Word-Smith.info contains dozen of Bible study resources that I’ve authored over more than 25 years. Each resource has come into being through one or more of the following processes:

• personal Bible study
• lay teaching ministry in several churches
• contributions to various magazines and Web sites
• employment in Christian college libraries

Needless to say, a person can grow quite a bit as a writer, researcher, and interpreter of Scripture over the course of a couple of decades. In light of these facts, it should come as no surprise that the resources are diverse in approach, editorial style, and level of complexity. My study and writing have evolved in a few other ways since the early 1990s.

• I’ve become more skilled in adherence to standards of biblical scholarship—bibliographic citation, abbreviations for books of the Bible, and the like.
• I’ve established a pattern of studying from several English Bible versions in addition to the KJV (principally, the NET Bible, the NKJV, and the ESV).
• I’ve learned to read profitably from authors whom I might previously have looked at with a degree of suspicion.

Something else significant has happened in the past 25 years: Writing and publishing technologies have evolved rapidly. At this point I’ve chosen to present my writings in PDF format. In a number of cases I had to digitize a paper document because I didn’t have a corresponding machine-readable file. While I’ve done my best to provide the highest-quality presentation possible, scanned paper just doesn’t measure up to a born-digital document.

The pressures of life have sometimes hindered me from completing ambitious study goals, and I’ve had to jettison a number of projects along the way. I’ve determined that some of these studies, while incomplete in relation to my original intent, are still worth sharing. For example, readers will find a series of lessons on the book of Romans that goes no further than chapter 7. While I would like to complete that study someday, I felt that the lessons that I did prepare were solid and might prove useful to someone.

All in all, I hope that Word-Smith.info will provide some valuable resources for your personal study and, if you happen to be a Bible teacher, for your public ministry as well.

—Gregory A. Smith