10 Key Bible Terms That Christianity Misunderstood

Scholars are giving the religion a crash course in old words

Back in my church days, I thought pastors knew everything. They went to seminary and knew Greek and Hebrew—and everything about Christianity?

Come to find out, what they “knew” was mostly what they were making up. Let’s look at ten words whose definitions scholars have had to re-think.

1. “Faith”

Everyone knows what faith means. You know something so deeply that you don’t need to listen to facts? It’s “the opposite of reasoned judgment in consideration of the evidence,” as Matthew W. Bates explains. “Faith was reckoned not just an alternative but a superior way of knowing what is true and what is false.”

In his 2017 study, Salvation by Allegiance Alone: Rethinking Faith, Works, and the Gospel of Jesus the King, Bates explains the word pistis actually means, not any traditional idea of ‘faith’, but—‘allegiance’ for a leader.

In 1 Maccabees 10:25–27, a king checks in on a political ally, and says: “Now continue still to keep faith [pistis] with us, and we will repay you with good for what you do for us.” The idea in the Bible seems to be—to place your “faith” in Jesus. Of all the deities, he’s your king.

2. Believe

Every Christian knows what believe means. It’s an inner mental state of accepting everything you’re told? N.T. Wright notes an interesting usage in the writings of Josephus. A rebel leader is urged to give up the rebellion and join political forces. The advice: “repent and believe in me.”

But this is what we find in the gospels. When Jesus says to “repent and believe,” Wright suggests, he’s “telling his hearers to give up their agendas, and to trust him for his way of being Israel, his way of bringing the Kingdom, his kingdom-agenda.”

It’s trusting in a divine leader. He’ll come through for you.

3. “Repent”

Everyone knows what repent means. You’ve been doing awful, evil, bad stuff, and now you have to say you’re sorry? No.

To ‘repent’ is just the ordinary idea of changing your mind. God does it often (cf. Gen 6:6; Exo 32:12; 1 Sam 10:11, 35b, etc.). When seeing things aren’t going too well, He re-thinks and makes changes. Rik Peels notes that to ancient Jews, “God is someone who is gracious, abounding in love, and someone who repents.”

When we hear “repent,” we’re just seeing people changing their minds in response to new information. John the Baptist says “repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand” — which means the messiah is expected, and followers are prompted to do an immersion ritual.

4. “Righteousness”

Every Christian knows what righteousness means. It means—being good? No. This time a Hebrew word is clearly in view. As N.T. Wright notes: “The Hebrew word for ‘righteousness,’ tzedaqah, indicates a relationship: a committed, covenanted relationship.”

The Bible is very political, and lays out responsibilities of citizens in a new ‘Kingdom of God’. Those wishing to live in that future world—and become ‘family’ with God—are to work on learning ‘righteousness’, which means two key godly values: justice and charity.

As Anya R. Topolski notes, “charity and justice are co-constituitive and tzedakah is a fundamental political responsibility.”

5. “Fellowship”

Everyone knew what fellowship meant. That was a few minutes of talking before the sermon?

That’s not really what the Bible has in mind. Fellowship, koinónia, is the regular Greek word for the closeness of married people. As George V. Jourdan notes, the word means “the partnership of an intimate friendship or of a lifebond of matrimony.”

In the New Testament, the Christian activity is understood as a group marriage. Note Acts 4:32: “No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.”

The Christian community is “one body” (1 Cor 12:27, etc.). It’s a group theological marriage for a people seen as ‘married’ to the deity.

6. “Love”

Every Christian knew what love meant in the Bible. It was being a little nicer to people? Or there was a few types. The phileo type was good friends, and agape love was a higher, more beautiful love!

The Bible didn’t talk about eros love. Because God hates sex?

Come to find out, all that usual Christian chatter is wrong. In the Bible, when Jacob loves Rachel his wife, it’s agape. When Samson loves Delilah, it’s — agape. The Song of Songs uses — agape! “The use of agape does not preclude what we would call the erotic dimension,” notes Theodore W. Jennings, Jr.

In a study of agape, Ceslaus Spicq concludes it means “family love.”

God loves as Father. Christians love him as his children, and they love one another as brothers (1 Jn. 3:16). We are bound to love Christ and Christians because “everyone who loves the parent loves his child also” (1 Jn. 5:1). If we have God for a Father, we cannot help loving his Son (Jn. 8:42) . . . The counterproof, “He who does not love his brother is no child of God” (1 Jn. 3:10), is as absolute as the proof, “We know by this sign that we love the children of God; when we love God.” Agape is a familial affection…

The biblical teachings are all about family — God bringing humans into His family, as we practice godliness by treating fellow humans as family.

7. “Lust”

Christians think Jesus goes around looking into their heads to see if they’re thinking “bad” sex thoughts—then punishes them! Isn’t that Matthew 5:28? “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Actually, the word translated “lust,” the Greek word, epithumia, is just the word for really wanting something. Jesus ‘lusts’ in Luke 22:15 — to eat Passover! Later in 1 Timothy 3:1, Paul says leaders have to “lust” for the job. They have to really want to be helpful to people.

Jason Staples notes that epithumia can point to the Hebrew word for ‘covet’ — a crime not of sex, but theft of property. It seems Jesus is identifying an intention to steal a ‘woman’. But note—in Bible prophesy, nations are often identified as females. Jesus is likely speaking as a prophet here.

8. “Fornication”

Every Christian knows what fornication means. It’s sex outside marriage! Umm, but Jewish law is fine with multiple wives, concubines, harems, and sex with slaves and prostitutes is okay.

This is a world without a marriage ritual. A bride was seen as purchased. And how about slaves? They couldn’t get married and were often used for sex. Are they not allowed to be Christian?

Actually, Bible scholars have known for awhile that the very rare word porneia, translated ‘fornication’ and ‘prostitution’, might not be describing a sex act. “The N.T. evidence is not at all clear,” sighs Bruce Malina, back in 1972. In 1980, John Boswell calls it “misleadingly general.” Many scholars prefer to leave it untranslated.

Bit by bit, the truth has been coming out. Porneia is found throughout the Old Testament in reference to idolatry. The ‘fornication’ being committed is with other deities.

“As it turns out, most of the references to prostitution in Paul’s Bible are figurative, referring to Israel’s unfaithfulness to the Lord and worship of other gods, which might also help explain Paul’s treatment of porneia in terms of unfaithfulness to God,” note Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner.

9. Sin

Every Christian knows what sin means. It’s anything you might like to do but know is ‘bad’? You wouldn’t be told that in scholarly discussion of sin there’s a vast network of unfamiliar references. “The definition of a sin has proved far more complicated than one might have imagined,” notes Gary A. Anderson in Sin: a History.

Erin Roberts explains that, to Christian tradition, ‘sin’ is understood to mean “a kind of human error that arouses varying levels of disapproval from a deity, or an inborn feeling of guilt or emotional pain that is expressed within religious or theological contexts.”

In regular Greek, ‘sin’, hamartia, just means to ‘miss’, i.e. not hit something you’re aiming for. Sin can be the inability to see, i.e. a problem with vision. As Anderson notes, sin is often understood as a debt.

Sin can involve demons and angels. Miryam T. Brand notes: “Numerous Second Temple texts attribute human sin to the temptation of demonic forces.” I’ve listened to her podcast series Understanding Sin and Evil—three times! But I am still not sure what ‘sin’ is, except that it’s a concept that changes across the vast biblical story.

My best understanding now: sin is death-consciousness. As Jesus is ‘Life’ (cf. Jn 14:6)—sin is the opposite. The follower is meant to focus on life, as ‘love’ in the largest sense is the cultivation of life.

10. “Born again”

When I was growing up, the point of religion was to get “Born Again,” and after that, control your sex life. Do that, and you were in good shape.

The language of ‘rebirth’ or being reborn is found throughout the New Testament, from John 3 to 1 Peter 1:23 (“born anew”), and Titus 3:5 (“rebirth”). It’s not clear this means you know you’re bad and need ‘Jesus’. It might be you’re seen as being re-embodied after death.

The word ‘saved’ just means ‘delivered’, which could be a reference to childbirth into a new body. Adele Reinhartz tracks the birth imagery in the John gospel, and suggests: “Jesus’ purpose was to create a new and unique species — ‘children of God’ — of which he was the first exemplar.”

In a study of birthing language in the gospel narratives, Thomas Andrew Bennett notes: “the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth is known as the birthing pangs — the labor — of God, who bears renewed, spiritual sons and daughters into the world.”

Do I understand it all? Hell no. And between you, me and Jesus, I don’t think anyone does.

But I find Bible scholarship more interesting than what I heard in church. And, day to day, I suspect that “love one another” stuff—is a good idea. 🔶

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