Tag
wisdom
58 entries tagged wisdom · 58 terms.
Dictionary
Akeraios
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.
Anachoresis
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.
Analepsis
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.
Anamnesis
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.'
Anavah
The Hebrew word for humility, understood as a clear-eyed assessment of one's standing and a posture of receptive yielding, not self-erasure.
Autarkeia
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.
Autourgia
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.
Avodah
The Hebrew word that holds work, service, and worship in a single term, naming labor as vocation rather than mere output.
Bachan
Bachan is the Hebrew verb meaning to test, assay, or prove something by trial, as metal is proved in the refiner's fire.
Bohan
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.
Circumspection
The practical wisdom of looking carefully around oneself before acting, weighing the ground, the moment, and the consequences of the next step.
Counsel
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.
Counting the Cost
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.
Covetousness
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.
Diakonia
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.
Dokimazo
The discipline of testing something to prove whether it is genuine before trusting it, from the Greek word for assaying metal and coins.
Dorean
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.
Emunah
The Hebrew concept of steadiness, firmness, and faithfulness under load, the reliability that holds a thing in place over time.
Enframing
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.
Enkrateia
Greek for self-mastery: the active exercise of inner rule over one's own power, distinct from temperate disposition.
Epimeleia
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.
Epitropos
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.
Exousia
Greek word for authority, right, or jurisdiction; the legitimate power to act or to forbid, given from above and held on loan.
Gregoresis
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.
Hesed
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.
Hireling
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.
Homologia
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.
Kairos
The Greek word for the right or opportune moment, distinct from chronos, the sequential time a calendar tracks.
Klesis
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.
Koinonia
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.
Magnanimity
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.
Mammon
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.
Martyria
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.
Menuchah
The Hebrew word for the deep, given rest that is the gift of God, distinct from mere cessation of activity.
Mimesis
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.
Mishmar
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.
Mlachah
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.
Nepsis
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.
Oikonomia
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.
Paideia
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.
Paraclete
Greek paraklētos, 'one called alongside,' the Johannine title for the Holy Spirit promised by Christ as advocate, comforter, helper, and indwelling Spirit of truth.
Parresia
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.
Perichoresis
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.
Philarguria
The Greek New Testament word translated 'love of money,' naming a disordered affection that bends a person's center of gravity toward accumulation.
Phragmos
Greek for hedge, fence, or partition wall, used in Scripture to name the protective boundary that surrounds something valuable or contested.
Phronesis
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.
Pleonexia
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.
Pneuma
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.
Prudence
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.
Shamar
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.'
Shav
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.
Sophrosune
Greek for sound-mindedness, temperance, and self-restraint; the cardinal virtue that names the discipline of knowing what is enough and stopping there.
Sphragis
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.
Talanton
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.
Techne
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.
Telos
The end, purpose, or final aim a thing is ordered toward; the goal that gives an action or an institution its coherence.
Vainglory
The classical-Christian vice of empty glory, the love of being recognized as great, distinguished from pride, which loves the superiority itself.
Zugos
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.