Word studies are part and parcel of the exegetical process by which every preacher and teacher comes to terms with an author's intended meaning. But most of the time an exhaustive word search is neither necessary nor possible for the finite preacher or teacher with limited time. So Professor G. K. Beale's "short-cut" word study is very helpful. Here it is in my own words:
1. Check BDAG for the range of possible meanings.
2. Check a Greek concordance to trace the usage of a word in the NT, especially within the corpus of the author whose writing you are studying. (The same would be true for the OT, but using a Hebrew concordance, of course.)
3. Give most attention to the usage by your author, especially where the word occurs in the book under study.
4. Labor to discern which possible meaning works best in the context under study. Comparing your findings with the best commentaries should be helpful at this stage. When you are finished, you must justify your conclusions based on the context in which the word occurs, not based on etymology or usage elsewhere.
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