

 

I will pitch my upcoming PhD dissertation, as it will have a chapter on Dispensationalism vs Covenant Theology in it. Maybe once it’s released, I should look into seeing if we can eventually release it in Accordance. 🙂 

 

In the meantime, I guess I could do some webinars on Dispensationalism, Covenant Theology, Calvinism, Arminianism, etc., or we’re looking at bringing back “Lighting the Lamp” video podcasts. I could do some 10 minute episodes on how to study these topics in Accordance.

[Kristin]

Hi @john_2022,

@Dan Langston can correct me if I am wrong, as I am not AoG, but I think he is referring to this https://bibleengagementproject.com/About

[ReformedDoc]

21 hours ago, Nathan Parker said:

The comparison between Dispensationalism and Reformed Theology (as well as Calvinism vs Arminianism) would be far too extensive for me to discuss here, plus I’d be dipping into violating our guidelines by discussing theological topics.

 

I will pitch my upcoming PhD dissertation, as it will have a chapter on Dispensationalism vs Covenant Theology in it. Maybe once it’s released, I should look into seeing if we can eventually release it in Accordance. 🙂 

 

In the meantime, I guess I could do some webinars on Dispensationalism, Covenant Theology, Calvinism, Arminianism, etc., or we’re looking at bringing back “Lighting the Lamp” video podcasts. I could do some 10 minute episodes on how to study these topics in Accordance.

I think that would be a great thing.

[Dan Langston]

The Assemblies of God owns a publishing house, Gospel Publishing House, that produces doctrinal books, and contributed to the Complete Biblical Library in terms of publishing.  It had the rights to early Classical Pentecostal Works.  The agreement with the Bible engagement project (thanks Kristin) opened to door to many of those resources coming into the competitor.  Prior to that, it was hard to find good classical Pentecostal resources. 

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

I’ve gotten a ton of use out of Complete Biblical Library. Originally bought it in Wordsearch and crossgraded to it in the Accordance Wordsearch Crossgrade. I’ve setup a workspace in Accordance how I used it in Wordsearch if anyone needs it. Even though I’ve had two years of Greek and Hebrew in seminary, I still find myself regularly using CBL.

 

I own both of these in SwordSearcher and use them often when I’m on my Windows PC. I may post these to “Module Requests” and see how much interest they get. If Accordance users are interested in them, I’ll add them to my module requests list. These are a couple of popular dispensational resources.

 

https://www.swordsearcher.com/third-party/understanding-the-bible-commentary.html

 

https://www.wayoflife.org/publications/swordsearcher.php

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

And yes, even though I work for Accordance, I use a handful of Bible apps. The main reason is for books currently not available in Accordance, although the other two benefits are: 1. I can see what other modules would be great to add to Accordance and 2. I can do some analysis to see which features in other Bible apps we could bring to Accordance. 🙂 

[c. stirling bartholomew]

I generally don't notice the theological leanings of my exegetical reference works. I am currently working on Isaiah 24-27 and using J. A. Motyer Isaiah IVP '92 edition, J.A. Alexander ??, J. N. Oswalt v1, E. J. Young 1949, K&D,  Ken Penner, Isaiah in Codex Sinaiticus (PDF). Use Accordance for ancient language resources as originally intended.

 

On theological slant, J.A. Motyer, Trinity College Bristol. I have it from M.F. Unger's introduction that J.A. Alexander is an approved author. I know that E.J. Young was reformed. J.N. Oswalt taught at TEDS and Asbury. Ken Penner teaches at St Francis Xaviar Univ NS.

 

On theological framework issues I might notice this with E.J. Young.

 

Generally speaking you need to know the biblical studies historical context of the author more than their creed. Reference works are texts just like any other text they need to be subject to hermeneutical and exegetical treatment.

 

Accordance does what it was intended to do and does it well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 28, 2023 by c. stirling bartholomew