Webmaster Understanding this website is an explanation of how WordPress works, and I focus on Categories and Tags.
Let me just explain briefly my philosophy behind this website. I use the free Bible program theWord (https://www.theword.net), which has their file extension, *.twm for reference works. So I create these files, as well as download from other places on the Internet. For the most part, these reference works are either in the public domain, or they are released under a creative commons. In either case, I do not modify nor change the contents of a work which I have here except for the formatting of the work, as well as tooltipping the text, which means, that a reference to a verse in the Bible like John iii. 16 I will reformat for theWord to read and popup a tooltip on mousing over that reference. Typically, John iii.16 becomes John 3:16. Today, many Bible students have a hard time with Roman numerals, so this is why I do it.
I also want to mention that if I do more editing to a public domain module, that is within the legality of a public domain work. In a very few cases, I make editor notes, such as a commentary with uses some older way of representing a Greek or Hebrew word, I will format it with Greek and Hebrew. I read and have studied both.
This is a library, and as such, I do not normally try to find works that are heretical. I do put up some works that I disagree with because I want to read and refute them. For example, you might find a work by a Catholic, by a Seventh Day Adventist, or a Universalist. I try to make that known by adding something in parentheses behind the title in the filename, or occasionally within the work itself.
As always, be careful with what you read. Do not assume anything is biblical. Always compare whatever you read to the Scriptures to see if it is biblical.
As a transition in this ministry, I am no longer writing a post on every work here. I am moving to just making the work available for download.
Categories and Tags
This site uses WordPress as its software on the Internet. WordPress, like many other software packages, uses the concepts of categories and tags. To understand how I understand these two, a category is like a broad area where many books reside. It is like the book is on aisle f, shelf 3 from the bottom in a library. Libraries use the Dewey decimal system, so this place is a number.
But that is fine for knowing how to get to the book physically, but a single book has many topics, and the library system wants to make a whole different level of connections beside this broad Category label.
So, for example, a doctrines book may have a chapter on angels, salvation, God, Satan, sanctification, the church, End times events, etc. Physically, libraries don’t want to buy 20 copies of that book and put a copy in each shelf dealing with angels, salvation, etc. They use a card catalog, which is simply a paper card which has such references to other major topics. But that is really only informing you of what is in the book, and if you go to the shelf and open it, you will see that in the table of contents (smart people always look in the table of contents first).
What we do in the electronic age is to cross-reference things. If we were to take a new doctrines book that comes into the library, and we note all the major topics in that book on its card catalog file, but after doing that, we were to go somewhere in our files on angels, and make a back reference to that new book, and do it for each topic, that is what tags are. They are usually not the major area of the book, but subtopics within the book. Sometimes, say when a book is on salvation, each subtopic is somehow part of that main topic. For example, adoption, regeneration, justification, atonement, sanctification, etc. would all be subtopics in a book on salvation.
theWord Bible software takes this one step further in allowing the user to search either the entire book, or his entire library, or parts of that library. If we return to the new doctrines book example, suppose on doing an in-depth study on salvation, you find something that interests you to know more, but the book has only a passing mention. At this point, physical paper and ink books have taken this desire to search the entire book for keywords with an index or glossary at the back. Here, key concepts from that book are listed alphabetically with the page number for the user to go there and read.
So in using tags, the largest areas are categories, the general areas are tags, and you can search online in the book or website for keywords. In theWord, you can search across your library for a key word or phrase and pull up extremely quickly (depending on how many books you have in your library), and you can read in their original context about those concepts.
When I classify a work on this website, the “shelf” concept is simply the category of the work, which is “A author stacks“. It is a handy place to keep the work and get to it if you want. All of my files (modules) always go to the filename format of the last name – title.extension. In cases of two different authors with the same last name, I will try to use the initial of his first name after his last name. As a rule, when I make an anthology (various books written by the same author), I try to always use their first and last names in the title. Also note that sometimes I have one work, say on the Antichrist, which has various authors in it. I consider that also as an anthology, although technically it isn’t. I am just putting them together to reduce clutter.
Note that, I am using the Categories as stacks (places where you can quickly get to the work by author’s last name), and I use the broad area of study as a tag. Later on, I will refine more tags as subtopics, and group them onto tags pages. This takes years, so I grow that area of the website over time.
In my old website, I also had my works tagged with the affiliation of the author, Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, etc. I found that very useful, but when hackers ruined that website, I lost it and had to start from scratch. I will eventually go back to the same affiliations tags at some time if God permits.
In the case of some work being on another website without noting the author of that work, I with use the website URL as the name.
This is the power of studying using a computer.
Exhortations to the theWord user
It is very incumbent or important on every Bible student to know his own library, and be able to at least in general recognize issues and positions. There is a big gap between difference religious positions and groups, and some are error-prone, or saturated with some over-whelming thought. For example, the Seventh Day Adventists believe that they (alone) are fulfilling the Old Testament laws, and their concept bleeds over into a works salvation, although they deny that. But because they worship on Saturdays instead of Sunday, they are more faithful than the rest. While they may have something good to say about something, the student needs to understand their position and be very careful whenever some comment or teaching touches that essential issue for them. Disciples of Christ have a lot of good works, but they have connected a physical water baptism with salvation to the extent that they are very reluctant to accept a person can be saved without getting wet. While much of what they say about other things is good and sound, they go astray very quickly if that enters into consideration.
So one needs to read with discernment, and not fall into craftly made arguments which are not biblically sound.
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