The Idea Behind the Effort
No one can honestly claim that the Bible is an easy book to understand. That being said, we can all use a little help from time to time. Fortunately for us there has been a lot of time and hard work put into creating tools that are specifically designed to help us dig deeper into God’s Word.
Sometimes we just need assistance getting beyond the language barrier of the King James Version. Modern translations can be helpful there. But which ones are reliable?
Sometimes we need help understanding why a particular word is used in a verse, or even in a sentence. Concordances can help us out with that. These are similar to dictionaries, except that they define the original word that the English word in our Bible is translated from. By ‘original word’ I mean the word that was used in the original languages of the Bible, which are Hebrew for the Old Testament and Greek for the New. Few of us who read the Bible are Hebrew or Greek scholars who understand those languages. So it can be hard for us sometimes to know the true meaning of words that were used by men who wrote down what we read in our Bibles. Thankfully, there have been both Hebrew and Greek scholars who have done this work for us!
Additionally, beyond the concordances, we also have lexicons which are different kinds of language study tools. A lexicon will help us with Hebrew and Greek word usage. The difference is a concordance will define the word for us but a lexicon will show us how a Hebrew or Greek person would have used that word in their language. When used together we can find greater meaning in passages that we thought were impossible to understand. We are very blessed to have these tools readily available for us to use as often as we want!
There are other helpful Bible study tools and tips that we will also be looking at and learning how to use in the coming installments of this series, such as Bible dictionaries, marginal references, understanding the importance of context and so on. It is my intent to share with you the things that I have found to be helpful in my study techniques and I hope that you will find these tools and tips to be valuable in your personal study of God’s Word.
I will leave you this time with what I feel to be the most important and most beneficial help in the study of the Word… prayer. Nothing will help us understand the Bible more than asking for God’s help. He had this Book written so He knows it is not easy. He is aware of our deficiencies in understanding, and He knows just how to help us. Trust in Him and He will never let you down. Until next time, God bless!