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The Journal of Biblical Counseling on CD-ROM

By November 10, 2006July 16th, 2014No Comments

The Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation has released version 2.0 of The Journal of Biblical Counseling on CD-ROM. This edition includes all 36 issues of the Journal of Pastoral Practice and every issue of the Journal of Biblical Counseling from its inception in 1977 through 2005. This edition is both PC and Mac compatible.

All of the articles are fully searchable PDFs, and Adobe Reader is used as the engine for searching, viewing, printing, and saving the articles. Upon installation, all of the articles are written onto the computer’s hard drive, making searches both convenient and fast. For best results, users will want to download the most recent version of Adobe Reader.

Users can browse the articles through a variety of methods. A “Browse by Topic” feature allows users to peruse the articles based on multiple, well-delineated subtopics under the main headings of Apologetics; Book Reviews; Counseling (by far the largest subject area); Legal Issues; Medicine; Other Pastoral Work; Preaching; and Scripture and Theology. Users may also browse each issue through its table of contents or browse all of the issues by author.

The search engine allows users to explore the articles in all of the ways one would expect to search a document: topics, author, key words, and individual words and phrases. Each article flagged in the search is available for quick viewing from the search screen. Articles may be bookmarked, printed, or saved to a separate directory for later use. The articles may also be saved as text for ease of quoting in other works (within the parameters of the license agreement).

Any Christian leader who handles the Word of God from the pulpit or in the privacy of discipleship or counseling situations will benefit from the material contained in this CD as well as from the ease of its accessibility. Perhaps those who put forth the effort to release the Journal on CD speak best for themselves about the variety and quality of the articles when they say in the “About this CD” section of the first edition:

The goal of the editorial staff has always been to publish pieces that have developed a systematic practical theology of “counseling” that coheres with, expresses, and develops historic protestant faith, rather than deriving from the faith and practice of modern secular psychologies. Having right commitments and intentions goes a long way towards keeping one in the way of truth and love. But it doesn’t guarantee perfect harmony with the whole counsel of God in content, emphasis, tone, and completeness. We believe that most of the articles stand the test of time. But hindsight shows some to be either forgettable or markedly flawed. [As a complete collection] . . . interact carefully with the material presented here. We hope you will be edified, instructed, and encouraged. . . . As a movement we must be humbly willing to be improved upon, corrected, enriched, developed, and balanced. One of our hopes is that this material will spur writers to write better, more complete, truer, and more loving works. Your thoughtful application and interaction will help us all.

This reviewer has found their self-evaluation to be true. A week never passes without referring to the collection at least once. I, and others in my ministry, have been helped in our walk with the Lord, and I have been spurred to think more Biblically about life as a result of reading both the articles that I have deemed to be excellent as well as those I find wanting.

The Journal of Biblical Counseling on CD version 2.0 is available for $120.00 plus shipping and handling.

Professor Jeff Newman, Faith Baptist Bible College & Seminary, Ankeny, Iowa

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