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Welcome to Day 1620 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom Bible Study – Word Studies and Distribution – Meditation MondayWelcome to Wisdom-Trek with Gramps! Wisdom is the final frontier in gaining true knowledge. Our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, seek out discernment and insights, and boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend; this is Gramps; thanks for coming along on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy Today is Day 1620 of our Trek, and it is time for Meditation Monday. Taking time to relax, refocus, and reprioritize our lives is crucial in order to create a living legacy. For you, it may just be time alone for quiet reflection. You may utilize structured meditation practices. In my life, Meditation includes reading and reflecting on God’s Word and in prayer. It is a time to renew my mind, refocus on what is most important, and making sure that I am nurturing my soul, mind, and body. As you come along with me on our trek each Meditation Monday, it is my hope and prayer that you, too, will experience a time for reflection and renewing of your mind.  We are continuing our series this week on Meditation Monday as we focus on Mastering Bible Study through a series of brief insights from Hebrew Scholar, Dr. Michael S. Heiser. Our current insights are focusing on practical tools for Bible study. Today let us meditate on: Bible Study –Word Studies and Distribution·      Insight Seventy-Seven: Learn How to Do Word Studies Some of my earlier Bible study suggestions included learning about the numbering system in concordances and reverse interlinears. Both assist in doing word studies. You need to know how to study biblical words in their original languages properly. Word studies are an essential strategy for penetrating your English translation to gain insights for interpretation. Today I want to introduce the concept. Learning how to study the Hebrew and Greek words behind your English translation is essential for some simple reasons. One is that a wide range of English words in your translation might be translating the exact original language word. There is no one-for-one correspondence between the English word you read and an original language word. Many English Bible readers don’t realize this. When they do, it prompts some obvious questions: Why don’t translators use the same English word each time the original language word occurs? Shouldn’t they do that to be consistent in translation?   Another reason is the reverse of the above: a wide range of original language words might get the same English word in a translation. Like English, Hebrew and Greek words have synonyms — words whose meanings are closely related (e.g., canine, dog, hound, pooch). There’s definite overlap with those terms, but there is also nuanced meaning. So it is with Hebrew and Greek. But you’ll never discover Hebrew and Greek synonyms if you can’t do word studies. Synonyms also prompt questions: Why would the biblical writer choose one word over another? Was he trying to communicate something by the choice? Doing word study requires (a) detecting the original language word behind the English word, (b) finding all occurrences of that word, (c) asking good interpretive questions about how biblical writers use that word, and (d) having access to tools that analyze and discuss the meaning of original language words according to their usage in the Bible. In the following insight, I’ll discuss some of the requirements for word study. I’ll also talk about how not to study words—logical fallacies in word study that lead to false conclusions and flawed interpretation. For now, realize that you’re at the mercy of translators unless you can get beyond your translation. Word study is a key to doing that. ·      Insight...