Wednesday's Word - Word Study

You know, there’s nothing like a good word study in the Bible. I don’t believe that I could only name 'one' good thing that comes out of it: Understanding, wisdom, clearing up misconceptions, the deepening depth of what the passage is simply communicating. It really is indeed ‘All Good’. It’s important that we spend time in the Word. A situation arose yesterday at work where the conversation ended up being; “The four horsemen of the Apocalypse”. So I chimed in, and a coworker chimed in with the complete opposite answer. I said that the first horseman is the antichrist, he said it was actually Christ Himself. You literally can’t get any more opposite than that. Question; What would lead one to believe that this first horseman is Christ? And if one believed that to be true, what could persuade them to believe otherwise? A Word study might help.

Here’s the Word:
Revelation 6:2 And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

Now there’s more to studying out this verse, but as I try and keep these 'weekly words' down to a couple of minutes, we’ll just take a small bite.

Notice the word ‘crown’. A word study would show that there are two Greek words for crown; diadem and stephanos. Diadem being a King’s crown, and stephanos being the victor’s crown like the winner of a race or battle. Stephanos is the ‘crown’ used here not the Diadem of a King such as Jesus is. Mistaking this rider for Christ casuses many more scriptual compromises later regarding the antichrist.

I guess the fact that a person can read the Bible and misconstrue a passage referring to the antichrist just goes to show how much of a deceiver this first ‘rider’ will be. There’s much more good stuff to discover. Study your Word.