![]() So, here’s the results for everything on CCEL related to John 1:14. My favorite tool on CCEL is the Search Scripture tool, which allows you to search through their vast library to find all the documents that contain references to a specific passage. If you haven’t checked out their website, do so now. I have read deeply into the works of Augustine, Calvin, Spurgeon, and more through their ministry of preserving classic Christian works online. I am a huge fan of CCEL, the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. It’s a very handy way to figure out what might be going on in the verse.įree Bible Study Tool #3: Commentaries on CCEL In Bible Gateway, you can quickly flip through over 50 different Bible translations to see (for example) how various scholars translated the word “reassure” in 1 John 3:19, or how a paraphrase version like The Living Bible or The Message gives the sense of the passage. ![]() By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him So, consider the wide variety of translations for 1 John 3:19–21, which looks like this in the English Standard Version: One of the best ways to zero in on the meaning of a particularly challenging verse is to look at how a variety of different Bible translations phrased it. With the Concordance, it’s easier to see textual connections, where an author is deliberately referencing another passage, or where the same author develops a theme in another book of the Bible that he wrote. But my favorite tool of all is the Concordance, where you can see all the places that the same word was used in other places in the Bible. From Vine’s Expository Dictionary, you can get a short dictionary entry, and in the section marked Outline of Biblical Usage, you can see the various ways that the word in question is used in the Bible:įor a deeper definition, keep scrolling down to find the section marked “Thayer’s Lexicon” and get a very detailed definition of the word, including information about how the word was used in literature outside the Bible. This is the page that you are going to want to spend lots of time on. You might want to click “Parse” on the right side of the verb to get more information about the type of the verb you are dealing with, but most of the time, you’ll probably only need to click the Strong’s Concordance ID number: Then, hover your mouse over “Tools” beside the verse you are interested in, and then select “Interlinear”:Ĭlicking interlinear will pull up the original language of the verse (Greek or Hebrew), along with word-by-word comparisons from the original language to English. I use Blue Letter Bible all the time-every time I prepare to preach a sermon, write something where I need to do some closer exegetical analysis, or just where I’m curious about what’s happening “behind the scenes.” Here’s how I use Blue Letter Bible.įirst, from the search bar at the top of the home page, select the Bible verse you want to study: With Blue Letter Bible, however, you get 90% of that functionality for free. There are several powerful Bible software packages that you can spend hundreds or even thousands (!) of dollars to help you study the Bible in the original language, with helps to parse the verbs, see lexicon (dictionary) entries to define the words used, or to see cross references to other places where those words are used. Free Bible Study Tool #1: Blue Letter Bible Here are five of the best free Bible study tools online-or at least, five of my favorites that I personally use all the time. But today in the English speaking world, we are infinitely privileged to have such free access to the word of God.īeyond the accessibility of the Bible itself, we also have extraordinary access to powerful Bible study tools, many of which are available for free. There was a time when the only copy of the Scriptures would have been chained to the pulpit in the town’s church, and there are places where the rulers still ruthlessly hunt down copies of the Bible to be destroyed. We live in a day of staggering privileges.
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