In a recent small church meeting someone new to the faith let me know that they find all the new words a bit challenging to keep up with. (You keep saying “New Covenant”. Was there an old covenant? And what is a covenant anyway?) So I thought a glossary of terms might be helpful. I’m starting this off small (with a top 10 list) and will continue to develop it over time, so check back as needed.
Want to be a partner in this project? I would welcome your help. Let me know what words you think might need explanation and also what you might change or add to current definitions. Thank you for being a partner!
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AGAPÉ: Absolute unconditional love. Agapé is wholistic and not just emotional. It includes what we feel (the gut) and also what we know (the head), but it ultimately manifests through what we choose (the heart). Agapé is the experience and expression of an attitude of awe and honour toward a person. It is the choice, the decision, the act of the will to relate to someone with unconditional embrace according to their infinite value. Agapé includes action (merely feeling love is not enough if we do not act on that feeling to care for others) and also attitude (merely acting loving out of religious duty or for show is not enough). Agapé is the will to work for the wellbeing of a person. Ultimately, this kind of love is our source (God is love) and our goal (we are called to love like God).
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ATONEMENT: A made-up English word (I guess all words are “made-up”), literally meaning “at-one-ment”, based on the Bible’s theme of reconciliation. Atonement translates the Hebrew kippur, as in the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). Kippur means to cover over, wash away, cleanse, or purify. Atonement, then, is about clearing away whatever is getting in the way of our relationship with God. (The fancy, nerdy, theological English word for this is “expiation” – the wiping away of any impurity.) It is the removal of roadblocks to relationship so that intimacy can be restored. In theological circles, to talk about “the atonement” is to refer to the crucifixion of Christ and what it accomplished for us. (For more, see here.)
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COVENANT: A way of being in relationship with God and others. Like a contract, but less business-y and more relationship-y (e.g., a marriage covenant). In ancient times, a covenant was often established with a sacrifice through a “cutting of a covenant” ceremony (e.g., Genesis 15). Jesus told his disciples that his death would be the sacrifice that begins a New Covenant between God and humanity (Matthew 26:27-28; Mark 14:23-24; Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25; Hebrews 8:13). The Old Covenant (or Old Testament) was a covenant of law, with clear rules and clear punishments for breaking those rules. It functioned as a kind of nanny or tutor to help us grow until we could be mature enough to live in the New Covenant (Galatians 3:23-25). The New Covenant (or New Testament) is a covenant of grace, guided by the Spirit within loving communities (John 1:17). (For more, see here.)
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FAITH: active trust; belief manifest in behaviour. The Greek word, pistis, means both trust and trustworthiness, faith and faithfulness. Faith is how we receive God’s gift of grace (Ephesians 2:8) – we simply trust that Jesus is true, and live our lives in light of that trust (John 3:16).
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GOSPEL: Our English word gospel comes from the Old English word godspell, meaning “good tale” or “good story.” Gospel translates the Greek word, euangelion. In Latin, it’s evangelium, from which we get words like evangelism and evangelical. The gospel is an announcement that is meant to be shared. When an ancient empire won a war against an aggressive enemy so that times of peace and prosperity would be ushered in, the message of this victory was announced far and wide as euangelion—gospel. When new royalty was born, the announcement carried throughout the land was called euangelion—gospel. When something wonderfully “world changing” happened, heralds carried the message to all points of the known world, calling it euangelion—gospel. We see this demonstrated clearly in history when, for instance, the Roman proconsul Paulus Fabius Maximus honored Caesar Augustus by referring to the day of his birth as “euangelion [gospel] for the whole world.” Jesus and his earliest followers chose this word—euangelion—to summarize his good news message of hope and healing, of reconciled relationships and reunion with God. The Gospel can be summarised in three words – “Jesus is Lord” (Romans 10:9), which leads to the conclusion that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). The Gospel can also be studied as the entire story of the birth, life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus – hence the four biographies of Jesus in the Bible are called the four gospels. Jesus announced his Good News message as the Gospel of the kingdom of God – (Matthew 4:17; 6:10; 9:35; 10:7; Mark 1:15; Luke 4:43) – the royal announcement that through Jesus, Heaven is coming to earth and we are all invited to be a part of God’s eternal family here and now. Sin is forgiven, shame is erased, and everyone is accepted. When Jesus was born, an angel announced his birth to shepherds in the fields as “good news that will cause great joy for all the people” (Luke 2:10). Good news. Leading to great joy. Offered to all people. That is gospel. (For more, see here.)
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GRACE: Greek, charis, means a gift of kindness. The Good News message of Jesus is that God is a God of grace, who wants to give us salvation, cleansing, holiness, righteousness, and enlightenment as a gift rather than have us strive or work to attain these things. Grace means that everything religion has ever tried but failed to accomplish, God has done for us and applied to us as a gift. This gift of life and love should empower us to live loving lives, soften our hard hearts, and bend our stubborn will to want to do God’s will (Romans 2:4; 2 Corinthians 12:9; Ephesians 2:8-10; Titus 2:11-12). Jesus never uses the word “grace” in his teaching, but he describes the concept vividly in his parables and shows us what it looks like through his relationships.
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JUSTICE: Two Greek words are translated “justice” in English Bibles. 1. Ekdikeó means to make things right forcibly or to take vengeance, and this is something that disciples of Jesus should not practice but should leave in God’s hands (see Luke 18:1-8; Romans 12:19). 2. Krisis means to make a right judgement, and Jesus usually uses this word to refer to judicial or divine judgement (Matthew 5:21-22; 12:20; 23:23, 33; John 5:22-30; 7:24), again something that is not characteristic of Jesus followers. Both understandings of justice are different to what the Bible calls “righteousness” (Greek, dikaiosuné), even though some Christians, and even some unfortunate Bible translations, use the two words interchangeably (e.g., the NLT translation of Matthew 5:6). Righteousness is the pursuit (or gift!) of right relationship, which is always expressed through mountains of mercy, grace, forgiveness, and the passionate pursuit of reconciliation and restoration whenever there is a relational rift. So JUSTICE is about making a right judgement, enforcing right conduct, or punishing wrong conduct (God’s business, often expressed through the State), and RIGHTEOUSNESS is about having or restoring right relationships (everyone’s business, especially followers of Jesus). JUSTICE falls more into the eye-for-eye category of making things just or fair by pursuing appropriate payback for wrongdoing, something Jesus strongly rebukes in the Sermon on the Mount (see Matthew 5:38-42). Unqualified JUSTICE tends to be punitive. But biblical RIGHTEOUSNESS is always restorative (sometimes expressed through what today is often called “restorative justice”). JUSTICE fights for what’s fair; RIGHTEOUSNESS pursues the unfairness of grace. JUSTICE judges; RIGHTEOUSNESS restores. JUSTICE punishes sin (God’s business, worked through the State); RIGHTEOUSNESS repairs relationships (everyone’s business, especially worked through the Church). Christians should be cautious, then, of those who wear the mantle of social justice warrior or anyone who tends to take their cues from our current cultural trend of performative moral outrage that demands justice. Disciples of Jesus are social righteousness warriors, which means we will fight for justice only if it is accompanied by the pursuit and expression of grace, mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation. (For more, see entry on “Righteousness” and these two studies here and here.)
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KINGDOM: The Greek word, basileia, means monarchy – a nation or society ruled by a king. A kingdom is a realm in which the king’s will and way holds sway, so the character of the king will determine the quality of the kingdom. Jesus framed his Good News message (see our entry on “Gospel”) as the kingdom of heaven coming to earth (Matthew 4:17; 6:10; 9:35; 10:7; Mark 1:15; Luke 4:43). The “kingdom of God” or “kingdom of the heavens” that Jesus announced is not geographical but relational (Luke 17:20-21), describing a way of living where “Jesus is Lord” (Romans 10:9) and we who follow Jesus are his citizens, soldiers, and ambassadors (Ephesians 2:19; 2 Corinthians 5:17-20; 10:3-5; 2 Timothy 2:3-4). Jesus teaches us to pray, not “take us to heaven when we die” but “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (For more, see here.)
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LOVE: (See agapé above.)
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RIGHTEOUSNESS: Greek, dikaiosuné; right-relatedness; loving attention to right relationships; includes elements of justice and equity, but always worked out through the dominant relational values of forgiveness, restoration, reconciliation, grace, mercy, and peace-making; Jesus contrasts real righteousness with religious righteousness, which focuses more so on external sin avoidance and social justice apart from mountains of mercy. The Good News is that God wants to make us righteous as a gift of grace – for God makes righteous the ungodly (Romans 4:5). (For more, see entry on “Justice” and these two studies here and here.)
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SIN: Any attitude, action, thought, or word that does not come from faith, hope, and love; anything that comes between us and God and others and ourselves; a force of separation and isolation. The most common Greek New Testament word for sin is hamartia, which means to be separated (literally not-togetherness). Sin is dis-integrating, always pulling us apart. Sins (plural) can refer to the wrong things we do, whereas sin (singular) can refer to the virus, the disease, the virus in our programming, the flaw in our code, that is passed on to all humans through birth and works to unravel our God-given glory and relational oneness. All humans are image-bearers of God first and foremost, yet all humans are also sinners, since everyone sins to some degree. Through the forgiveness, atonement, and cleansing of Christ, we are turned from sinners into saints (Romans 8:1).
The Sermon on the Mount went straight to my heart. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
I am inviting you to join me and my friends in walking through the Sermon on the Mount over the next few months together. I believe that, whether or not you are a Christian, tracking with this series will be time well spent.
At the very least, these three chapters of the Bible (Matthew 5-7) are like a palate cleanser for our souls, beneficial for us to come back to between reading other books and even other parts of the Bible. For those of us who love Jesus, reading, discussing, meditating on, and living out the Sermon on the Mount helps us stay rooted and grounded in Jesus’ most central message: the good news of the kingdom of heaven on earth.
If you want to join us, this post offers three interrelated suggestions:
1. GO SLOW. Every word has meaning, so let’s take our time.
The Sermon on the Mount is likely Matthew’s condensed compilation of the key elements of Jesus’ teaching: his “Greatest Hits.” Through this one sermon we encounter Jesus gems like the Beatitudes, the inspiration for “this little light of mine,” an extended discourse on how to read and apply Scripture, unprecedented teaching on enemy love, going the second mile, turning the other cheek, the way of peace, the Lord’s Prayer, seeking first the kingdom, the way of simplicity, avoiding worry, not judging, asking-seeking-knocking, the straight and narrow, the importance of fruit inspection, what it means to build one’s life on the rock instead of sand, and more. We have so much to look forward to in this one “best of” compilation.
Matthew the writer intends for us to read the lines, then read between the lines, before and after the lines, and behind the lines. This is discipleship.
From ancient Jewish, pagan, and Christian sources, we know that disciples of a teacher were meant to be active learners, not just passive recipients of knowledge. They were meant to engage, to question, to debate, to kick the ball around conversationally all as part of wrapping their heads and hearts around a teaching.
Matthew’s extreme distillation process – taking what was likely hours or days of conversational, interactive, dialogical teaching and boiling it down to something that can be read start to finish in a few minutes – means every sentence is packed with a universe of meaning.
We will benefit from walking slowly, observing keenly, and inhaling deeply.
2. FORM A CIRCLE. Before diving into the next post, invite one or two (or more) people to join you on this journey.
This teaching of Jesus was given to a community and preserved by a community for application within a community.
Our family used to get frozen orange juice concentrate. The cylindrical containers were kept in the freezer until mixed with three parts water to make orange juice. I think the Sermon on the Mount is like that concentrate. Or maybe the analogy of freeze-dried food works better for you. The Sermon on the Mount as it sits in Matthew’s Gospel is shrunk down, freeze-dried spiritual food. It is nourishing to study it as it is, to learn about the scriptural, historical, and cultural context, to memorize and meditate on the precise words of the text itself. But we are also meant to do more than learn about the text as it is – we are meant to reconstitute the meaning of the message into our lives.
With the help of the Holy Spirit, we are meant to add the water and expand and apply this teaching for our sustenance.
Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. ~ JESUS (John 7:37-38)
The next verse explains that Jesus was referring to the Spirit (also see Ezekiel 36:25-27; John 4:14; Revelation 21:6).
Matthew gives the Church Jesus concentrate. With the Holy Spirit’s help, we are meant to reconstitute it into Jesus juice. (So cheesy, I know, but the analogy works for me and this is my blog.) And, how important it is that we reconstitute Jesus’ teaching using the living water of the Spirit and not the competing and convenient coolaid of current cultural trends. As disciples, we have a different kingdom culture, shaped by the values reflected in places like the Beatitudes, the fruit of the Spirit, and the qualities of love in 1 Corinthians 13.
So how are disciples meant to reconstitute this Gospel concentrate? One word: together.
Discipleship includes a combination of private study, meditation, and prayer partnered with a robust engagement with other disciples within committed community. We are meant to discuss and discern together, then workshop our best understandings by applying them to, expressing them in, and manifesting them through our lives together.
The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount was originally given within the context of a small community of followers that embodied the message together. Then the teaching was condensed into Gospel concentrate and written down so it could be preserved and passed on. Now our job at the receiving end of this process is, with gratitude, to reconstitute the teaching into a small community that embodies the message once again.
One more time for added clarity and conviction: The sermon on the Mount began as a lived-out relational message of life-altering principles, then was condensed into privately written and read precepts for the purpose of preservation, and now it is meant to once again become a lived-out relational experience.
Next, this third thought is really just an expansion of what we are already talking about…
3. LIVE TOGETHER WHAT WE LEARN TOGETHER. Apply as we go. Make our goal transformation not just information.
This is hard and I need help. I’m so used to studying Jesus I can grow comfortable knowing about Jesus rather than really knowing him, communing with him, and walking with him. I fail when I allow being a fan of Jesus to replace being a friend of Jesus. Thankfully, Jesus is patient, forgiving, and helping me by his Spirit through his people.
In Matthew 13:52, Jesus says that “every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.” Scholars see this image as Jesus encouraging his disciples to learn basic Bible information and interpretation (the “old” treasures), but then to also be open to how the Spirit is always leading the Church into fresh understandings and applications for new times and contexts (the “new” treasures).
The Sermon on the Mount was always meant to be lived, not just studied. We should always be asking and answering the “so what” question for our own lives and circumstances.
As small intimate and interactive circle churches of a few believers together, we become living laboratories, experimental communities, embodying our best interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount in our relationships. And as we express our understanding together, we also observe and assess. We pay attention to the fruit we bear together, which can help us adjust our interpretations and applications as we go. Hint: If our engagement with and understanding of Scripture doesn’t produce more faith, hope, and love we’re doing it wrong. (See the post entitled “Coal Fire Fellowship” for more on what the Bible says about this.)
We are always working together to understand the text, then apply our understanding, and then to assess the fruit of our application which should send us back to reassessing our understanding of the text.
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INTERPRET Scripture together.
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EXPRESS our interpretation together.
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ASSESS the fruit of our expression together.
Then we RETURN to step one and reinterpret, reapply, reassess, repeat. This is the loop of learning, the pedagogical process, the hermeneutical cycle that Jesus intends for his disciples.
This process points to something more than “having a Bible study”. It describes a committed community experimenting with ways to live out the truths we discover in the Bible. There is a significant difference.
Now, this is a blog – words on an electronic page – so its specialty is limited to that first step: interpreting together. At the same time, my thoughts here have been and continue to be developed within an experience of interactive and mutually submitted community over time and your engagement and feedback also contributes to this process for all of us going forward. Then it’s up to me and you to express and assess within our own relational circles. (My family and I are blessed more than words can tell by this kind of community and we wish the same for you.)
So if you intend to keep reading these posts, let some friends know, invite them to join you on this learning journey, and dive into the next post together.
And in the meantime, here is a quote from Stanley Hauerwas, an Anabaptist scholar, to whet our appetites:
When he called his society together Jesus gave its members a new way of life to live. He gave them a new way to deal with offenders – by forgiving them. He gave them a new way to deal with violence – by suffering. He gave them a new way to deal with money – by sharing it. He gave them a new way to deal with problems of leadership – by drawing upon the gift of every member, even the most humble. He gave them a new way to deal with a corrupt society – by building a new order, not smashing the old. He gave them a new pattern of relationship between man and women, between parent and child, between master and slave, in which was made concrete a radical new vision of what it means to be a human person. ~ Stanley Hauerwas (Matthew)
How exciting! Here’s to a beautiful 2023 as we walk with Jesus together.
PS: I’ve been asked about resources. Here is a picture of some of the books I’m reading for this series so you don’t have to, or are welcome to.