The most common word in the Greek New Testament that conveys the idea of “forgiveness” is aphesis, a compound term meaning “to send away from.”

Forgiveness is a divine response to human sin, flowi...

Animals operate largely on instinct, an inherited pattern of behavior. Human beings are different. We are made in the very image of God himself (Gen. 1:26-27). We possess volition (i.e., the power ...

The Greek term porne is a comprehensive term, covering every form of illicit sexual activity by human beings. Note the following passages that help us understand this word.

Single people who wish ...

Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria. It was an exceedingly wicked city, but Jehovah loved even these alien Gentiles. Accordingly, he sent Jonah, a prophet from northern Palestine, to proclaim u...

A genealogy is a record of the names of a person’s ancestors or descendants.

Several genealogical lists are recorded in the Bible, for example, in Genesis, Chronicles, Matthew, and Luke. These ar...

The term “evangelist” is an Anglicized form of the Greek euanglistes, derived from eu (“well”) and angelos (“messenger”). 

An evangelist is someone who proclaims the good news, serving as a gospel...

Sometime before the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians (586 B.C.), the prophet Habakkuk wonders why God appears to have ignored Judah’s sins. The Lord informs the bewildered prophet that he is pl...

This word comes directly from Greek into English, letter-for-letter: hades.

W.E. Vine noted that some derive the term from the negative prefix a (“not”) and eido (“seen”), hence “the unseen,” thou...

After Judah’s initial return from Babylonian captivity (536 B.C.), God’s people had begun the work of rebuilding the temple. Then, due to opposition from certain enemies, the Hebrews became discour...

On several occasions the Scriptures speak of a “new heavens and a new earth” (2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1). What does the phrase mean? (a) It does not refer to a literal new heavens and earth. This is s...

Certain first-century Jews sought to persuade Christians (perhaps in the region of Jerusalem) to abandon the faith, return to Judaism, and wait for the real Messiah. The design of this letter, by a...

Three different Greek words are rendered “hell” in the King James translation of the Bible. (a) Hades is found ten times in the Greek N.T.; nine times it is rendered “hell,” once “grave” in the KJV...

“Heresy” takes its rise from the Greek, hairesis (nine times in the N.T.). Originally, the term meant simply “to choose” (Lev. 22:18, 21 — LXX). Then it came to signify a choice, i.e., an opinion ...

“Holy” is from the Greek hagios, which carries the idea of something “separated” from other things. (a) God utterly stands apart from sinful man, and thus he is absolutely holy (Isa. 6:3; Rev. 4:8)...

The Holy Spirit is a divine being who is “spirit” in nature (Lk. 24:39), and “holy” in character. (a) The Holy Spirit is not a mere force (as some cultists insist, e.g., the “Jehovah’s Witnesses”);...

Homosexual activity is sexual intimacy between two persons of the same gender. This form of sexual conduct is uniformly condemned in the Bible. (a) It stands outside the divinely prescribed realm o...

Hosea lived in that era just prior to the Assyrian invasion of the kingdom of Israel (722/21 B.C.). His mission was to admonish Israel for her idolatry (Baal worship), and to urge her to repentance...

The Scriptures emphatically teach that the Second Person of the Godhead, the Word (Jn. 1:1), actually became a flesh and blood human being (Jn. 1:14; Heb. 2:14). One partakes of the spirit of antic...

Two Greek words express the idea of immortality — athanasia (no death), and aphtharsia (no corruption). In the absolute sense, only God possesses immortality, i.e., an underived and unending exist...

Ethics concerns the system or code by which attitudes or actions are determined to be right or wrong. Only two sources can serve as the basis for ethical conduct: ethical conduct is either regulate...