Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Word Study: Delude

We're officially halfway through our study of Colossians!  Yay!

For the index for the Colossians Series, click here.

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Did you learn a lot about "delude" in your study yesterday?

There are several ways to do a word study, and it can be very stressful and overwhelming if you don't know where to begin or have a basic plan in mind.  So today, I am sharing my "mini word study" method with you!

This is a basic method that you can use day-to-day in your studies, not an in-depth method like what I would use for scholarly research.


This is the simplest way to find out more about a word, especially if you are using any kind of study Bible.  Unfortunately, in my Bible there are only cross-referencing notes for Colossians 2:4.  What to do next?


This can be a bit tricky if you A) don't have a concordance or B) don't know how to use a concordance.  While I will be covering how to find and use a concordance in detail next month, here are the basic steps necessary (once you have a concordance).


This is where things can get tricky; the number next to your passage (normally on the far right) corresponds to the back of the book where Hebrew and Greek words and meanings are given.  While we aren't worried about the original Greek, there is also a brief definition given.


My number is 3884; after skipping over all the Greek parts, you can see a definition:  to deceive, delude.  Then (after the symbol :- is shown) it lists all the times this specific word is used in the Bible. (As beguile 1 time, as deceiving 1 time).

I know what you're thinking: "De, that is a lot of work to do to get not a lot of information."  In this case, you're right.  We probably could have found out similar information from a regular dictionary or a Google search.  However, sometimes the amount of information you get from this method is very abundant!

Optional Word Study
Use this same method to check out the word "persuasive" from Colossians 2:4.  (In the KJV, it is the word "enticing.")  The results are much more interesting and give a great picture into what we are studying tomorrow:


Mark all the references to both differently; we already marked the reference's to God's Wisdom with our Colossians 1 marking on Monday, so choose a different marking for man's wisdom.

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