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Malachi is the last prophet of the O.T. record. In the final era of O.T. history (mid to late fifth century B.C.), the people of God fell into a state of spiritual lethargy. They were insensitive, immoral, and inactive. There was corruption among the priests and among the people. Though the templ...
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 books. These two divisions are sometimes called the two covenants (Ex. 24:7; Mt. 26:28; Heb. 8:7). The ...
The common word for "walk" in the New Testament is peripateo. It means to walk around or, in a figurative sense, "to conduct oneself" in a certain way. It was the common Jewish idiom for how one lived one's life. How one walks is addressed both negatively and positively in the Scriptures. We are ...
Law is a mandate that is designed to regulate procedure; it proceeds from a superior, who possesses authority to rule, to a subordinate. Law is viewed from several angles in the Scriptures. (a) The material Universe was made to operate according to law. For example, the moon and stars operate in ...
The Greek word eirene ("peace") may derive from an original term meaning, "to weave together." This is a very significant Bible word. (a) There is a peace to be sought with God. Sin has separated man from his Creator (Isa. 59:1-2), so that rebellious man has become an enemy to God (Rom. 5:10; Jas...
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...
While the term "unity" is rare in the English Bible (Psa. 133:1; Eph. 4:3; 4:13), the idea prevails profusely in a variety of contexts. (a) Unity is that oneness that obtains perfectly among the members of the divine Godhead -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These holy Persons are "one" (Dt. 6:4; ...
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 antichrist who denies such (2 Jn. 7). See ANTICHRIST. The humanity of Jesus was essential in order that h...
"Predestination" is the idea that God determined something beforehand. The noun itself does not appear in the Bible, but the verb behind it does. The Greek term is proorizo (pro — "before" and horizo — "to mark out, to set a boundary"). It is found six times in the New Testament (Acts 4:28; Roman...
The Greek word is huiothesia, from huios, "son," and tithemi, "to set, put, or place." The word suggests the idea of putting one into the position of a son. It is used five times in the New Testament. • The Christian's reception of the Holy Spirit (see Acts 2:38) is God's pledge that he has been ...
God is often referred to as a "Father" (107 times in the Gospel of John alone). The Scriptures use the term in several ways: God is the Father of all men in the sense that he is the Creator of humanity (cf. Mal. 2:10; Ezek. 18:4; Lk. 3:38; Acts 17:28). He is the Father of Jesus Christ (Mt. 3:17; ...
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 in the New Testament (Rom. 5:11 KJV). There, the original term (katallage) is better rendered as "r...
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 herald. In a broader sense, all Christians are evangelists. However, the term is used in the New Test...
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...
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 ...
The Greek word krino means to render a verdict (Lk. 7:43; Acts 15:9). Prepositions may be attached as prefixes to provide some direction to the term. For example, diakrino suggests the idea of distinguishing between objects (1 Cor. 6:5; 11:31; 14:19); anakrino means to investigate or thoroughly s...
Woman was fashioned from flesh and bone taken from the side of man (Gen. 2:21-24). Male and female qualities were designed by God (Mt. 19:4); these characteristics are not accidental developments of an imagined "evolutionary" process. The Hebrew term for "woman" is ishsha, thought to derive from ...
The act of "laying on of hands" served several functions in the N.T. (a) Some parents brought their children that Jesus might lay his hands upon them (Mt. 19:13). This involved no magical ritual; rather, it was a symbolic act designed to invoke Jehovah's blessings upon these children. (b) Laying ...
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 word "soul" is used in several senses in the Bible. (a) It may signify an individual person (Ezek. 18:20). (b) It may be employed of mere biological life (Gen. 1:30). (c) It can have to do with that eternal aspect of man that is in the very image of God (Mt. 10:28). "Spirit" may be used in di...
