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This book, authored by the Lord's half-brother (Galatians 1:19), is directed to the "twelve tribes scattered abroad." This is either Jewish Christians or a figurative designation for "spiritual Israel" (Galatians 6:16), the church generally. The narrative is sometimes characterized as the "gospel...
"Confession" means "to say the same thing." In connection with our salvation, confession is the personal acknowledgment of the transgressions in our lives that God has spoken of and condemned through divine revelation. But confession involves more than mere tacit acknowledgment. Judas confessed: ...
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. "Hell" is not a good rendition; it leaves a woefully faulty impression. Hades is the place of depa...
A version of the Bible is a translation of the Scriptures from the original languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek) into another language. Versions may be classified as ancient or modern. Some ancient versions are noteworthy. The Septuagint (represented by the Roman numeral LXX) is a Greek transla...
"Translation" is the process of bringing the message of the Scriptures from the original languages -- Hebrew, Aramaic (O.T.), and Greek (N.T.) -- into the various languages and dialects of the nations of the world. Translations vary in quality. Producing a translation from one language to another...
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," though he considered it more likely that it comes from hado, signifying "all receiving." In the King Jame...
The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the very foundation of Christianity. If the Lord was not raised, the religion of Christ is a hoax (cf. 1 Cor. 15:4; 14-19). The Savior's resurrection was foretold by the prophets (Psa. 16:8ff), and promised by Jesus himself (Jn. 2:19-22; Mt. 12:39...
The New Testament is a collection of twenty-seven documents with the following characteristics: • They are classified as "scripture," a term suggesting a divine writing (1 Tim. 5:18; 2 Pet. 3:16). • Eight known writers — Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, James, and Jude — produced these boo...
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. 26:2). The word "Easter" derives from an old Anglo-Saxon term related to the goddess of spring. It was ...
The word "Trinity" does not occur in the Scriptures. The term combines the dual concepts of "three" and "unity," and thus it does convey a biblical idea, namely that the Godhead is composed of three distinct personalities that share one, identical essence, the nature of deity. God is "one" as to ...
Jude, a brother of James and a half-brother of Jesus (1:1; Matthew 13:55), is the author of this general epistle. As he began a letter about the "common salvation," he felt compelled to issue a warning against certain false teachers who, under cover, were attacking the nature and work of Christ. ...
This term is found only a few times in the English Bible. In four cases it renders the Greek threskeia, which basically means holy service, the exercise of devotion to a transcendent Being or beings -- whether true or false. In Acts 26:5 it is used of Judaism, yet in Colossians 2:18 it refers to ...
Discipline is actually a process of training that begins at the point of one's conversion and continues throughout one's life. It includes teaching, example, exhortation, admonition, etc. (2 Timothy 3:16–17). The most extreme and ultimate form of church discipline, however, is the withdrawal of f...
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 history. Justin Martyr (Dialog lxxxi) used the term for the general or universal resurrection of the de...
The New Testament uses two principal Greek words to represent the idea of "fighting" and "war." Polemeo (18 times) means to "fight" or "make war." Strateuomai (7 times) means to "carry out a military engagement, to be a soldier." The Scriptures use war in both literal and figurative senses. Physi...
References to "worship" are common in both the O.T. and the N.T. The Hebrew term shachah (about 100 times) refers to "bowing" before an object of religious devotion. Similarly, proskuneo (59 times) in the N.T. means to prostrate oneself, do obeisance. Worship can be offered to the true God (Gen. ...
The term "heaven" is used in different ways in the Bible. The expression may refer to the atmospheric region just above the earth where the birds fly, the rain forms, and the wind blows (Gen. 1:10; 7:11; Dan. 8:8). The outer space region that houses the stars, the sun, and the planets is also des...
The Greek word psallo is found five times in the N.T. It is rendered by the English terms "sing" (Rom. 15:9; 1 Cor. 14:15; Jas. 5:13), and "make melody" (Eph. 5:19). In the era of classical Greek (cir. 900 to 330 B.C.), the word was used in the sense of "to touch" or "to twang," as with a carpent...
The word "dogma" is not found in the English Bible, but it is in the Greek New Testament. • In classical Greek, the term had a range of meanings from opinion to a legal edict. Luke refers to a census "decree" that Augustus sent forth (2:1). This was dogma with the force of law. See also the accus...
This phrase appears eight times in the New Testament. It is the ancient term for what modern society calls "Sunday." The significance of this day is readily apparent in the following cases: • It was the day on which Christ was raised from the dead (Mt. 28:1; Mk. 16:2, 9; Lk. 24:1; Jn. 20:1). • Th...
