Concordance
The Concordance: Going Beneath the English
A concordance allows you to look up any English word in the Bible and discover the original Hebrew or Greek word behind it. You can then see every other place that original word appears in Scripture — which reveals the range of meaning, the nuance, and the theological weight the English translation may not fully convey.
For example: the English word "love" in the New Testament translates several different Greek words. Agape (selfless, sacrificial love), philia (affection, friendship), and eros (romantic love) are all translated "love" in English — but they are different words with different implications. A concordance shows you which one is actually being used in any given verse.
HOW TO USE BLUE LETTER BIBLE AS A CONCORDANCE
Go to blueletterbible.org and navigate to your passage.
Click the verse number to see a tools menu for that verse.
Select "Interlinear" to see the original Greek (or Hebrew) word beneath each English word.
Click the Strong's number next to any word to see its full definition, etymology, and every occurrence in Scripture.
Read a few of those other occurrences to understand the range of the word's meaning.
You don't need to know Greek or Hebrew to benefit from this. The tool does the linguistic work; your job is to bring curiosity and attention to what you find.
Bonus practice: Write out a chapter of Scripture word for word in your journal. It's slow. It's intentional. And it has a way of planting the words more deeply than reading alone — in the body as much as the mind.
