What's In Your Bible?
…for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. – Psalms 138:2
2 Timothy 2:15
Study or Be Diligent?
Greek words as well as English words can have very different meanings depending on the context.
The Greek word spoudazo can mean “to endeavor”, “to be diligent”, “to labor” or even “to be hasty” but it also has the meaning of “to STUDY something with great care”.
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15
Frequently Asked Questions
For this specific topic
Be diligent to study the WORD of truth.
General
Yes. Yes it does.
Additional Documentation
Study or Be Diligent?
Greek words as well as English words can have very different meanings depending on the context.
The Greek word spoudazo can mean “to endeavor”, “to be diligent”, “to labor” or even “to be hasty” but it also has the meaning of “to STUDY something with great care”.
Even if “study” should be “be diligent”, what are you to be diligent in? Contextually it makes perfect sense to translate the word as “study”.
This is the only time the Reformation Bibles translated this word as study; and they all got it right!
The word spoudazo in Greek in Divry’s Modern English-Greek and Greek-English Desk Dictionary in English says “study” as the noun to find spoudee and the verb form, to study, is speudazo. Which means to study! And this is in modern Greek!.
Liddell & Scott Lexicon 17th edition 1887, on page 1630 lists one of the meanings of spoudazo as ‘to study’.
The noun form means ‘study’ and another noun form spoudastees means ‘a student’ STUDY:
Tyndale 1525 Coverdale 1535 the Great Bible 1540 Matthew’s Bible 1549 the Bishops’ Bible 1568 the Geneva Bible 1587 the Beza New Testament 1599 the Douay Rheims version 1610 The Bill Bible 1671 Whiston’s Primitive New Testament 1745 The Thompson Bible 1808 The Improved N.T. 1809 The Revised Translation 1815 the Thomson N.T. 1816 Kneeland N.T. 1823 Webster’s 1833 The Pickering N.T. 1840 Foreign Language Bibles The Italian Diodati 1602 Nuova Diodati 1991, 1927 Italian Rivudeta The French Martin 1744 2010 Reina Valera Gomez Spanish 2014 Romanian Fidela Bible
Special Thanks to Will Kinney for his diligent study in this verse.