There are about 750,000 words in the Bible. The longest word in the Bible is the prophetic name of the prophetess’s child in Isaiah 8:1, 3; the name of this child is “Maher-shalal-hash-baz.” (Eighteen letters). This name means, “Hurry to the spoils!” or “He has made haste to the plunder!” We often have articles and books dedicated to explaining long words; think of the big theological words that end in ‘tion;’ Justification, adoption, glorification, sanctification, propitiation, imputation, expiation, regeneration, or salvation. This is just a short list of big words. Theologically loaded words can be a gold mine of rich theological significance. Yet, rich, theologically significant words do not have to be hard to pronounce or spell. In the Bible, even short words have a depth to them. In these everyday words of pronouns, conjunctions, and other grammatical phrases come rich theological truths that familiar people like you and me can find the sweet grace of the Gospel.

Paul writes to Timothy and explains, “All of Scripture is God-breathed…” (2 Tim 3:16). This includes these small words found within the Bible. Over the coming weeks (months and maybe years), we will be looking at some of these words in Scripture that will, I pray, drive us to a greater appreciation of reading and studying God’s word, but ultimately doxological praise and adoration of God who the Scriptures write about. I pray we see the beauty of God’s grace, the merciful hand of God’s compassion, and the sweet news of the Gospel for you and me. We would see it in the ordinary words that we use every day, but we would see the profound theological truths found in these small words. Throughout this study, we will be looking at words that range in length from two letters to nine letters; most of them will be three to five letters in length. We will find the wonderful (genuinely full of wonder) truths in these few letters.

Small Words, Big Meaning looks at one small word of Scripture each week. Read the whole series.