Let's face it: We are not good listeners. This is true in private conversations and when it comes to listening to preaching. I want to share a few thoughts on improving our listening skills in this episode. This is not an exhaustive list of tips. These are a few that came to mind as I thought about this issue.

Thank you to Pastor Clint Davidson from Chapel Hill Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL for suggesting this episode.

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In this episode, we continue talking about biblical word studies. Today, we want to discuss six mistakes we can make when doing word studies.

Here is what not to do:
1. Don’t conduct English-only word studies.
2. Don’t rely on a word’s etymology.
3. Don’t ignore how a word’s usage changes over time.
4. Don’t collect evidence for a word’s meaning in an unbalanced way.
5. Remember when a concept is present, though the word isn’t.
6. Don’t be frightened into quitting.

If you can think of anything I missed, reach out and let me know.

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Conducting a word study is many people’s first foray into deeper Bible study. You might do a word study when teaching the Bible, preparing for a small group, or reading for personal edification. Word studies can quickly go awry, so here are six steps to help you conduct a word study with greater confidence.

For this episode, I will use the STEP (Scripture Tools for Every Person) Bible website, which can be found at stepbible.org. Here are the steps we will cover in this episode.

1. Pick the right word.
2. Find the Greek or Hebrew word.
3. Find other occurrences.
4. Note the range of possible meanings.
5. Check with the commentators.
6. Make your decision.

It takes time and energy to discover a word’s meaning in a given context, but with these six steps, the help of the Spirit, and the grace of God, I trust we’ll get it right more often than we get it wrong.

Support the Show.

Subscribe to this podcast. Leave us a review. Point your friends to this podcast.

Contact me at: alancarr@gmail.com.

The podcast is a ministry of Dr. Alan Carr and The Sermon Notebook (http://www.sermonnotebook.org)

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