This word originally meant “hidden things,” suggesting a special body of information reserved for a select group. Eventually, it came to signify a collection of fourteen or fifteen books, some of w...

The doctrine of hereditary total depravity is also known as “original sin” in Roman Catholicism. This concept asserts that all children come into the world with both the effects and guilt of Adam’s...

Astrology is a pagan superstition that believes the heavenly bodies influence human activity. Additionally, the theory often includes the belief that human events can be predicted by “reading” the ...

This is an expression used frequently in the Old Testament to describe those who forsook their loyalty to God and began to serve Satan again. 

No fewer than thirteen times, the prophet Jeremiah re...

The Christian commitment is biblically designated as a “calling.” The divine calling (Eph. 4:1) is not a direct communication from God or his Holy Spirit, as some today allege. No one on earth know...

The Greek term antikristos is found five times in the New Testament — all references being in John’s writings (1 Jn. 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 Jn. 7). The meaning is “against Christ.”

John warns that man...

Though this word is not found in most English translations of the New Testament, the thought is there in the Greek text. It is an anglicized form of the original term antitupos. The term is rendere...

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 su...

The English word “atonement” derives from an Anglo-Saxon term that practically signifies “a making at one.” Though the English term “atonement” is common to the Old Testament, it is found only once...

The most popular Greek word for “authority” is exousia (sometimes translated as “power”). The term, with various usages, is found 102 times in the New Testament. The word, together with some parall...

The English word “bible” means “scroll” or “book” and refers to the sixty-six documents that comprise the book of Scripture — thirty-nine Old Testament documents and twenty-seven New Testament boo...

On the night before his death, during the Passover celebration, Jesus instituted the communion supper for his disciples (Mt. 26:26ff; Mk. 14:22ff; Lk. 22:19ff; cf. 1 Cor. 11:23ff). The Lord’s Suppe...

The term “body” is used in Scripture in both literal and figurative sense.

Literal user of the body
In a literal sense, the term “body” in Scripture refers to the physical “tabernacle” in which t...

“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. Beli...

In the first century, it was the Jewish custom to recline at the table during meals. Thus, the saying, “recline in the bosom,” signified a place of honor near the host. The apostle John enjoyed suc...

This English term is related to the Latin conscientia, literally, “to know together” or “joint knowledge.” It corresponds to the Greek suneidesis (found thirty times in the New Testament), which es...

The English “elect” derives from a compound Greek term, eklektos (ek — “out of,” and lego — “to gather”). It suggests the idea of being selected or chosen. 

The New Testament uses the term in va...

The term Catholic originates with a Greek word, katholikos, which means “general” or “universal.” The expression is not found in the Scriptures but has been employed in various senses in church his...

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 t...

The Greek term pascha has been mistranslated as “Easter” in the King James Version of the Bible (Acts 12:4). The term is consistently rendered “passover” elsewhere in the New Testament (see Mt. 26:...