Words Undefined

by MW Cook

You know what’s neat? How many of our most sacred words are actually common words. Wanna see?

  • Angel (Gr. angelos [32]) – Just the Greek word for messenger. Made holy because a lot of the messengers in the New Testament were supernatural.
  • Apostle (Gr. apostolos [652]) – The Greek word for an ambassador. Made holy because it was attached to holy people.
  • Evangelist (Gr. euggelistes [2099]) – Someone who gives out good news.
  • Evangelize (Gr. euaggelizo [2097]) – To give good news.
  • Gospel (Gr. euaggelion [2098]) – From the Old English: god + spel (good story/news).
  • Christ (Gr. khristos [5547]) – The Greek word for someone anointed. A related word appears in John 9:6 – Jesus ‘christized’ the blind man’s eyes with clay.
  • Hypocrite (Gr. hupokrites [5273]) – The normal Greek word for an actor in a play.
  • Deacon (Gr. diakoneo [1247]) – A waiter.
  • Church (Gr. ekklesia [1577]) – Strangely, our English word for this is based on the Greek word ‘kurikon’, Lord’s House. Neat idea, eh? But not what ekklesia means. It means a group of people gathered in one place. It appears in Act 19:32 to describe the angry mob.

Is that neat? It’s neat to me. Makes me wish that we had translated more than transliterated, then we would have less religious lingo.