Keyword Study
If you are adept in the use of modern-day computers, you know how useful it can be to use keywords. In the context of Bible study, keywords are those singular words — and their variations — that give a certain text life and meaning.
Keyword studies are an excellent way to find out what God has to say in the Bible about certain subjects, such as love, forgiveness, sin, and blessing — all of which are important in the believer';s life. This is a fairly simple way to study the Bible, because all it involves is going to a concordance and finding out where particular words appear in Scripture.
For example, suppose you were struggling with the idea that God had truly forgiven you for every sin you had committed and confessed to Him. In looking for assurance that you were really forgiven, you would probably want to look up what the Bible has to say about the word forgive. You would start your search by looking up that particular word in your concordance, then moving on to variations of the word (forgive, forgave, forgiving, and so forth). Next, take out your thesaurus and look up synonyms (different words that mean the same thing) for the word you are studying. For example, one synonym for forgive is pardon.
When you do keyword studies, make sure that you look at a word in context so that you aren';t looking at a homonym, which is a word that is pronounced the same but means something different. For example, the word light can be an adjective meaning “not heavy” or a noun meaning “physical light.”
Once you had done that word study, you would know what the Bible has to say about the forgiveness of God. You would know that God';s forgiveness is:
one of His character attributes (Daniel 9:9)
conditional based on our willingness to forgive others (Matthew 6:14, 15)
conditional based on our willingness to confess our sins to God (1 John 1:9)
conditional based on our willingness to repent, or turn away from, our sins (2 Peter 3:9)
something we can ask Him for (Matthew 6:12) •
available to us through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:7)
These are just a few of the many Biblical passages dealing with God';s forgiveness. And when you take the time to use variations of the word forgive, you will see the provision God has made to forgive sin and the conditions attached to that forgiveness.
