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90 entries tagged wisdom · 1 scroll · 89 terms.
A Greek word meaning unmixed, undivided, or without guile, used in Scripture for an innocence that is whole rather than naive, the quality translated 'harmless' in Matthew 10:16.
Greek for 'withdrawal' or 'retreat'; the disciplined practice of stepping back from constant availability so that judgment, prayer, and self-recovery have room to happen.
A Greek word for shameless, unembarrassed persistence: the boldness of the friend at midnight who keeps knocking until the door opens.
Greek ἀνάληψις, 'taking up,' the early-church word for the Ascension of Christ, naming the moment the risen Lord is enthroned at the Father's right hand and his mode of presence shifts from visible body to indwelling Spirit and reigning Head.
From the Greek anamnesis, the calling-to-mind that is also a making-present; covenantal remembrance, distinct from mere recall, as in 'this do in remembrance of me.'
The Hebrew word for humility, understood as a clear-eyed assessment of one's standing and a posture of receptive yielding, not self-erasure.
The Greek word for release and forgiveness in one breath, used for the cancelling of a debt, the freeing of a captive, and the remission of sins, and the word behind Christ's 'release to the captives' in Luke 4:18.
From the Hebrew root arav, to pledge oneself as surety for another's debt, the 'striking of hands' that makes the guarantor personally answerable if the borrower fails.
The Greek noun for self-sufficiency, used by the Stoics as the goal of a virtuous life and by Paul as the contentment that is learned in Christ rather than supplied by circumstance.
From the classical Greek αὐτουργία, the workman's discipline of doing the work with his own hands, the craft that travels because it is inside the workman, not in his tools.
The Hebrew word that holds work, service, and worship in a single term, naming labor as vocation rather than mere output.
The biblical account of a unified human civilization building a tower to heaven and the divine dispersal that followed (Genesis 11:1-9), naming the recurring pattern of collective ambition that outpaces the question of whether the ambition is right.
Bachan is the Hebrew verb meaning to test, assay, or prove something by trial, as metal is proved in the refiner's fire.
The Greek New Testament word for kingdom or kingship, naming the realm where a ruler's authority is actively exercised, used both for earthly rule and for the rule of God.
The Hebrew word for understanding, the faculty of distinguishing between things and grasping what they are for, held in the tradition as distinct from raw knowledge or accumulated information.
The Hebrew verb bāḥan, used in the Old Testament for testing or assaying, the slow examination by which God or a watchful human discovers what is actually inside a heart, a city, or a piece of metal before it is trusted with weight.
The Hebrew word for diligent; its root means sharp, cut, and decided, used in Proverbs for the person whose focused, deciding attention, not mere effort, leads to plenty.
Choq (חֹק) is the Hebrew word for a fixed decree or appointed boundary set by God, a limit established by the One with authority to set it, which holds because He upholds it.
The Stoic principle of the 'proper use' of what is given: the first and foundational discipline of philosophy, governing how one employs circumstances, tools, and capacity wisely rather than merely efficiently.
The practical wisdom of looking carefully around oneself before acting, weighing the ground, the moment, and the consequences of the next step.
The biblical and classical practice of seeking the considered judgment of those who know what the ruler or operator does not, especially before consequential action.
The biblical and Stoic discipline of doing the arithmetic on a commitment before making it, named in Luke 14:28 with the Greek psephizo, to compute with pebbles.
The inward posture of perpetually reaching for the next holding or advantage, which the Hebrew prophetic tradition treats as the disordered root of structural consolidation rather than a private moral failing.
Hebrew for word, deed, or thing; the active speech of God that does not merely describe but accomplishes what it is sent to do.
Greek for service or ministry; in the New Testament the same word covers both practical hands-on service (such as serving tables) and the ministry of the word, with the difference between the two left to spiritual discernment rather than to status.
The discipline of testing something to prove whether it is genuine before trusting it, from the Greek word for assaying metal and coins.
Greek for 'as a gift, freely, without cost'; in Matthew 10:8 Jesus uses it twice in the same sentence to bind the receipt of grace to the giving of grace, forbidding the recipient to put a price on what was never priced when it was given.
The Socratic discipline of testing a claim by cross-examination until it either survives or breaks, the ancient root of what an AI loop calls its verify step.
The Hebrew concept of steadiness, firmness, and faithfulness under load, the reliability that holds a thing in place over time.
The condition, described by philosopher Martin Heidegger, in which modern technology causes us to perceive everything, including human beings, as a resource to be ordered, stored, and dispatched on demand.
Greek for self-mastery: the active exercise of inner rule over one's own power, distinct from temperate disposition.
The Greek word for diligent, sustained, attentive care, used by the Stoics for the discipline of the self and by the New Testament for the stewardship of a household or a flock, especially in the absence of the one who entrusted the charge.
Greek for a steward, guardian, or agent entrusted with another's authority who must act on the owner's behalf and give an account for how that authority was used.
Greek word for authority, right, or jurisdiction; the legitimate power to act or to forbid, given from above and held on loan.
Ga'avah is the Hebrew word for pride: the swelling loftiness and self-exaltation that lifts a person or nation up until it believes nothing can bring it down.
Hebrew for boundary, border, or limit; a load-bearing biblical concept for the difference between the bounds God sets, which hold, and the bounds humans set, which do not.
The Greek word for watchfulness or vigilance, used in the Gospels to name the posture of a servant who stays alert while the master is away.
A Hebrew word for steadfast covenant love, the loyal mercy that God shows his people and that he requires them to extend to one another.
Greek for stillness or quiet of soul: the trained interior calm that lets a person work from rest rather than striving, unmoved by the pull to measure up.
The Hebrew word at the heart of Ecclesiastes, meaning vapor, breath, or fleeting mist, usually translated 'vanity': the quality of striving hard after what cannot finally be held.
The biblical figure of a paid laborer who guards a flock he does not own, contrasted in John 10 with the shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep; the type of every worker whose stake in the work ends when the wages stop.
Greek for confession or acknowledgment, literally to speak the same word; in the New Testament it is the public act of saying out loud what one already believes in private, with the cost of being heard part of what makes the saying real.
Greek for patient endurance: the steadfast continuance to remain under a burden and finish what you began, rather than the mere passing of time.
Greek for endurance or steadfast 'remaining-under': the capacity to stay under a heavy, slow, or contested load without being moved out from under it, until the work is finished.
Latin for 'image of God': the theological doctrine that every human being bears the image of their Creator, grounding human dignity in origin rather than utility or achievement.
The Greek word for the right or opportune moment, distinct from chronos, the sequential time a calendar tracks.
The Greek New Testament word for calling, naming the summons issued by a higher authority that gives a person their vocation and identity prior to any later employer or institutional role.
Greek for communion, fellowship, or participation; in the New Testament the word the church uses for the real sharing that joins believers to Christ and to one another through the Eucharist, the Spirit, and common life.
The classical and Christian virtue of being great-souled, of pursuing greatness in a way that is rightly ordered toward the good rather than toward appetite or display.
Greek for patience or forbearance, literally a 'long temper': the deliberate withholding of a judgment or punishment one has the power to inflict, held open as room for repentance.
The name Jesus gives to wealth as a rival lord, a system of valuation that competes with the one He claims. The word names not money itself but the posture of treating money as the final measure of worth.
Greek μαρτυρία, 'witness' or 'testimony,' the New Testament word for the first-person, embodied act of bearing public testimony to what one has personally seen and heard of Christ.
The Hebrew word for the deep, given rest that is the gift of God, distinct from mere cessation of activity.
The imitation of another's desires, strategies, or behaviors, often unconscious, in which rivals converge on identical goals precisely because each is watching and responding to the other rather than reasoning from independent first principles.
A Hebrew noun meaning the post, station, or watch where a guardian stands; in scripture it names both the discipline of keeping watch and the place from which the watch is kept.
Hebrew term for the shaped, creative labor that gives work its identity, the kind of work the Sabbath commandment names as ceasing on the seventh day.
Greek for watchfulness or sobriety of spirit: the disciplined inner attention that notices when the heart is being pulled and refuses to follow without examination.
Greek for 'master of the house,' the householder in Jesus' parables who entrusts his estate and its work to servants, goes away, and returns to reckon its true condition.
Greek for household management; the New Testament word for stewardship of what is held in trust, where the steward is judged not by how much he amassed but by how faithfully he accounted for what was given.
The Hebrew word for oppression by defrauding: withholding what is owed to a worker, taking the fruit of another's labor without paying the wage due.
The Greek philosophical and biblical word for formation: the long shaping of a person into wisdom and virtue through disciplined practice and correction, in contrast to the modern instinct to be filled with content or served by tools.
Greek paraklētos, 'one called alongside,' the Johannine title for the Holy Spirit promised by Christ as advocate, comforter, helper, and indwelling Spirit of truth.
The biblical and early-Christian word for sojourning, the posture of living as a resident-alien whose citizenship belongs elsewhere, drawn from a Greek verb meaning to dwell beside someone else's house.
Greek for bold, open, public speech, saying what is true in the open square without fear, especially when the cost of saying it is real.
A Greek theological term for the mutual indwelling of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, naming the doctrine that the persons of the Trinity exist in such complete communion that the life of each is the life of the other two.
The Greek New Testament word translated 'love of money,' naming a disordered affection that bends a person's center of gravity toward accumulation.
Greek for love of the stranger; the New Testament's word for the discipline of receiving a person you did not choose, treated by Christ and the early church as a load-bearing virtue rather than a social courtesy.
Greek for hedge, fence, or partition wall, used in Scripture to name the protective boundary that surrounds something valuable or contested.
The Greek word for practical wisdom, the capacity to deliberate well about what is good and expedient in the actual circumstances of a life, distinguished by Aristotle from theoretical knowledge and from craft skill.
The Greek term for the disposition to grasp for more than one's share, used in classical political philosophy and the New Testament as the root vice behind structural consolidation.
The Greek word for breath, wind, and Spirit that runs through the New Testament Pentecost narrative, naming the Holy Spirit as the living breath of God given to the church.
The Greek New Testament word for a thing made or fashioned, used by Paul to name the human being as God's workmanship, created for good works prepared in advance rather than self-invented.
The Greek New Testament virtue of meekness or gentleness: enormous strength held under complete discipline, not the absence of power but its mastery.
The classical and biblical virtue of practical wisdom: the capacity to discern the right course of action in a particular situation, grounded in foresight and governed by right judgment rather than impulse.
Greek for to count or calculate, literally to reckon with pebbles; the verb Jesus uses in Luke 14:28 for counting the cost of a tower before laying its foundation.
The divinely appointed day of rest, rooted in God's own rest after creation, establishing that human worth is not measured by labor output.
The Greek concept of leisure understood not as idleness but as time freed from necessity and given to higher pursuits; in classical philosophy, the condition that makes genuinely human activity possible.
Hebrew verb meaning to keep, guard, watch over, and preserve with active intentional care; the word in Proverbs 4:23 translated 'keep thy heart with all diligence.'
Shaqad (שָׁקַד) is a Hebrew verb meaning to be wakeful, to stay alert, to keep watch over something without sleeping, carrying the sense of a vigilance that does not drop its guard through the night.
The Hebrew word for emptiness or vanity, used in Psalm 127:1 to describe labor that succeeds at its task yet rests on nothing, the building done in vain when the builder forgets who keeps the house.
The Hebrew word for falsehood, deception, and vain or empty gain -- the thing that presents itself as advantage while carrying the seed of its own consequence.
Greek for sound-mindedness, temperance, and self-restraint; the cardinal virtue that names the discipline of knowing what is enough and stopping there.
The Greek word for a seal or signet impression, used in the New Testament to describe the unseen mark of authority that grants the bearer access and identity.
The Greek word for a unit of weight and the largest unit of currency in the ancient Mediterranean, used in the Parable of the Talents to name the capability a master entrusts to a steward for return.
The Greek word for applied craft or skill, distinguished from theoretical knowledge, used in Scripture and philosophy to name the embodied capacity to make something well.
The end, purpose, or final aim a thing is ordered toward; the goal that gives an action or an institution its coherence.
The Greek and Christian theological term for contemplative beholding, the mode of knowing that receives rather than extracts, distinct from scientific investigation and technical skill.
The classical-Christian vice of empty glory, the love of being recognized as great, distinguished from pride, which loves the superiority itself.
The Greek word for yoke, the wooden bar that joined two oxen at the neck, used in Scripture as a figure for the burden, allegiance, or teacher under which a life is lived.
