The great part about Strong’s Tagged Bibles (aka, Bibles with hyperlinks to a Strong’s Concordance entry) is that anyone can use them. You don’t need to be seminary trained or have years of experience. You can just tap and read. The tool is powerful and practical enough to be useful even for personal study.

As is true with many powerful tools, these resources can do more if you know how to use them. They can also be somewhat dangerous if you don’t know how to use them. We don’t want to simply provide you with the resource; we want to help you get the most out of it and avoid the dangers of misinterpretation.

First, Tap — Strong’s Tagged Bibles

The very first step of using a Bible with Strong’s Concordance is to tap on a word. As soon as you tap, you can see what Greek or Hebrew word is associated with it.

strong's concordance online

If you try tapping a darker-colored word, you’ll realize that nothing happens. That’s because the word isn’t explicitly in the Greek or Hebrew text. Instead, translators added the English word in order for the sentence to make grammatical sense.

When speaking English, we often leave out words because they’re assumed. We also use words that don’t have a direct translation in other languages. Different languages have different rules for what’s important and what can be left out. So, there’s no need to be distraught over not all of the English words having a Greek or Hebrew counterpart in your Bible tagged with Strong’s Concordance.

The Strong’s Dictionary

The Strong’s Dictionary definition appears underneath the Greek or Hebrew word. It reveals all the ways the word is translated throughout the Bible. By reading the definition, you can gain a better understanding of what the Scriptures are trying to communicate.

Strongs Tagged concordance dictionary

One truth to keep in mind: all languages contain words that hold multiple meanings. How and where a word is used in a sentence, paragraph, chapter, and book is a critical part of understanding what the word means. Words can never be understood in isolation.

For example, the word “dodge” can mean to get out of the way of something. It can also mean to lighten part of an image or photo (like the “dodge brush” in image editing programs). If you were to simply look up the dictionary definition and pick the first one, you could find yourself very confused. Another example is the English word “love.” When someone says “I love ice cream,” he means something very different from when he says “I love my wife” (or at least he ought to).

The point here is that we want to let the Strong’s dictionary help us get an idea of what the word can mean. Then we should let the context of the passage determine what the word does mean. If we’re in a class on photography, “dodge” probably doesn’t mean “get out of the way.” It probably means “lighten.” But we wouldn’t want to make that assumption in gym class.

Search for All Occurrences of a Word

So, now that you know to look for context, how do you do it?

See the button that says “Search for g5457”? Selecting it allows you to search the Bible for that particular Greek or Hebrew word. Searching in this way will give you more consistency. For example, there are several Greek words for love. If you search the New Testament for the English word “love” you will see results for one English word (“love”) but several Greek words.

Searching by the Strong’s number (g5457, in our example) will only show you results for the specific Greek or Hebrew word you selected.

Bible tagged

Word Study Tips!

So, you have a list of all the verses a specific Greek or Hebrew word is used. Now what?

This information can help you build context… and the best way to build context is to start close and work outward. Here is an easy checklist for you:

  • First, did the author use this word in the same verse or chapter that you’re currently reading? If so, how does that usage further inform your understanding?
  • Did the author use this word elsewhere in the book you’re currently reading? Can this also inform your understanding?
  • Next, did the author write any other books of the Bible? If so, check to see if they used this word there as well. How does this provide additional context to your current passage?
  • Lastly, where else is this word used in the Bible? Try your best to work chronologically here.

Generally speaking, this isn’t going to completely change the way you read a passage of Scripture. The translators know the languages a lot better than most of us, so we should usually end up agreeing! But doing a word study can help us discover a richness to the word that we otherwise might not have seen. A Strong’s Concordance can also help us to connect things in Scripture that we otherwise might not have thought to connect.

Searching Dictionaries with Look Up

exhaustive tagged bible

The Look Up feature allows you to find additional dictionary entries for specific Greek and Hebrew words. There are a lot of really helpful dictionaries out there. Many include information from in-depth word studies. They may also include information about where the word came from and how it was used in books outside the Bible. These can be extremely helpful to supplement the word studies that you’re doing. Here are a few you might find helpful:

Gain Context with Strong’s Concordance

strong's concordance app dark mode

Tools like Strong’s Tagged Bibles and Bible dictionaries can be really helpful in understanding what God has to say. We should pray that, in our study, we will allow God to correct us with what we learn about the words of Scripture. This is very different from using the tools to bend God’s words to mean what we want them to. Humility and openness to correction are important here.

If we come with tools, ready to be taught by the Scriptures, then we will be in the right place to see God’s love for us in Christ. We will see how we are to live in light of that love. We hope these tools prove helpful in your studies.

PSALM 119:130 (ESV)

The unfolding of your words gives light;
it imparts understanding to the simple

1 Comment

  1. Love these study aids and the detailed information in the blog..
    thanks much!