Glossary
Glossary
Aaron: Moses’ brother; the first priest to serve in the tabernacle. Israel’s priests were drawn from his descendants (see Exodus 28 – 29).
Abram: (or Abraham: he was called Abram until God changed his name in Genesis 17:5 to reflect the fact that he would be “the father of many nations”.) The ancestor of the nation of Israel, and the man who God made a binding agreement (covenant) with. God promised to make his family into a great nation, give them a land, and bring blessing to all nations through one of his descendants (Genesis 12:1-3).
Absolution: declaration that a person’s sins have been forgiven.
Analogy: a comparison between two things, usually using one of them to explain or clarify the other.
Apostasy: the abandonment of a religious belief or principle. An apostate is someone who once seemed to be a believer but who later totally rejects Christ, turns away from sound teaching, and leaves the church.
Apostles: men appointed directly by the risen Christ to teach about him with authority.
Backsliding: not living the Christian life as wholeheartedly as previously.
Baptism: a symbolic washing with water, either by sprinkling or total immersion, to reflect someone coming to faith in Christ and having their sin washed clean.
Benediction: blessing.
Birthright: in ancient Middle-Eastern cultures, the oldest son inherited the possessions (and sometimes position) of his father.
Church discipline: the practice of reprimanding church members when they are perceived to have sinned in hope that the offender will repent and be reconciled to God and the church. It is also intended to protect other church members from the influence of sin.
Commentator: the author of a commentary, a book that explains parts of the Bible verse by verse.
Common grace: good things which God gives regardless of whether someone is a Christian or not (e.g. rain, oxygen).
Cornerstone: a stone that forms the base of a corner of a building, joining two walls.
Covenant: a binding agreement between two parties.
Covenant line: the family line of Abraham, with whom the Lord made his covenant—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Day of Atonement: the one day in the year when the high priest could enter the Most Holy Place in the tabernacle/temple to make a sacrifice on behalf of the people (Leviticus 16).
Denominations: different branches of the church (e.g. Presbyterian, Southern Baptist, Anglican/Episcopalian, Methodist).
Destroyer of the firstborn: in the book of Exodus, God rescued his people from slavery in Egypt through sending plagues. In the final plague, the Lord sent “the destroyer” (Exodus 12:23) to kill the firstborn in every family. This could be avoided only by killing a lamb in the firstborn’s place so that God’s judgment would “pass over” that household (see Exodus 12 – 13).
Devotional life: regularly praying and reading the Bible.
Doctrine/Doctrinal: doctrines are statements of what is true about God.
Elders: men who are responsible for the teaching and ministry of a church.
Evangelicals/Evangelicalism: Christians who emphasize the Bible’s authority and the need to be personally converted through faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Exodus: literally “way out” or “departure”; the historical period when the people of Israel left slavery in Egypt and began to travel toward the promised land (i.e. the events recounted, unsurprisingly, in the book of Exodus).
Fruit of the Spirit: the characteristics that the Holy Spirit grows in Christians, including love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (see Galatians 5:22-23).
Gnostics: the name for various religious groups in the first centuries AD. They thought that the material world was evil and denied that Jesus was really human.
Grace: unmerited favor. In the Bible, “grace” is usually used to describe how God treats his people. Because God is full of grace, he gives believers eternal life (Ephesians 2:4-8); he also gives them gifts to use to serve his people (Ephesians 4:7, 11-13).
Heretical: a belief which directly opposes the biblical gospel (i.e. the opposite of orthodox). A heretic is someone who, despite being challenged, continues to hold to heretical beliefs.
Incarnation: the coming of the divine Son of God as a human, in the person of Jesus Christ.
Inspired: divine inspiration is the belief that all of the Bible was inspired by God, so that the humans writing the words wrote exactly what he intended them to (see 2 Timothy 3:15-17; 2 Peter 1:20-21).
Intercede: speak on behalf of someone in difficulty or trouble.
Intercessor: someone who speaks on behalf of someone else to help them. Jesus intercedes on our behalf to God the Father.
Isaac: one of the patriarchs.
Jacob: one of the patriarchs.
Joseph: The second-youngest son of Jacob, and the great-grandson of Abraham. He was the first of Abraham’s family to live in Egypt; the rest of the family followed him there, and in subsequent generations were enslaved.
Joshua: leader of the people of Israel after Moses. One of only two people who were both rescued from slavery in Egypt and also set foot in the promised land of Canaan.
Judah: in this context, one of the sons of Jacob. God promised that the Messiah would come from the family line (tribe) of Judah.
Justification: the declaration that someone is not guilty, not condemned, completely innocent.
Law/The law: the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, which include laws about how the people of Israel were to relate to God and live as his people.
Lazarus: brother of Mary and Martha, whom Jesus brought back to life (John 11:38-44).
Loins: in this context, the region of the sexual organs.
Lord’s Supper: or Communion: sharing bread and wine together to remember the body and blood of Jesus.
Manna: the “bread” that God miraculously provided each morning for the Israelites to eat while they were journeying to the promised land (see Exodus 16). It looked like white flakes.
Man of God: servant of God; a Christian.
Mediate: act as a go-between for two parties in a dispute.
Messiah: Christ, the anointed one. In the Old Testament, God promised that the Messiah would come to rescue and rule his people.
Minister: one who serves; in this context, Jesus serves by mediating on our behalf with God the Father.
Moses: the leader of God’s people at the time when God brought them out of slavery in Egypt. God communicated his law (including the Ten Commandments) through Moses, and under his leadership guided them toward the land he had promised to give them.
Objectively: not influenced by feelings or opinions.
Papacy: the office or authority of the Pope.
Patriarch: the “first fathers” of Israel, to whom God gave his promises—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Pharisees: a Jewish group who lived by strict observance of both God’s Old Testament law and Jewish tradition. They mistakenly thought their law-observance made them right with God.
Philistines: ancient enemies of the Israelites.
Proof text: Bible passage used to prove a teaching point.
Puritan: a member of a sixteenth and seventeenth-century movement in Great Britain which was committed to the Bible as God’s word, to simpler worship services, to greater commitment and devotion to following Christ, and increasingly to resisting the institutional church’s hierarchical structures. Many emigrated to what would become the US, and were a strong influence on the church in most of the early colonies.
Redeemer/Redemption: the act of redeeming, or releasing, sinners. In Bible times, one could redeem a slave by paying their owner the full price for their release. By dying on the cross, Jesus paid the penalty for sin to release Christians from slavery to sin, death and judgment (see Romans 3:23-25; Ephesians 1:7).
Redemptive history: the process throughout history by which God has and will rescue his people from sin to live in relationship with him forever.
Regenerate: born again; made spiritually alive through the work of the Spirit at the point of putting faith in Jesus Christ.
Remission of sins: forgiveness; redemption.
Revival: reawakening of religious fervor.
Sabbath: Saturday; the holy day when Jewish people were commanded not to work (see Exodus 20:8-11).
Saints: all Christians.
Samaritans: people from the region of Samaria; a people group with mixed Jewish-pagan ancestry and religion.
Samuel: a prophet who led Israel before the reign of King Saul.
Sanctify: make holy or make more like Christ, by the work of the Holy Spirit.
Saul: here, the first king of Israel (see 1 Samuel 8 – 10).
Sovereign: having supreme authority / being the supreme ruler.
Subjective: something which is based on feelings and opinions; e.g. “She is the most beautiful woman in the world” is a subjective opinion.
Supplications: earnest prayers.
Tabernacle: a large, tented area where the Israelites worshiped God, and where his presence symbolically dwelled (see Exodus 26; 40).
The body of Christ: Christians; the church.
Theological: focusing on God’s perspective and the truth about him.
Theology: the study of the truth about God.
Theophany: visible manifestation of God.
Theses: statements.
Tithe: here, referring to the Old Testament command to give a tenth of one’s possessions to the work of God.
Transgressions: sins. Literally, the word means “stepping across a line”.
Trials: testing periods of life; e.g. a time of ill-health, or persecution, or loneliness, or unemployment.
Types: people or events in the Old Testament that foreshadow someone or something in the New Testament.
Visible church: the communities and organizations in which God’s people gather and can be seen by others, contrasted with the totality of God’s people throughout history and worldwide.
Wrath: God’s settled, right, and deserved hatred of and anger at sin.