Strong's Concordance Bible Search

 I remember the good old days very well.  By that I mean the days before 1990 when Bible Software was not readily available and the little that did exist was not all that great.  Now we have a plethora of Bible software apps at our fingertips and some of the best programs are free or very low cost.  I have tried many but I am going to be commenting on e-Sword because it works so well on many operating systems.  (platforms)

When I was in Bible college and for years after, if I wanted to research a Bible verse, Strong's Concordance was an important tool.  Only problem was, it was BIG.  You just didn't carry it around in your pocket or brief case.  Using it was a bit tedious too because the print was pretty small.  You could easily spend hours looking up Greek and Hebrew words and researching their meaning, and uses.

All that is over now thanks to e-Sword and other Bible research programs and apps.  Here are a few very simple things you can do and you can do them very quickly.  This is by no means an exhaustive explanation.  Just the tip of the iceberg.  

Lets take a verse, Colossians 1:16 - (I don't even have to type it out.  Just cut and paste.)

(Col 1:16)  For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:  (KJV)

Here it is in NASB - it is easy to compare them.

(Col 1:16)  For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.

If I want to see the Greek words using Strong's I can simply click on KJV+ or NASB+ and magically, the Strong's number appears with the text.  Here is an image of KJV+

Now the fun begins.  All I have to do is point to one of those Strong's numbers and the Greek word from Strong's pops up in a little window.

This is what the pop up window looks like.  Personally, I don't like pop up windows and prefer to have that feature turned off.  

If you double click on a Strong's number, then the word appears in the Dictionary window of the program.  (see below)

More options are available when you use the Dictionary window.  (see below)  Other resources are shown at the top of the window.  You can click on any one that has a (i) icon and see more information.

One more thing about Strong's as it is used in e-Sword and most other Bible apps.  You can do an actual search using the Strong's numbers and find verses that you may have missed by searching for the English word.

To do this, type or cut and paste the Strong's number into the Search box and then run the search.  Every occurrence of that Strong's number will be found.  This works using the iPad or any other platform.  If you have a computer version of e-Sword, even more search options available.