The languages that our Bibles were originally written in relied on a vocabulary that was more nuanced than the everyday English we use today.  As a result, some of the richness of meaning in many passages is obscured in translation.  In other cases, we may limit our understanding by simply defaulting to current common usage, without considering the full meaning of a word.  Our churches fall into the "Jargon Trap" when they assume we know what a particular bit of vocabulary means.  In any case, a more nuanced understanding of some of the key words used in our Bibles can dramatically impact how we understand and interact with God's Word.

 

Fallen              Repent              Believe

   Eternal Life                 Holy

Praise              Glorify               Love

   Redeemed

 

Fallen

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God... Genesis 3:8

Genesis 3 tells us about the fall of man; many sermons reference a “fallen” world. It might be helpful to sharpen this term up a bit in order to give it a more useful application to our lives.

True, the term fallen encompasses the idea that things are not as they could be, or should be; the term further hints at the idea of a diminished nature or position, even a forfeiture of former privilege.  All useful ideas in a theological sense – but where do we find application for our daily lives in this world, for our walk with God?

It can be useful to think of the word fallen in terms of “Out of Alignment with God.”  All sorts of important questions flow out of this issue of “alignment.”

• is there rejection or acceptance involved on our part?
• is there separation involved? what does it look like?
• do I want to be in alignment with God? If so, how does one get into alignment with God?

To say that it’s a fallen world suggests a sometimes dark and troubled existence; to say that it is out of alignment with God describes, exactly, both the cause of the problem and its solution. This question of alignment has enormous ramifications for our daily lives.

For more on the idea of living in alignment with the Maker and Lover of your Being, check out some of the other chronically misunderstood terms on this page – particularly repent, believe, eternal life, and holy.

 

Repent

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand;
repent and believe in the gospel.   Mark 1:15

Repent is a truly mis-used term, often understood to simply mean “stop sinning”... 

Let’s look at Jesus’ declaration in Mark 1:15 as he announces his earthly ministry.  If by “repent” he meant “stop sinning,” then our entry into the Kingdom is up to us, a matter of earning it, of being good enough.  This is, of course, the opposite of the gospel of grace and forgiveness that he preached.  As Tim Keller puts it, the Gospel is not about changing your life so that you can have a relationship with God, but quite the opposite -- that having a relationship with God will change your life.

The word repent, as used in the bible, instead means to turn away from one thing and towards another… a one hundred eighty degree about-face is a good picture.  To turn one’s back on the desire for wealth or influence or comfort, and turn instead to face God, to desire relationship with Him first and most.  This is a matter of the heart and will; it is more of a lifelong practice than a one-time decision, and is foundational to life with God.  Understood in this way, Jesus’ opening declaration would be more along the lines of:  "The Key to your life with God is now in front of you:  Turn to face God, desire life with Him, and trust me to secure it for you."  Repent and Believe.

 

Believe

What does it mean to believe?

Certainly, it means more than a bare-bones intellectual assent to the Triune God’s existence – as James 2:19 points out, even the demons do that much!

An added step might be to accept that the promises that God or Jesus or the Spirit makes are not lies, but are in fact true…  in other words, taking God at his word.

A deeper sort of belief takes the additional step of trusting one’s self to these promises.  The Greek word translated "believe" (pisteuo) meant "to trust in, to rely upon, to entrust with."  To believe in Jesus, then, means to rely totally and exclusively upon Jesus for our life-with-God.  This puts a very practical “do” into the idea of believing.  We are asked to intentionally, purposefully entrust ourselves, our lives, our very souls, to God’s love as demonstrated to us in his gift of grace in Jesus.  

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life…  John 3:16

This is the choice belief (faith) makes:  Desiring life-with-God … and then entrusting our selves completely to Jesus to make it so.

 

Eternal Life

I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly… John 10:10

The term Eternal Life is often taken to be a synonym for Heaven; in doing so, we strip it of its power to transform our everyday lives. This is a big deal because properly understood, the term Eternal Life can make the difference between a life colored by angst, futility, and meaninglessness, and one colored by significance and purpose – the abundant life that Jesus proclaimed.

Indeed, this abundant life was the object of Jesus’ mission to earth:
...that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life…

The word "perishing" seems as obvious as it is undesirable.  John’s Gospel (10-15) records what Jesus has to say about the opposite – He, the Spirit, and the Father coming to live with/in us in the present. A staggering thought, isn’t it?

And lest we miss the point, Jesus states quite plainly (John 5:24 and 6:47) that one who believes (relies upon Him) has – present tense – Eternal Life.  Jesus is teaching that the Eternal Life he came to bring is a very “now” sort of thing.

These realities are expanded upon by the apostle Paul:  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come… 2Cor 5:17.   Again, note the explicit use of the present, and even past, tense. The good news of the Gospel teaches that our experience of Eternal Life –
that is, life with God – is to begin now.

At its simplest and yet most profound, Eternal Life is plainly defined for us by Jesus himself at John 17:3 ...Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Eternal Life is so much more than a quantity of life; it is a quality of life – a life lived together with God.  This is our hearts’ deepest desire – to live, to walk, in communion with our Maker.

This is what we were made for.

 

Holy

You shall be holy, for I am holy… Leviticus 19:2 / 1Peter 1:16

The word "holy" is often understood to mean moral purity.  There is much more to the term.  The broader meaning of the word Holy, as it is used in scripture, describes a couple of awesome distinctives of our new life with God, Eternal Life…. 

The first distinctive is “other” … Other, as distinguished from the ways and nature of this world.  God is most certainly and amazingly other …  His Kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36)… To the extent that we live our lives together with God and experience Eternal Life, we are very much living in another dimension – very much Other.  Hence Leviticus 19:2 and 1Peter 1:16 – since God is Holy (other), so we naturally "shall be" Holy (other) to the extent that we are connected to Him. 

The second distinctive is “set apart for” ...  That is, to be Holy is to be set apart for God.  Set apart as in belonging to Him, being devoted to Him, even being used by Him.  Quite a thought, isn’t it?  This is the meaning most often used for Holy throughout scripture.  

In a very real sense, we become Holy – other, and set apart for – as a direct result of Christ’s work in bringing us into Eternal Life… bringing an extraordinary present reality to the “New Creation” described in 2Cor5:17.   This is, as a follower of Jesus, what I am most thankful for.

Praise

Praise is fundamental to a life lived with God. To get a better handle on this idea, let's look at its opposite - the first sin.

As depicted in Genesis 3, the first sin was a matter of disobedience and rebellion; disobedience in the sense of violating God's direct command (Gen 3:3), and rebellion in the sense of the desire to put ourselves in the number one slot, in God's place (Gen 3:5).

Underlying this fall was a state of Discontent – of not being satisfied with what God had given, which was quite a bit. Might discontent be at the root of man’s estrangement from his Maker?   Possibly so.  What would be the opposite of discontent?   Gratitude...

Is not gratitude the very most basic form of praise?
When we say “thank you” to God, we acknowledge that he is, that he is good,
that he loves us, and is present and active in our lives.

A thankful heart sort of ticks all of the praise boxes, doesn't it?!!
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever...  Psalm 136

 

Glory/Glorify

Glory (noun) and Glorify (verb) are a couple of words with multiple meanings and applications.  This sounds like it might be complicated, but it is not.  As we read passages containing this word, try experimenting with each of the meanings to see what makes the most sense, what communicates the truth about our God most potently.

Glory is commonly associated with magnificence or splendor or power or excellence.  Glorify means to bring attention to these attributes, along with the naturally resulting honor and praise.

As it is used in our bibles, Glory often refers to God's essential nature, or the unique totality of His Being.  To Glorify is to reveal this essential nature or unique totality.  Reading with these meanings in mind can transform our understanding and application of Scripture, adding a new richness...

(Try this out on this sampling of verses:
Psalms 19:1;  Hebrews 1:3;  John 1:14, 13:31, 17:1-5)

ps...  I wonder what it would look like for me to glorify God
(reveal his essential nature) in my every day life?

 

Love

Much is made of the word "love", both in scripture and in our culture. In scripture, its importance flows from two points which both originate in our God. The first is that Love describes God’s posture toward mankind collectively and each of us individually. The second is that Love describes what God expects of us as his children.

In both of these contexts, it is important to note that the “Love” being referenced is a verb (action) rather than a noun (feeling). By contrast, our everyday use of “love” is that of the noun, or feeling. How we understand this word when we read our Bibles is important, to our understanding of God, ourselves, and our daily walk with Him.

The word “Love” as it is most often used in scripture is something we do, not the warm fuzzy feeling that greeting cards, romance novels, and movies portray. Love serves another while putting self-interest aside. The attention you give a demanding 6 year old. The time you give an elderly parent. The patience you show to your spouse. The helping hand that you lend a neighbor. The gifts you share with the needy.  The grace you extend to someone who has hurt you.

Love is action; it requires effort. It has as its purpose the benefit of another.

Biblical Love is not about conjuring up affectionate feelings; it is a call to positive, other-centered action.

—-----------------

Read through the preceding paragraphs and notice that this description of love as a verb, an action, is true of God’s love towards us. It has as its purpose the benefit of another – us. It reaches its pinnacle in His redemptive gift to us in Jesus, the Christ: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

And what does God expect of us?  *To do the work of Love; to live lives devoted to love . Upon this one command, Jesus says, all of the law and the prophets depend. God is not asking us to hold warm fuzzy feelings for our neighbor; he is asking us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Mt 7:12 --  "Do."

What does the work, the “do” of love, look like for us as followers of Christ?
Paul famously lines it out for us in 1 Corinthians 13… some highlights:

Love is Patient, Gentle, and Kind;
Love is not judgemental, nor proud,
but instead seeks to build up;
it seeks the other's good.
Love does not insist on the last word,
nor on having its own way.
Love is not easily angered,
and keeps no record of wrongs.
Love always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres.

Elsewhere**, Paul encourages us to, as an act of love, bear with the failings of others. This "bearing with" is a big deal, because none of us is anywhere close to perfect, so we all need to patiently and graciously bear with one another.  This means we refrain from the correcting, judging, despising, coaching, fixing, insisting on being right, feeling superior or self-righteous that we are naturally inclined towards… this kind of forebearance is definitely a “do” and not a “feeling.”

And in the place of our instinctively unloving actions, we are to "put on" love in the form of humility, gentleness, kindness, patience, faithfulness, other-centeredness, goodness, and peace.

Love is not easy. In fact, as something that is hard for us to do, it requires the help of the Holy Spirit – notice how similarly the Fruit of the Spirit passage (Galatians 5:22) reads to these passages about the work of love.  And as the Fruit of the Spirit is more than a feeling, so it is with Love: it is something we do, a result of God's work in us -- an outward and other-focused expression of Grace, the practice of a life lived with God.

*(Matthew 7:12 & 22:34-40 & 25:31-46, Mark 12:28-31)   **(Ephesians 4:2)

 

 

Redeemed 

...and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  Romans 3:24

Arguably the key word in Christianity, redeemed/redemption
describes the purpose of Christ’s mission to earth in a single word…
What an amazing word this is!!!

The following is straight out of Merriam Webster:

to buy back: repurchase

to get or win back

to free from what distresses or harms: to free from captivity by payment of ransom

to extricate from or help to overcome something detrimental

to release from blame or debt: clear

to free from the consequences of sin

to change for the better: reform

repair, restore

to free from a lien by payment of an amount secured thereby

to remove the obligation of by payment: the U.S. Treasury redeems savings bonds on demand

to exchange for something of value: redeem trading stamps

to make good: fulfill

to atone for: expiate -- redeem an error

to offset the bad effect of

to make worthwhile: retrieve

 

Synonyms:  rescue, deliver, redeem, ransom, reclaim, save mean to set free from confinement or danger.

rescue implies freeing from imminent danger by prompt or vigorous action:  rescued the crew of a sinking ship

deliver implies release usually of a person from confinement, temptation, slavery, or suffering:  delivered his people from bondage

redeem implies releasing from bondage or penalties by giving what is demanded or necessary:  job training designed to redeem school dropouts from chronic unemployment

ransom specifically applies to buying out of captivity:  tried to ransom the kidnap victim

reclaim suggests a bringing back to a former state or condition of someone or something abandoned or debased:  reclaimed long-abandoned farms

save may replace any of the foregoing terms; it may further imply a preserving or maintaining for usefulness or continued existence:  an operation that saved my life

 

verb

to buy or win back

to free from captivity especially by paying a ransom

to free from the penalties of sin

to change for the better: reform

to remove the obligation of by payment:  the government redeems savings bonds

to make good : fulfill -- redeem a promise

 

transitive verb

repurchase

to repurchase by right and not on the open market:  redeem preferred shares

to free from a lien or pledge usually by payment of the amount secured thereby:  redeem collateral

to exercise an equity of redemption in (real property) by payment in full of a mortgage debt after default but prior to a foreclosure becoming effective:  a right to redeem property prior to the actual sale under a judgment of foreclosure

to exercise a right of redemption in (real property) within the period set by law by a repurchase that voids the effect of foreclosure or sale (Note: A mortgagor with a right of redemption might redeem property within the set period following a foreclosure sale by paying the new purchaser the purchase price, interest, taxes, and lawful charges.)

to remove the obligation of by payment (as at maturity):  redeem a bond

to present and have redeemed

to exchange for something of value