Study Helps: Concordance
A most
essential tool for scripture study is a good concordance.
The
concordance helps you locate a scripture for which you
remember one or two keywords that are in
that scripture. Check this out:
Exercise
1
Any Concordance
Suppose you want to look up the Good Shepherd passage, but
cannot remember its location (its address in the Bible).
•
You
do remember the word “shepherd”, so look under
the “s’” in your
concordance.
•
Run
down the “s” section until you find
“shepherd”. (Don’t worry; it is there!)
•
Under the word
“shepherd” there will be two columns of
information. Depending on the particular concordance you
are using, you will find scripture references to the right
or to the left. Note the scripture references.
•
If
you are not certain whether your reference is OT or NT, you
will need to run down the entire list of references,
checking out the snippets of scripture beside each
reference. The scriptures listed begin with OT and move
into NT.
•
If
you know that the Good Shepherd passage is in the Gospels,
then you need only check Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
•
Read the
scripture snippets, realizing that “shepherd is
usually represented by only “s”.
•
Most concordances will give you
“I am the
good s’….John
10:11.
And there you have it. That simple! Look up
John 10:11 and you find
the whole passage.
As you use your
concordance, you will
develop a sense of what key words are the most significant
for this sort of search. For instance, if you wanted to
find the Good Shepherd passage using the word
“good”, you would have to use an exhaustive
edition such as Strong’s to find anything.
Where
Can You Find a Concordance?
When shopping
for a good study Bible, always check for a concordance in
the back of it. This is the obvious first place to acquire
one. Do a little word searching with the concordance before
buying.
Both the Spirit
Filled Life Bible and the
Amplified
Bible have fine
concordances. This is especially handy for traveling when
you don’t want to carry a five pound concordance with
you. Also handy when you’re reading in your nice warm
bed and don’t want to dash to your desk for a quick
reference!
At some point you will see the need for an exhaustive
concordance that lists almost every imaginable word in
scripture except for articles and conjunctions. My pick for
this job is the
Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the
Bible. (
See how to use this
for finding word meanings)
Exercise
2:
Using Strong’s
The
Strong’s is a BIG book, but works just like any other
concordance. It helps to know that it is based on the
translation of the Parallel Bible. I’ve had good luck
using the KJV the NKJV in locating scriptures with this
concordance. Of course, getting the right key word is the
challenge with any concordance.
Let’s suppose you want to locate the scripture about
the mustard-sized faith.
•
You
know Jesus talked about this, so your scripture is in the
Gospels.
•
Look at the
“F’s’ in the concordance. Find
“faith”.
•
In
the left hand column you’ll see the abbreviation for
the scripture references. In the middle column will be a
4-8 word snippet from that scripture with
“faith” represented by “f”’.
•
In
the case of “faith”, there are only two OT
references before you get to the NT references. You can
find your scripture in Matt
17:20 and in Luke 17:6.
•
This scripture
can also be located by searching with the word
“mustard”.
As you can see, a scripture may be listed in a number of
different places, depending on how many key words are in
that particular line of scripture. Naturally, all you need
to find is one place where it is listed and you will be off
to the scripture-finding races.
After brief exposure to a
concordance, I’m
sure you will see the how essential it is to scripture
study. And, I don’t think you can beat the
Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the
Bible. The one I have
is so old, it has no copyright date. Safe to say this one
has stood the test of time!
Resources
Strong's Concordance
for Word Meanings