A Worthy New Year’s Resolution - φρονέω

Written by: Larry Elliott

Many years ago, as part of my theological education I was taught how to do a biblical word study. The idea was to learn the meaning and nuances of a specific Greek or Hebrew word in an exhaustive way. It was a daunting, detailed and lengthy task requiring the answering of multiple questions/steps:

• Find and categorize all usages of the word in the NT and OT
• Find usage of the word outside of the NT and OT
• Using Greek and Hebrew lexicons, record different definitions
• Compare the word with its synonyms
• Compare how different versions translate the word
• Determine the meaning of the word in the text and context you are studying 

Today, doing such a study simply requires you to access any of a number of web resources (NET Bible, for example), click a couple of buttons and you have the benefit of this task in one succinct definition. Amazing and so helpful!

I have multiple pages of word studies with little “bumps” on the back of the paper. The bumps are from a typewriter – the precursor to word processing and today found primarily in museums across the country. 5020202020Recent