Bible Study Tools Series: Tool #2 (Free Resources)
A plethora of tools exist today. However, these might be the ones you are least aware of. These are the tools you would require to level up your Bible Study. Are they widely used? Probably not. But would they help you? Definitely yes.
These are called Concordances and Lexicons. Both are used for different purposes. Let’s look at what they are used for, along with their features.
A Bible Concordance is a helpful tool for studying the Bible. It contains an alphabetical index of words used in the Bible. It provides the main Bible references where each word occurs. A Bible concordance helps locate passages in the Bible. So, let’s say you forgot the entire verse but remember just one word, you can search for that word, and it will give you all the verses where that word is found.
Additionally, if you want to search if a word is also present in other verses, you can do that. If you’re a Pastor reading this, you can definitely use it for topical sermons.
Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance is the most famous one.
You can use these free online Concordances.
Fun Fact: Did you know that the “Exhaustive” Concordances even contain the number of times a, an, and the occurs in the Bible?! Isn’t that mind-blowing? 🤯
A lexicon is more like a dictionary, but it is not that. Lexicons help us know the meaning of a word along with its history and its usage. They provide words along with their original roots in Biblical languages (mostly Hebrew & Greek). Why is that helpful? Let’s understand that with an example.
“As a basic example of how a Greek lexicon can be helpful, we can turn to Revelation 1:8: “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.’” Using a lexicon, we find that alpha (A) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet and omega (Ω) is the last letter. So, we have a description of God’s nature: He is the beginning and ending of all things. He is from eternity with no one before Him, and He lasts into eternity with none after Him (cf. Revelation 22:13).” (source)
You can have free access to online lexicons here.
Thank you for reading this issue of ElvisShares. See you soon in the next. Till then, keep on studying His Word.
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