Today for Things I Love Thursday, I thought I’d take a few minutes to tell you about my favorite study Bible.

The Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible is a fantastic tool for any serious student of Scripture – my parents gave this to me 10 years ago (wow – 10 years… I did not think it had been that long!) and I absolutely love it! Why, you ask? Let me tell you.

Often with other study Bibles I have used (which is a limited list – I’m sure there are other really good ones), I find that they have lots of footnotes and information that isn’t really necessary. The things that I don’t understand and really want to study and know more about seem to be carefully avoided! :) This Bible doesn’t have many footnotes, but usually if there are some they are extensive and in-depth, and usually they center on difficult passages. It is edited by Spiros Zodhiates, and he carefully explains original languages, cultural contexts, and other important aspects to “rightfully dividing” the passage.

As you might guess from the title, key words are coded with numbers from Strongs Concordance and keyed to Hebrew and Greek dictionaries and lexical aids in the back of the Bible. Grammatical codes are also given for many Greek verbs, which allow a person who loves to study but has no Greek training (me, me!) to know the tenses of the Greek verbs even though they are studying from their English Bible. Now, there are other ways to look these things up, but having the most commonly used words already keyed to the back of the Bible in your hands makes studying a much easier (and portable) process.

I love being able to take this with me to Bible studies and, when a question comes up about something I don’t know about, it’s easy to relatively quickly look up the original meanings of key words – this often answers many questions that arise in a study group and helps keep the “well maybe it means…” discussions to a minimum. This pleases me as it cuts down on heretical theories. :)

I also prefer to study with the New American Standard Version, but that is another discussion entirely!

Do you have any Bible study tools you enjoy? Please share! And you can check out more Things I Love Thursday fun over at thediaperdiaries.net.