This word in the Greek means . . .

We are blessed to have the Word of God in our own language. We are also blessed to have many tools to aid us in our study of the Word of God, such as lexicons and concordances. And computers! I don’t even own a concordance or a lexicon anymore. I have BibleWorks for Windows, which comes with multiple translations and tools. It is so much faster than using a book – I just did a search for “and” in the entire Bible and got the results in 3 seconds: 51,714 occurrences! This is what I wanted a computer for!!

But I have noticed a dangerous tendency in the use of these otherwise wonderful tools: Laziness. That’s harsh and maybe I should say sloppiness. Or carelessness.

You see, Greek and Hebrew words do not have one and only one meaning each. They often have multiple meanings, shades of meaning, as well as being used in a variety of related ways. People often look up a word in order to get a better idea of the meaning of a passage. They notice that it has several meanings, arbitrarily (so it seems) pick one and then make a pronouncement, “The Greek word in this verse means…” And an inspection reveals that is does not!

This concerns me. I have seen such people give out erroneous information, all the while claiming, “This Greek word means.”

Well then, should only “professionals” or “scholars” use these tools? Absolutely not. Too often the “scholars” are not men of faith, so all their learning does them very little good. So, what is the answer?

Diligence.

If you are going to look up a word and determine it’s meaning in a particular verse, then by all means avail yourself of the many tools at your disposal.

If it has several meanings, shades of meaning, or usages, try to locate the verse under consideration – Where does your lexicon place it?

If it has several meanings or usages, then look them all up. Nothing beats seeing how a word is actually used. I mean, look up every occurrence. This is time consuming work.

Be careful. Often people using these tools come up with a “new interpretation” of a passage. If you are the first one to understand a verse a certain way, there may be a good reason for that!

And remember, if you don’t know the original language (Greek/Hebrew), just knowing a word will not give you a sudden depth of understanding hitherto unknown by the Church!

I’ve not even mentioned the Septuagint. It is very helpful, when studying a Hebrew word, to see how they translated it into Greek. And when studying a Greek word of the NT, to see how it was used in the OT. So, and therefore, as well as in conclusion: Use the tools we are blessed with. Be diligent. Be careful. Be thorough. And respect the ancient wisdom of those who were much closer to the Apostles than we are – the Fathers.