The Strong’s Concordance is a valuable Bible study tool. It gives us the ability find any verse in the Bible. As we use the Strong’s Concordance and other Bible study tools, we are following Yahusha’s instructions spoken in John 5:39.
Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
When we search the Scriptures, we see the beautiful picture of the Father’s guiding hand in history. In the Bible, we clearly see His plan of redemption and reconciliation of mankind to Himself. We see His generous gift of justification by faith in Yahusha, our Messiah.
Yet, sadly, many of us don’t see our Elohim who is both a loving and just Father. Millions of Believers in the Messiah truly want to see Yahusha throughout the pages of the Bible. But we have not been taught how to search Yah’s Word.
For those of us who have not attended seminary, there isn’t an abundance of instruction on how to use Bible study tools such as a Strong’s Concordance. I mean step-by-step instructions such as this:
First, you do this. Then, you do this. Next, you can do this. Finally, you can look at this.
In a previous post, I wrote about three benefits of using a Strong’s Concordance. Today, I want to focus on how to find a Bible verse using the Strong’s Concordance. I truly believe this Bible reference tool is not beyond the reach of almost every seeker of Truth. I want to do what I can to help you to access more of Yah’s Word for yourself.
Does Your Concordance Match?
Before beginning, it’s important to first check if your Strong’s Concordance matches the Bible that you have. The original work corresponded with the words in the King James Version of the Bible. Other translators may not have chosen to use the same word. At the time of this writing, the New American Standard Bible (NASB) can also be used with the Strong’s Concordance. If your translations doesn’t match, you may get frustrated when you don’t find a word or reference that you search for.
How a Strong’s Concordance Is Organized
It is helpful to understand how a concordance is organized, its layout. The first section contains all the English words for the Hebrew, Chaldee and Greek words in the Bible. The words are in alphabetical order (ABC order) just like any dictionary. It is the largest part of the Strong’s. In mine, this section is from page 1 to page 1,260.
The next section is The Appendix to the Main Concordance. It contains 47 common words (in my 1984 edition) that we would not necessarily use to search for verses in the Bible. This section is also organized in ABC order. These pages in my concordance begin at 1 also and go to page 85.
The next section of the Strong’s begins numbering at a new page 1 and ends at page 243. This section contains parallel verses from six different translations of the Bible. It doesn’t have all of the Bible verses. It shows a comparison of key verses from Bible translations that the publisher chose.
The fourth and fifth sections of the Strong’s contain dictionaries of the Hebrew and Greek words that are in our English Bible. The Hebrew dictionary has 127 pages of text. The Greek Dictionary has 79 pages of text. At the end of the Strong’s are a few pages of supplemental information on the Bible’s contents. These 12 pages of information are not numbered.
How to Find a Verse
For this tutorial, we will use the largest portion of the Strong’s Concordance. This is the first section. Let’s search for a verse that came to my mind the other day.
As I was driving home, I was praying and praising Yah. I was thinking about patience as it relates to answered prayer. I was reflecting on how it is important to not get ahead of Yahuah when we don’t have a clear release to do something or to go a particular course in life.
I have made this mistake many times and I’m learning to wait. As I was praying and praising Yah, a verse of Scripture came to my mind. This verse talks about patience as it relates to possessing our soul.
I began to quote it to myself, but I got hung up on the word, “will.” I could not remember if the verse said, “In patience you will possess your soul” or “In patience you possess your soul.” Word choice to the writers of Scripture is deliberate and intentional. Realizing this helps us to remember to slow down and pay attention to the seemingly minor words such as “will.”
Let’s use this verse to slowly walk through the steps of locating a verse in the Strong’s Concordance. I will get very detailed here.
Use Key Words to Search the Strong’s Concordance
Once we know a few words in the verse that we want to find, we have to decide which word in the verse to use in our search. I initially chose to search for the word, “possess.” I later changed my key word to “patience” and you will see why as we continue.
Remember that a concordance is in ABC order. Turn to the section of words that begin with P. Turn past Pa—Pe—Pi—Po. “Pochereth” will be the first “Po” word (By the way, Pochereth is a family of exiles-just thought you’d like to know that). Once you get to the “Po” words, really slow down in turning your pages—Poi—Pol—Poo—Por. “Portions” is the last word before our key word, “possess.”
There are 106 Bible verses that contain the word, “possess.” Yes, I counted them for this writing. They are listed in the order that they appear in the Bible. It is first in Genesis 22:17. The last reference is in First Thessalonians 4:4. If you know which Testament (Old or New) that your verse is in, you can focus on that part of the Bible, thereby shrinking your search area. In my case, I wasn’t sure of the general area that the verse was in.
Now, we have to make a decision. We have to decide if we want to take the time to scan all 106 references or to search for another key word that may have fewer entries.
This is a key point in searching for a verse in the Strong’s Concordance. To save time in searching, always choose a less common word in the verse. There will be fewer Bible verses to search through. If you have the time, however, it is rewarding to actually look through all of the verses. While you are not reading the entire Bible verse, you will expose your mind and spirit to more of Yah’s word.
In my case, I didn’t have the extra time that day. So I decided to search for a different key word, “patience.” I did not choose to search for the word, “soul” because I knew it is a more common word that has many more entries than our key word, “possess.” Another factor that influenced my decision is that “patience” is also in the Ps and I didn’t have to look far. I’d advise you to put a bookmark on the page of the first key word in case your second or even third word has even more entries. The bookmark helps you to quickly turn back to the first one if you choose.
Following the same steps in finding “possess” we turn backward in the concordance to the “Pa” words. Working our way back we turn past the Po—Pl—Pi—Ph—Pe—Pa. Once there, we look for “patience,” our key word. We can see that it is in 34 verses. This is a better key word to use in our search for the Bible verse.
How Verses Are Organized in the Strong’s Concordance
Let’s now talk about what we see on the page. Concordances give only a portion of the verses that contain the key words. Each verse gets one line of text followed by a series of dots. These dots clearly separate the words of the verse, from the book, chapter and verse numbers. After this is a series of numbers.
These numbers aren’t necessary to use when locating a verse in the Bible. They are useful when using the Hebrew and Greek dictionaries in the back of the concordance to study individual words in the Bible.
We won’t find our key search word, “patience” spelled out completely in each notation. Instead, only the first letter of the word that you are searching for is given. For example, our first reference to “patience” is in Matthew 18:26. The last reference is in Revelation 14:12. Here are both entries in the Strong’s Concordance. The first letter of our key word is italicized.
Next, we scan the entries. We look for a verse that contains both the words, “patience,” “possess” and even “soul.” We don’t have to go very far. The third entry contains our verse:
This is the complete process to locate a Bible verse using the Strong’s Concordance. I am grateful to be able to use the Strong’s Concordance to see exactly how it is written in the Bible.
Now you know how to find any verse in the Bible using your Strong’s Concordance. Once you have searched for a few Bible verses, you will find that it is quick and very easy to do. If you have any questions about this process, please leave it in the comments below. Also, you can subscribe to this website to receive notification of more Bible study tutorials and resources as I post them.
