Better Bible Students 4/19/2015 AM

2 Timothy 2:15

1 Better Bible Students

Tools to Help the Budding Bible Student
2 Do I Need To Know A Lot Of Scripture?
• 1 Peter 3:15-16 “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give
a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you , with
meekness and fear; 16 having a good conscience, that when they defame you as
evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.” NKJV
3 Do I Need To Know A Lot Of Scripture?
• John 12:48 “He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which
judges him — the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.” NKJV
• Rom 2:16 “…in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ,
according to my gospel.” NKJV
4 Introduction
• Any serious student of the Bible will at some point come across a word or a phrase
that is not easy to understand.
• Or, one could believe they know the truth on a given subject but someone else calls
into question the understanding we thought we had.
• It is at times like these that using good study reference aids can assist us in the quest
for better understanding of God’s word.
• We will try to look at a few useful study tools that could help us be better Bible
students.
5 I. Picking A Good Bible
• King James Version (KJV): Best selling translation of all time - Widely accepted -
Translated in 1611 in 17th-century English - Several revisions over past 400 years -
Word for word translation
• New King James Version (NKJV): Published in 1982 as an update to the KJV -
Removes "thee," "thou," "thine," and other classic Old English terminology - Word for
word translation
• American Standard Version (ASV): Published in 1901 - Considered to be one of the
most literal versions - Word for word translation
6 I. Picking A Good Bible
• New American Standard (NASB): Originally published in 1971 - Updated in 1995 -
Highly regarded for its literal accuracy - Word for word translation
• New International Version (NIV): Translated from the original language - Not a revision
of any other English translation - Presents text thought- for thought rather than being
a word for word translation
• English Standard Version (ESV): Published in 2001 - Quickly gaining acceptance
among conservative scholars - Noted for its accuracy and traditional style - Uses clear
modern language
7 Note on “Study” Bibles
• Many Bible now come full of “Bible Study Helps” built right in, with the Biblical text on
part of the page, with corresponding editor notes and ‘helps’ right there in the text to
help ‘inform’ the reader.
• It seems like a useful help right?
• Most if not all ‘Bible study notes’ are written by denominational individuals, if you are
unsure, check key passages, and read the notes.
• Be very wary of Bibles with included ‘Study Helps’.
• If you do have or buy one, be very careful and study the WORD, most of the notes
may possibly be slanted to the authors denominational persuasion.
8 II. Good Bible Concordance
• If you
Crescent Park church only had one tool to help you study more, a concordance would be what you
of Christ
Kristofer Gardana
kgardana@gmail.com
813-335-8967 1
Better Bible Students 4/19/2015 AM
2 Timothy 2:15

8
• If you only had one tool to help you study more, a concordance would be what you
would want.
– A concordance is simply an alphabetical list of words showing where they are used
in a published work, in this case the Bible.
• Each word will list all occurrences in scriptures (sometimes giving the immediate
context to help locate the desired text).
– Most Bibles have a small limited concordance in the back, but rarely have enough
words to be truly useful.
9 II. A Good Bible Concordance
• Any serious Bible student needs to have access to a good Bible concordance,
preferably an “Exhaustive Concordance” which lists each and every word used in the
Bible:
• Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible –*(with included dictionaries of
Hebrew & Greek ) by James Strong
• Young’s Analytical Concordance to the Bible – Robert Young
• Cruden’s Concordance Unabridged Edition – Alexander Cruden
• FREE ONLINE SEARCH: http://www.blueletterbible.org/#search
10 II. A Good Bible Concordance
• Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-
Hebrew Dictionary By Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.Derived
from: EXHAUSTIVE CONCORDANCE OF THE BIBLE Together with DICTIONARIES OF
THE HEBREW AND GREEK WORDS Of the Original With References to the English
Words By JAMES STRONG, S.T.D., LL.D.
11 III. A LEXICON OF BIBLE WORDS
• Lexicons help the serious Bible student study the original languages of the Bible.
– According to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary a lexicon is “a book containing an
alphabetical arrangement of the words in a language and their definitions”. The
“application of words”.
– Lexicons are dictionaries which give English definitions for Hebrew and Greek words,
the predominant original languages of the Bible.
– To understand our English equivalents, it is very useful to see how a Hebrew or
Greek speaker used their words throughout the Scriptures.
– Discuss examples: consider words and their usage – (1) Perfect; (2) Love
12 III. A LEXICON OF BIBLE WORDS
• GOOD BIBLE LEXICONS INCLUDE:
• *Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible with included dictionaries of
Hebrew & Greek
–This includes “Strong’s Numbers” which indicate the exact Hebrew or Greek
word under consideration.
• Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words – Complete and Unabridged
– W. E. Vine
–Free online version! http://www2.mf.no/bibel/vines.html
• Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament – Joseph Henry Thayer,
D.D.
13 IV. Topical Bible Dictionaries
• TOPICAL BIBLE DICTIONARIES
– Nave's Topical Bible - Originally produced by Orville J. Nave, A.M., D.D., LL.D. while
serving as a Chaplin in the United States Army, he referred to this work as "the
result of fourteen years of delightful and untiring study of the Word of God." Naves
Topical Bible consists of 20,000+ topics and subtopics, and 100,000 references to
Crescent Park church the Scriptures.
of Christ
Kristofer Gardana
kgardana@gmail.com
14
813-335-8967 2
Better Bible Students 4/19/2015 AM
2 Timothy 2:15

the Scriptures.
• FREE ONLINE VERSION! http://www.biblestudytools.com/concordances/naves-
topical-bible/
14 IV. Topical Bible Dictionaries
• Nichol’s Pocket Bible Encyclopedia – C. R. Nichol & J. W. Denton
• A small quick reference handbook on vital Bible topics
• Smith’s Bible Dictionary – William Smith
• Includes “A history of the books of the Bible”
• & “Analytical and Comparative Concordance”
• Useful as a backup after using mentioned concordances and lexicons.
15 IV. Topical Bible Dictionaries
• Warning: Unlike an ‘exhaustive/unabridged concordance’ or Bible lexicon which gives
every single scripture for a given term, Topical Dictionaries can fool you into thinking
they cover a topic completely. Many do not and actually neglect key passages which
would be useful in studying a given topic. You get the impression those behind the
‘topical dictionary’ would like to avoid certain passages (and steer away Bible students
from those passages as well).
• Consider example with “Harper’s Topical Concordance” and the scriptures listed
under “Baptism”.
16 Conclusion
• While studying the Bible by itself can be rewarding, the use of a complete
concordance and Hebrew-Greek lexicon can open the doors of understanding of words
we ‘thought’ we understood so well!
• Ultimately we must “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman
who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” (2 Timothy
2:15) NASU
17 2 Corinthians 13:5
• “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not
know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless indeed you are disqualified.”
NKJV
• I don’t want to be disqualified…
• Do you?

Crescent Park church of Christ

Kristofer Gardana
kgardana@gmail.com
813-335-8967 3