For the vast majority of our Bible reading, we rely on the work of our translators and don’t give it a second thought. There are times, however, when we would like to look behind the curtain (so to speak) and see what the original-language word is and see it’s range of meaning and how it has been translated in other passages. In this category, I’d look for something by Spiros Zodhiates, like Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible: New American Standard Bible: Unlocking the Riches of God’s Word or The Complete Wordstudy New Testament With Greek Parallel (Word Study Series). You may also want to combine it with The Complete Wordstudy Dictionary: New Testament and The Complete Word Study Dictionary: Old Testament.

These references can often help you uncover more of the flavor of the original word hiding behind the English equivalent. At the same time, and we’ll get into this more as the class goes along, it’s important not to expect too much out of word study. It is easy to go too far with a single word in isolation. We have to remember that words have meaning when placed in sentences, and sentences have particular meanings within paragraphs.