Lesson 5 | Searching a Topic
Word Combos
But sometimes you have too many search results!
If you have the capacity to look through all 415 search results for the word blood, surely you will gain much insight and wisdom as a result. However, most of the time that sort of study is not a possibility given your time constraints. What do you do? We have learned how to search wide, but there are other times when we need to narrow our search to make it useful.
We began learning how to search word combos on the last step. Now let’s break down all that you can do.
Words that start a certain way
Use an asterisk at the end of a word to find that word with any (or no) ending.
finds love, loves, loving, etc.
Multiple words
When you include multiple words in your search, all words must be found in a verse for it to be a hit.
finds verses with both words
Use a slash to include all verses that have any of the words.
finds verses with faith or belief
You can also search for verses that have at least a certain number from a list of words.
finds verses with at least two of these words
Exact phrases
Use quotation marks to search for an exact phrase.
Use an asterisk by itself to serve as a word placeholder.
finds “cut them/me/him off”
Use an ellipsis within quotation marks to specify a required ordering of words.
finds “because your steadfast love”
does NOT find “I love the Lord because”
Changing the scope
By default, word combo searches are looking within a single verse. However, there are times when that produces too wide or too narrow of a search. In such cases, you may change the scope of the combo to be in the same phrase, sentence, or paragraph.
finds “love of God”
does NOT find “love the brotherhood, fear God”
finds “I thank God… [5] because of your love”
finds “Blessed be God... In love...”
Complex searches
Finally, use parentheses to combine any of the above when you need to make a complex search. The sky is the limit.
finds “word(s) of God” and “word(s) of the Lord”
