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Jesus once prayed that God's will might be done on earth, just as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10). Jehovah's will is what is best for humanity and what he requires us to implement in our lives. The Lord has the right to exert his will because of who he is (deity), and he can impose it in any way c...
"The Lord's supper" is the name Paul gives to the memorial meal of bread and fruit of the vine that Christians eat in remembrance of Christ's death. The expression appears only once in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 11:20). The word rendered "Lord's" (kuriakos) means "belonging to the Lord." It...
The Holy Spirit is a divine being who is spirit in nature (Luke 24:39) and holy in character. • The Holy Spirit is not a mere force (as some cultists insist, e.g., the "Jehovah's Witnesses"); rather, he is an individual entity, a person, who speaks, teaches, helps, etc. (1 Timothy 4:1; John 14:26...
The Greek expression for "lord" is kurios. One must look at the context to observe the sense conveyed in a particular setting. "Lord" may be used as a mere title of respect, or it can suggest one who is deity. (a) Kurios is sometimes used in the sense of one who is owner or master of a thing, i.e...
The term "sabbath" is derived from the Hebrew shabath, to "cease." The use of this word for the "seventh day" reflects the Genesis account of creation, when, after six days of creative activity, Jehovah "ceased" his labor (cf. Ex. 20:8-11). There is no astronomical phenomenon to explain a seven-d...
A number of terms, both in the O.T. and the N.T., suggest the idea of a "path" or "way" of travel. The words come to be employed of a "course of conduct," whether for good (Ex. 18:20; 32:8; Dt. 31:29; Jer. 6:16) or evil (Num. 22:32; Psa. 139:24; Isa. 65:2; Acts 14:16). (a) Jesus declared that he ...
The Greek term for "man" is anthropos. Plato suggested that the word reflects the idea of an "upward looking" one, hinting, perhaps, that man finds no rest upon this planet. He is ever searching for his Maker. The term "man" is used generically -- for human kind. "Let us make man in our image mal...
The Hebrew term yom, with its Greek equivalent, hemera, typically signifies a unit of time determined by the full rotation of the Earth upon its axis. That is its meaning in Genesis 1, concerning the "days" of the creation week. Exodus 20:11 makes this clear, as its meaning is the same as the Sab...
More than a dozen words are used in the Greek N.T. to represent various aspects of "sin" (e.g., bad, evil, transgression, iniquity, trespass, godless, unrighteous, etc.). The most frequently employed word is hamartia (173 times), which provides the picture of "missing the mark." The word is used ...
Demons (not "devils" KJV) were evil spirits (Mt. 12:43-45) that were permitted to inhabit the bodies of some people during the days of Christ and his apostles. Almost certainly, this was to allow the Savior and his men the opportunity to demonstrate the superiority of God's power over Satan (see ...
A "redeemer" is one who is qualified to effect "redemption" on behalf of one in need of the same. The term "redeem" means "to buy out of," (Grk. exagorazo -- ek "out of" and agorazo, "buy"), as in the case of a slave who is bought out of the state of bondage. When Jehovah delivered his people fro...
"Belief" is the noun form of the verb "believe." True belief embraces several important elements. Despite God's invisibility and inaudibility, our belief in him is not rooted in superstition. Belief is not a blind leap but an intellectual awareness of certain theological and historical facts. It ...
The gods of the biblical era were profuse. They were the inventions of the human mind in a world that had rejected the true God and his sovereignty over humanity. The Old Testament prophets denied the existence of pagan gods (cf. Jer. 2:28), as did the New Testament writers (1 Cor. 8:4). Neverthe...
In the N.T. (cf. Heb. 7:6, 9), this term derives from the Greek, dekatos, meaning "tenth." (a) In the Patriarchal period of history, it appears to have been the practice that godly men gave a tenth of their income to the service of God (Gen. 14:20; 28:22). (b) Under the Mosaic system, tithing was...
The term "works" is a perfectly noble word; yet, in the minds of some, there is a distorted view of this biblical term. Especially has the Protestant world reacted negatively to Catholicism's "works system" -- an ideology contrary to the divine plan of redemption. This reaction, however, is itsel...
Faith is the willingness to trust and obey God without ever having seen him. It is not a gullible "leap in the dark," as existential "faith" postulates. Instead, it rests on evidence that allows us to maintain a prima facie (self-evident) case for belief. Faith involves believing the truth, not m...
A priest is one who offers sacrifice and ministers in services pertaining thereto (cf. Heb. 5:1). This term implies recognition of sin and the need for atonement, in some fashion or another. (a) The term is used of pagan priests who sacrificed to false gods (Acts 14:13). (b) In the earliest age o...
Several Hebrew words are rendered by the English "wine," the most common of which are yayin (134 times) and tirosh (33 times). The basic term for "wine" in the Greek New Testament is oinos (33 times). In both Hebrew and Greek, wine is a generic term for the liquid produced from squeezed grapes. S...
Jesus once declared that he came to this earth to give up his life as a "ransom" for others (cf. Mt. 20:28; Mk. 10:45). The term for "ransom" is lutron. Lutron derives from luo, "to loose," and when the suffix is added, the meaning suggested is "the means of loosing." In the O.T., the word was us...
A word that denotes the commencement of anything with a point of origin. The "heavens and the earth" had a beginning (Gen. 1:1); hence, they are not eternal. Material origins must be explained supernaturally since there is no known naturalistic explanation. When the Universe experienced its begin...
