Methodology

As a student of Scripture, it is my desire to remain as true to the text as possible. The safest way to do that is to allow the Bible to explain itself. There are few skills required to accomplish this goal. One is to recognize key texts. Another is to find them. A key text is a text that illuminates the subject in question. For example, the Bible tells us to preach the gospel to every creature (Mk. 16:15). That particular text does not explain just what the gospel is, however. For an explanation of the gospel, we must discover a text such as this:

1 ¶ Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand,
2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve (1 Cor. 15).

Another example is the word "redemption." The meaning of "redemption" is defined by the following text:
Eph 1:7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.

This passage clearly explains "redemption" to be the forgiveness of sins.

The Online Bible is a most effective tool for finding key texts. I own a large collection of lexicons and concordances. The Online Bible is comparable to that large and expensive collection in almost every way, when it comes to finding key texts. It is also faster and much more convenient.

The Online Bible incorporates the Strong's numbering system. Each word in the Bible is assigned a number. The numbers are then used to search Scripture for all occurences of the word. Because the New Testament and the Old Testament are in different languages, it is necessary to find the number of the Greek word in the NT and the number of the Hebrew word in the OT. Sometimes, in the blog entries, you may notice the word number like this <2097>.

In the case of "tidings" or "gospel," the NT number is 2097 or 2098. The OT word for "tidings" is usually 01319. OT entries have a zero in front of them <01319> . Many Greek and Hebrew words are translated with different English words. The words 2097/2098, for example, are translated by English words such as gospel, good tiding, and glad tidings in the KJV. That is the beauty of the numbering system. Since you are searching on the basis of the Hebrew or Greek, every place a word is used will appear, regardless of how the word was translated into English.

The Online Bible also includes versions of the NASB and KJV which utilize the Strong's numbering system.