Word Studies

Every Christian is saved the same way: by grace through faith (Eph 2:8), but no one believer has the same story of how that happened. Each one of us has his or her own testimony, and each personal story of salvation is special. When I was saved I was an intellectually inclined (i.e., arrogant), cynical, and spiritually lost artist living in New York, who thought I knew everything and wanted nothing to do with God. When God graciously saved me at 37 years of life, I immediately became radicalized for God. Suddenly, all I wanted to do was learn about Him and how I could get closer to Him. Others, of course, have quite different stories. As a matter of fact, it has been my understanding after 36 years of ministry that most experiences of transformation occur more gradually, many even reluctantly. Again, all are special. No one experience – if genuine – is better or more pleasing to God than another.

I began reading every religious and spiritual (there is a difference) book I could buy, trying to get a handle on what all this was going to mean to me. My motives were at first self-centered.

Initially, I figured it out this way: if there really is a God and He is who He says He is in the Bible, it would be the smartest, most self-improving thing I could do to devote my life to Him. All in; nothing held back; no turning back. The greatest evidence of my wife of 52 years’ love for me was that she immediately went along entirely with this drastic change, and through her unwavering support I was able to make whatever adjustments were necessary to follow God as zealously as I was completely convinced I must do. When Christ moves into to one’s life, major changes should follow. Thankfully, I can report that over time and, again, through the grace of God, my focus began to shift from self to others. Much more I could say.

NKJ Matthew 22:37 Jesus said to him, “`You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’

I was blessed to learn early on not to trust in dreams or visions but only in the Bible. The Bible is the only way we can know God and Jesus (they are one and the same). Experientialism as a way to know God is unreliable. I learned God reveals Himself almost exclusively in His Word. I say “almost” because I would not want to limit Him. However, the only reliable way to begin to understand God is through the Bible. When seen through this perspective, the Bible is the most precious thing on earth. The Bible is a book of words.

Whenever I introduce word studies in my classes at the seminary I underscore their importance by relating how much I personally value them. I truthfully say that if I should somehow lose my computer, my two hard drives, my several thumb drives and multiple CDs, the thing I would miss most would be my folder of over 300 word studies.

I methodically work on word studies quite simply because I want to know exactly – or as close as humanly possible – what God is saying in His Word. When He says, as He does in 1 Timothy

2:15, to “be diligent,” I want to know exactly what He is commanding me to do. The best way to know what a biblical word means is to do a word study.

A word study is basically what the term implies: a systematical study of a word. Inclusively, a word study is consulting a lexicon to get a sense of the general definition of the word, looking up every time that word is used in Scripture, evaluating each in context, and making relevant observations. Word studies admittedly require work. But godly work is wonderful, extremely gratifying and pleasing to God. Few things in life are acquired without time and effort.

Obviously, a great number of words in Scripture are used too many times for a feasible study, but in such cases you merely do a limited, selective word study. You set workable boundaries, like, maybe ten occurrences, or only those usages that are found in a single book of the Bible, or even a single chapter. Even if you only study two or three occurrences, you will almost surely know more than you knew before.

Most people who are interested in the definition of a word look up the English word in a dictionary. While this is laudable and for the most part reliable, there is much left to be desired. English dictionaries are generally accurate in defining biblical words, but they are limited.

Lexical information is the beginning of a word study, not the end. Ultimately, words are defined not by meaning, but usage.

I know this sounds blunt, but without word studies, we really don’t know what we’re talking about. Certainly our assumed knowledge quite often is accurate. We may be ignorant of many things, but we are usually not stupid. But when all aspects of gaining biblical knowledge are analyzed, we must admit that we don’t really know we know without the confirmation gained through word study.

Oftentimes word studies do not produce startling insights. Many times they confirm what you had assumed you knew without adding anything substantial to your understanding. That said, however, that does not at all diminish their value. Confirmation itself is valuable knowledge. After a word study, you now know for real what before you only assumed you knew. “You don’t know until you know.”

Aside from your Bibles, you need a concordance to do a proper word study. A concordance is an alphabetical index of the principal words in a book with their immediate contexts. A biblical concordance is an alphabetical index of each occurrence of every word in both the Old and New Testaments along with a portion of their immediate context. Even though scholars generally consider it somewhat outdated and in need of revision, it has been my experience in teaching word studies that Strong’s is the easiest and therefore most attractive choice for the beginner.

The New Strong’s Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible is priced on Amazon at $26.63, $19.93 used. New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, a slightly less comprehensive edition, is $14.36 new and only $5.31 used. So, money is not an obstacle.

The purpose of this writing, obviously, is to encourage you to give word studies a try. Even if you never formally study Greek or Hebrew, you can tell a lot about biblical words by studying their definitions and contexts through word studies. To those whose first thought may be, “Isn’t this a bit over the top,” allow me to say gently, “No.” Not only are the rewards of doing biblical word studies never-ending, but when you study the Bible, you are in obedience to God.

ESV 2 Timothy 2:15 Do your best (“Be diligent” – NAS, NKJ; “Study” – KJV) to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

RECOMMENDATION

To those who seriously want to take the next step to learn more about God, I would suggest looking into the following:

Complete Word Study Dictionary: Old Testament (Word Study Series) – Oct 1, 2003, by Warren Baker and Gene Carpenter – Hardcover – $35.76; $26.87 (used)

Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament (Word Study Series) – Aug 1, 1992, by Dr. Spiros Zodhiates – Hardcover – $34.81; $19.54 (used)

There is yet another biblical tool cheaply available to help you become familiar with word studies. In this Bible, obtainable in practically all English translations, amazing as it may first sound, Strong’s Concordance is included:

The Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible: (Key Word Study Bibles) – June 1, 2008 by Dr. Spiros Zodhiates (Editor), Dr. Warren Patrick Baker D.R.E. (Series Editor) – Hardcover – $25.75 – Used from $16.83

Finally, there is the time-honored Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary, which gives the results of completed word studies of many of the most important words in the Bible. Nothing, however, beats doing your own word studies.

Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words: With Topical Index (Word Study) – August 26, 1996 by W. E. Vine  (Author), Merrill Unger (Author) – Hardcover –$9.73

So, for about $75 (or a lot less, if you don’t mind used books [used books from Amazon are remarkably good] or if you chose to start small), you can have the ability at your fingertips to research any word in both Testaments. You can effectively, rewardingly study God’s Word.

ESV Ezra 7:10 For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.

If you’re not feeling all this at present due to circumstances beyond your control, by all means be sure to sit under a Pastor who faithfully preaches the Word and who makes word studies a regular part of his preparation, a Pastor such as Matt Smith of Barabbas Road Church.

– Professor Thomas A. Rohm