What does the Bible actually say? (Part 3: Beginning the Word Study - Finding the "what")

      For those of you who have made it this far without giving up hope, thank you! I have done this for a long time and this is something I am passionate about and am prone to pour out vast amounts of information on it at any one given time. I know it can be overwhelming, especially as you are just starting out. Studying the Bible this way consistently will create a habit that will make it easier to do as time goes on. 

     Let's begin. 

     The easiest way begin to structure a word study is to use the 5 "w's" and 1 "h" questions (who, what, when, where, why, and how). Let's start with "what." How do we find out the "what" of a particular word? Another way of asking "what" is asking for the definition of a word. If you're using a paper-bound copy of a concordance, open to the section that is for the first letter in the word (example: "wisdom" - "w" section). You should find a list of references on one side of a column and a list of numbers on the other side of the column (some books may have more than one column per page - each column covers one word at a time). The numbers correspond to specific definitions for that word. For those of you who have studied other languages, you know that exact translation is nearly impossible. Something is almost always lost. The reason there are multiple numbers corresponding with a given English word is that multiple Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic (the languages the Bible was written in) don't have exact correlations in English. Multiple words in the other languages are translated with one English word (simply because English is not as specific as these can be). For those of you using an online resource, all you will have to do is type in the word to the search box and hit enter. Depending on what resource you're using, the type of information you get will look different. The first thing you should get is a list of references that contain that word.

     Let's see how to use these references and numbers to help us find out the "what" of a given word. Let's use "wisdom" as an example and let's narrow our search to the references and definitions found in the book of Proverbs. If you're using an online method, scroll down and write down all of the references to that word specifically in the book of Proverbs (if possible, turn on the Strong's numbers for your verses). For those of you using paper, run your finger down the page and list out the references and the number (s) that are used in the book of Proverbs. (side note, the number of references might differ from one translation to another. Strong's uses the KJV.) Now that we have our numbers and our references, there are a few things we can know right up front. You will note that there are 8 different Hebrew words that are translated "wisdom" in the book of Proverbs, with one of them having the most references under it. Let's keep it simple and only look at this number - H2451 (the "H" or "G" in front of the number corresponds to "Hebrew" or "Greek" - the section in the back of your concordance that you will go to to find the definition of the word - it's not the same word in both languages.).

     Let's begin with finding the "what" from this number. For those of you using paper, flip back to the back of the concordance and look for the section marked "Hebrew" with numbers that begin with "H." Flip through the pages until you find the number H2451. There should be a definition with this number. This definition is the "what" of this specific Hebrew word that is translated "wisdom" in these specific verses. For those of you using an online resource (and have the Strong's number's turned on), you should be able to click on the Strong's number and it will list the references where that number (word) is used. Write down all the references in Proverbs. An online resource may also open up a dictionary for you - this corresponds to the definition found with the number in the back of your paper concordance. (Note: The Lexicon listed under resources pulls all the different numbers together in one place and lists the references associated with each definition.) Now that we have found the definition or the "what," what do we do with it now? Read Part 4 to find out!