Glossary Terms

  • Church

    The English word “church” does not translate the Greek ekklesia — it derives from kyriakos, a pagan term for a building belonging to a lord. The Greek ekklesia — the called-out ones — was used by NT writers to describe both the NT body and Israel in the wilderness (Acts 7:38), connecting directly to the Hebrew qahal, the assembled congregation, which…

  • Churchspeak

    Religious vocabulary so overused across so many traditions that it no longer points reliably at anything. Words like “saved,” “grace,” and “repentance” still circulate widely but carry different meanings in different mouths — creating the appearance of shared understanding where little exists.

  • Corrupt

    From the Latin corruptus — broken, destroyed, altered from its original state. In Scripture, describes something changed or turned from what it was meant to be — a neutral description of a process, not primarily a moral label. The word itself has undergone the very process it describes.