In her What's in a Phrase? — winner of the 2015 Christianity Today award in Spirituality — Marilyn McEntyre showed readers how brief scriptural phrases can evoke and invite. In Word by Word McEntyre invites readers to dwell with single words — remembering their biblical contexts, considering the personal associations they bring up, and allowing them to become a focus for prayer and meditation.

With seven phrases, questions, or prompts for each of the fifteen words she considers, McEntyre guides readers in examining the word from a different angle each day of the week. She draws on the spiritual practices of lectio divina and centering prayer as she encourages readers to allow these single words to help us pause and hear the voice of the Spirit. "I invite you to discover," says McEntyre in her introduction, "how words may become little fountains of grace. How a single word may, if you hold it for a while, become a prayer."