How to do a Bible Word Study

The day after I took the first step towards following my dream to create this website and write Bible Studies the doubts started to kick in. The moment I woke I was immediately faced with critical self-talk telling me I couldn’t do it. I did what I do every morning and grabbed my phone to read the verse of the day on the youversion app. But my blurry, not-quite-awake eyes could only focus on the word ‘confident’. As I blinked the rest of the verse came into focus: Phil 1:6 ‘Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.’ This certainly spoke to my doubting self-talk! I decided then that I was going to do a Biblical Word Study on the word ‘confident’.

This post contains affiliate links, which means that for each purchase made I receive a small contribution at no extra cost to you. For more information please see my policies page.

Why do a Biblical word study?

A biblical word study is a great bible study method for going deeper into understanding the message of Scripture. By looking up other times the word has been used we can enrich our understanding of what God is saying to us.  When using the Verse Mapping Bible study method we look into the words used, but now we are going to spend more time on just one word. (If you want to look into a particular theme in the Bible then check out my post How to Study the Bible by Topic.)

Since the Bible was written a long time ago, in a culture and language that is foreign to most of us, we can often find a few surprises when we dig into the meanings and uses of words that we could so easily just skip over.

How to do a Bible Word Study

Bible Word Study Step 1: Choose your word

 A word from Scripture may stand out to you while you are reading your Bible. It may be that you are not sure of the meaning of the word and want to check it out further, or it may be that the word just grabs your attention and you believe God wants to say more to you through studying this word. That was certainly the case when the word ‘Confident’ was highlighted to me!

 If you are interested in doing a word study but not sure where to start you could choose from Arabah Joy’s  Amazing Words for your next Bible Word Study. 

Some resources to help with your Bible Study (I love these erasable gel pens!) click to find out more and purchase :

Bible Word Study Step 2: Define your word

When I decide to look into a word the first thing I do is look it up in a dictionary, thesaurus and Bible dictionary to clarify its meaning.

This step alone can open up so much more from the text, as I widen my narrow understanding of the word.

Them write down the definitions and lists of synonyms as you start to form your understanding of the word.

Since the Bible wasn’t written in English, my next step is to look for the original word in Greek or Hebrew.

Don’t panic! You don’t have to be able to read or write these languages, there are tools you can use to find these words and their meanings without needing background knowledge.

I like to use blueletterbible.org.

Search for the verse containing your word (not just the word) and then go to tools – interlinear.

You will now see the verse written in Greek or Hebrew with all the words listed below. Click on the Strong’s concordance number to get all the detail about your word.

Here you can scroll down to see the definition, part of speech, and a concordance of all the times the word has been used in the Bible. We’ll get back to this last part at the next step. 

Don’t get bogged down in all the detail, just look for what is relevant to you.

Now write down a summary of the meaning of your word.

Bible Word Study Step 3: Find uses of your word

The next stage is to find other uses of your word in the Bible. Use a concordance, study bible or online bible to find uses of your word.

Go back to your findings on blueletterbible.org and scroll down to find the uses of the original Hebrew or Greek word. This is where you often get a few surprises as you note that the word is often translated in different ways. For example, I found that my word πείθω was translated ‘persuade, trust and believe’ as well as ‘being confident’. When Paul says ‘being confident of this’ he means that he has been persuaded to believe and trust.

Another verse about confidence, Hebrews 4:16 ‘Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need’ kept coming to my mind so I decided to look it up also. The Greek word this time is παρρησία which is defined as ‘free and fearless confidence, cheerful courage, boldness, assurance’ and is often translated as ‘speak openly’ or ‘speak boldly’. This gave me a whole new picture of confidence – when we approach God’s throne we can do it with bold assurance and speak freely!

Make a list of the references you find relevant to your study and take notes about what you learn or find interesting.

 Questions to ask yourself might include:

•  How often is the word used in Scripture?
• Is it only used in one book or by one author (e.g. only used in Paul’s letters)
• What is the context?

Use the form below to download a copy of my Bible Word Study Worksheet.

Bible Word Search Step 4: Summarize your findings

Finally, look over all you have discovered about your word (it’s meaning, use in Scripture, the different references) and prayerfully summarize your findings. How will you apply what you have learned?