Bible Study: Topical Study

There are many, many ways to study the Bible. Each one is designed to help you understand what you're reading better. You can do a topical study, using a concordance to find all the instances where a particular word is used in the Bible and read the verses nearby. Reading the context surrounding the word in several different books will give you a better understanding of what that verse means. My concordance  found the word "hope", for instance,   in 141 different verses in the Old and New Testaments. If I were to read each one of those verses, perhaps over the course of a few days or a week, I would understand it better than by simply reading one definition in a dictionary. e-Sword offers free concordances as well as Bibles, so don't let finances ever stop you from reading and studying God's Word. Even if I never get a chance to learn the original Hebrew and Greek languages, simply reading a particular word in various contexts broadens my understanding of that word. And anything that helps me better understand the Word of God, works for me!