Core Glossary
08 — Core Glossary: 1 Thessalonians (English → Burmese)
This glossary extends the baseline Romans translation_memory.json for the 1 Thessalonians curriculum. Terms marked [Baseline] must be reused exactly as recorded in the Romans package; no alternative renderings are permitted. Terms marked [New] are proposed additions arising from this book’s analysis (see 07_semantic_analysis.md) and should be added to translation memory before Phase 2 processing begins, with Critical/High entries flagged for theologian review per the pre-flight checklist.
Doctrine tags map to this curriculum’s five core doctrines: RC = The Return of Christ, RB = Resurrection of Believers, SC = Sanctification, HG = Hope in Grief, DL = The Day of the Lord. Terms supporting general epistolary/church-life content are tagged GN (General).
Reused Baseline Terms (Exact Reuse Required)
| Term (EN) | Greek | Burmese | Transliteration | Risk | Doctrine Tag(s) | Chapters | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gospel | εὐαγγέλιον | သတင်းကောင်း | thadin kaung | High | GN | 1, 2 | Reused exactly per baseline. |
| Grace | χάρις | ကျေးဇူးတော် | kyayzu-taw | Critical | GN | 1, 5 | Never ကုသိုလ်/ကံကောင်းခြင်း. |
| Faith | πίστις | ယုံကြည်ခြင်း | yun-kyi-chin | Medium | HG, RB | 1, 3, 4, 5 | Object of faith = Christ’s death/resurrection (4:14). |
| Called / Calling | κλητός / κλῆσις | ခေါ်တော်မူသော / ခေါ်တော်မူခြင်း | khaw-taw-mu-thaw | High | SC | 2, 4, 5 | 5:24 “he who calls you is faithful.” |
| Holy | ἅγιος | သန့်ရှင်းသော | thangyin-thaw | High | SC | 2, 3, 4, 5 | |
| Saints / Holy Ones | ἅγιοι | သန့်ရှင်းသူများ | thangyin thu myar | Medium/High | RC, SC | 3 | ”with all his saints” at the Parousia (3:13). |
| Sanctification | ἁγιασμός | သန့်ရှင်းခြင်း | thangyin-chin | High | SC | 4 | Programmatic term of ch. 4:1-8. |
| Resurrection | ἀνάστασις / ἀνίστημι | ထမြောက်ခြင်း | hta-myauk-chin | Critical | RB | 4 | Never ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း / ပြန်လည်မွေးဖွားခြင်း. |
| Lord | κύριος | သခင် | thakhin | Critical | RC, DL | 1–5 | Pervasive throughout. |
| Jesus | Ἰησοῦς | ယေရှု | Yayshu | Critical | RC, RB | 1–5 | |
| God | θεός | ဘုရားသခင် | Phayarthakhin | Critical | GN | 1–5 | Never ဘုရား alone. |
| Holy Spirit | πνεῦμα ἅγιον | သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော် | thangyinthaw weinnyin-taw | Critical | SC | 1, 4, 5 | |
| Father | πατήρ | အဖ | a-pha | Critical | GN | 1, 3 | Never ဗြဟ္မာ. |
| Church | ἐκκλησία | အသင်းတော် | athin-taw | Medium | GN | 1 | |
| Election | ἐκλογή | ရွေးကောက်ခြင်း | ywaykauk-chin | High | SC | 1 | Never ကံဇာတာ/ကံကြမ္မာ. |
| Thanksgiving | εὐχαριστία | ကျေးဇူးတင်ခြင်း | kyayzu-tin-chin | Low | GN | 1, 2, 5 | |
| Peace | εἰρήνη | ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း | nyein-thet-chin | Medium | GN | 1, 5 | |
| Apostle | ἀπόστολος | တမန်တော် | tamantaw | Medium | GN | 2 | |
| Kingdom of God | βασιλεία θεοῦ | ဘုရားသခင်၏နိုင်ငံတော် | Phayarthakhin i nainggan-taw | Medium | GN | 2 | |
| Glory | δόξα | ဘုန်းတော် | phon-taw | High | GN | 2 | |
| Prophecy | προφητεία | ပရောဖက်ပြုချက် | parawpeq-pyu-chet | Low | GN | 5 | |
| Salvation | σωτηρία | ကယ်တင်ခြင်း | kaetin-chin | Critical | DL | 5 | Never နိဗ္ဗာန်ရောက်ခြင်း. |
| Exhort / Encourage | παρακαλέω | တိုက်တွန်းနှိုးဆော်ခြင်း | taik-tun hnoso-chin | Low | HG, GN | 2, 4, 5 | Encouragement sense active at 4:18, 5:11, 5:14. |
| Power (of God) | δύναμις (θεοῦ) | တန်ခိုးတော် | tankhoe-taw | High | GN | 1 | Never အနုဘော်တန်ခိုး. |
New Terms Proposed for This Curriculum
| Term (EN) | Greek | Burmese | Transliteration | Risk | Doctrine Tag(s) | Chapters | Rationale / Collision Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Coming / Return of Christ (Parousia) | παρουσία | ကြွလာတော်မူခြင်း | kywa-la-taw-mu-chin | Critical | RC | 2, 3, 4, 5 | Central term of the curriculum. Must never be read through the lens of Metteyya’s (မိတ္တေယျ) expected future arrival as the next Buddha; this is the return of the same person, not a first arrival of a different figure. |
| Caught up / Rapture | ἁρπάζω | ချီဆောင်ခြင်း | chi-saung-chin | Critical | RC, RB | 4 | Passive, divinely-initiated bodily gathering — never a self-achieved ascent to a higher plane through merit or meditative attainment. |
| Day of the Lord | ἡμέρα κυρίου | သခင်ဘုရား၏နေ့ရက်တော် | thakhin phaya i nayat-taw | Critical | DL | 5 | Linear, historical, personal day of judgment/vindication tied to Christ; not a cyclical world-age concept, and not to be confused with later “Lord’s Day” (Sunday) usage. |
| Sleep (death euphemism) | κοιμάομαι | အိပ်ပျော်ခြင်း | eain-pyaw-chin | High | RB, HG | 4 | Temporary rest awaiting bodily resurrection — never an intermediate state within a cycle of rebirths. |
| Hope | ἐλπίς | မျှော်လင့်ခြင်း | hmyaw-lin-chin | High | HG | 1, 4, 5 | Certain expectation grounded in Christ’s accomplished resurrection and God’s promise — not a wish of uncertain outcome, and not the Buddhist aspiration (ပတ္ထနာ) for a favorable future rebirth contingent on merit. |
| Affliction / Tribulation | θλῖψις | ဒုက္ခ | dukkha | High | HG, SC | 1, 3 | Direct lexical overlap with the Buddhist First Noble Truth term for the inherent suffering of conditioned existence; requires explicit teaching that this is temporal hardship endured in Christ-centered hope, not an impersonal universal condition to be escaped through detachment. |
| Love | ἀγάπη | ချစ်ခြင်းမေတ္တာ | chit-chin metta | High | SC | 3, 4, 5 | Established Myanmar Bible rendering (retained for consistency with existing usage) but မေတ္တာ is also a cultivated Buddhist meditative virtue (Brahmavihāra); must be taught as Spirit-given, God-sourced love, not self-generated meditative attainment. |
| Idols | εἴδωλον | ကိုးကွယ်ရာဆင်းတု | koe-kwe-yar hsin-du | High | SC | 1 | Direct intersection with Buddha-image veneration central to Burmese religious material culture; requires pastoral sensitivity and coordination with the baseline “god” entry. |
| Wrath | ὀργή | အမျက်တော် | a-myet-taw | High | DL | 1, 2, 5 | Personal, righteous, judicial divine response to sin — never explained through the lens of impersonal karmic cause-and-effect (ကံ). |
| Passion / Lust | ἐπιθυμία | တပ်မက်ခြင်း | tat-mak-chin | High | SC | 4 | Avoid the Buddhist term လောဘ (one of the three unwholesome roots) without strong qualification; biblical solution is sanctification through the Spirit and God’s design for marriage, not the cessation of desire as such. |
| Word of God | λόγος θεοῦ | ဘုရားသခင်၏နှုတ်ကပတ်တော် | Phayarthakhin i nhoke-kapat-taw | High | GN | 2 | Divine, self-revealing authority — distinct from the Tipitaka’s authority, which rests on the Buddha’s own enlightened insight rather than a personal God speaking. |
| Spirit, Soul, Body | πνεῦμα, ψυχή, σῶμα | ဝိညာဉ်၊ စိတ်၊ ခန္ဓာကိုယ် | weinnyin, seik, khandakoe | High | SC, RB | 5 | Presumes an enduring human person preserved by God for the Parousia — contrasts with Theravada anatta (no-self) doctrine’s denial of any permanent self or soul-entity. |
| The Dead in Christ | νεκροὶ ἐν Χριστῷ | ခရစ်တော်၌ သေလွန်သူများ | Khayitto-thi thay-lwan thumyar | High | RB, HG | 4 | The qualifier “in Christ” must never be dropped; names only believers united to Christ even in death. |
| Grief / Sorrow | λύπη | ဝမ်းနည်းခြင်း | wan-nyay-chin | Medium | HG | 4 | Real but bounded by hope; distinguish from Buddhist non-attachment as the remedy for loss. |
| Holiness (state) | ἁγιωσύνη | သန့်ရှင်းသောသဘော | thangyin-thaw thabaw | High | SC, RC | 3 | Near-synonym of ἁγιασμός; the resulting state of holiness anticipated “at the coming [Parousia] of our Lord Jesus” (3:13). |
| Sexual Immorality | πορνεία | မတရားမေထုန် | mahtaya-methun | Medium | SC | 4 | Overlaps with existing Buddhist precept ethics (lower syncretism risk) but motive must remain belonging-to-God, not merit-accumulation. |
| Impurity | ἀκαθαρσία | မစင်ကြယ်ခြင်း | ma-sin-kyar-chin | Medium | SC | 4 | Moral impurity of the whole person, not merely ceremonial/ritual defilement. |
| Brotherly Love | φιλαδελφία | ညီအစ်ကိုချင်းချစ်ခြင်း | nyi-ah-ko-chin chit-chin | Low | SC, GN | 4 | Spirit-taught communal love among believers. |
| Word from the Lord (revelatory) | λόγῳ κυρίου | သခင့်နှုတ်ကပတ်တော်အားဖြင့် | thakhin nhoke-kapat-taw a-phyin | High | RC | 4 | Revealed, authoritative teaching underlying resurrection/return doctrine, not apostolic speculation. |
| Descend (of Christ) | καταβαίνω | ကြွဆင်းတော်မူခြင်း | kywa-hsin-taw-mu-chin | High | RC | 4 | Single, final, visible descent — must not be read through the lens of a nat-spirit’s temporary descent/possession. |
| Meeting (the Lord) | ἀπάντησις | ကြိုဆိုခြင်း | kyo-so-chin | Medium | RC | 4 | Technical Hellenistic “welcome-procession” sense; risk of flattening into a generic “meeting.” |
| Archangel | ἀρχάγγελος | ကောင်းကင်တမန်အကြီးအကဲ | kaung-gin-taman a-kyi-a-ke | Medium | RC | 4 | Subordinate divine servant; must not be absorbed into the ranked nat/deva-hierarchy framework as an independently venerable power. |
| Trumpet (of God) | σάλπιγξ | တံပိုးခရာ | tan-poe khayar | Low | RC | 4 | OT-rooted image of divine summons. |
| Satan | Σατανᾶς | စာတန် | Satan | Medium | SC | 2, 3 | Singular chief adversary of God; not to be flattened into one of many roughly-equal spirit-powers among the 37 nats. |
| Sons of Light | υἱοὶ φωτός | အလင်း၏သားများ | a-lin i tharmyar | Medium | DL | 5 | Moral/spiritual readiness category under one sovereign God, not a dualistic cosmic-balance framework. |
| Sober / Watchful | νήφω / γρηγορέω | သတိရှိစွာစောင့်နေခြင်း | thati-shi-swa saung-nay-chin | Medium | DL | 5 | Expectant hope oriented to Christ’s return, not a self-directed mindfulness (sati) technique for personal insight. |
| Quench (the Spirit) | σβέννυμι | ငြိမ်းသတ်ခြင်း | nyain-that-chin | Medium | SC | 5 | Refers to suppressing the Spirit’s active work; the Spirit himself remains a permanent divine Person even when resisted. |
| Those Who Lead | προϊστάμενος | ရှေ့ဆောင်သူများ | shay-saung thumyar | Medium | GN | 5 | Servant-leadership within the local congregation, not a monastic seniority hierarchy. |
| Imitators | μιμητής | အတုယူသူများ | a-tu-yu thumyar | Low | GN | 1 | Discipleship pattern, not self-generated moral achievement. |
| Joy | χαρά | ဝမ်းမြောက်ခြင်း | wan-myauk-chin | Low | HG | 1 | Spirit-given, present even amid affliction. |
| Crown (of boasting) | στέφανος | ဂုဏ်သရဖူ | goon-tha-yabu | Low | RC | 2 | Figurative image of relational ministry fruit at the Parousia. |
| Thief (figure of speech) | κλέπτης | သူခိုး | thu-khoe | Low | DL | 5 | Figure for suddenness/unpredictability, not a moral statement about Christ. |
| Birth Pains | ὠδίν | မီးဖွားခြင်းဝေဒနာ | mi-phwa-chin waydana | Low | DL | 5 | Figure for inescapable, precisely-timed judgment. |
| Admonish | νουθετέω | ဆုံးမသတိပေးခြင်း | hson-ma thati-pay-chin | Low | GN | 5 | Mutual, loving correction within the church. |
| Test / Examine | δοκιμάζω | စစ်ဆေးခြင်း | sit-hsay-chin | Low | GN | 5 | Discernment applied even to prophetic utterances. |
| Vessel (body/self) | σκεῦος | မိမိကိုယ်ခန္ဓာ | meiimi koe-khanda | Medium | SC | 4 | Interpretive rendering as “one’s own body,” per majority translation practice; flag for translator note. |
Cross-Reference: Doctrine-to-Term Map
| Doctrine | Primary Terms |
|---|---|
| The Return of Christ | παρουσία, καταβαίνω, ἀπάντησις, ἀρχάγγελος, σάλπιγξ, στέφανος, ἁγιωσύνη (3:13), ἅγιοι (3:13) |
| Resurrection of Believers | ἀνάστασις/ἀνίστημι, κοιμάομαι, νεκροὶ ἐν Χριστῷ, ἁρπάζω, πνεῦμα/ψυχή/σῶμα |
| Sanctification | ἁγιασμός, ἁγιωσύνη, πορνεία, ἀκαθαρσία, ἐπιθυμία, φιλαδελφία, ἀγάπη, σκεῦος, ἐκλογή |
| Hope in Grief | ἐλπίς, λύπη, κοιμάομαι, θλῖψις, χαρά, παρακαλέω |
| The Day of the Lord | ἡμέρα κυρίου, κλέπτης, ὠδίν, σκότος/φῶς, νήφω/γρηγορέω, ὀργή, σωτηρία |
Notes for Phase 2 Loading
- All [Baseline]-tagged rows above must be loaded from the existing
translation_memory.jsonwithout modification; do not re-derive renderings for these terms. - All rows in the “New Terms” table must be added to
translation_memory.json(incrementing the version number) and tobible_term_registry.jsonbefore any Phase 2 segment translation of 1 Thessalonians begins, per the Translation Memory Load and Enforcement Instructions in12_ai_translation_requirements.md. - Critical-risk new terms (παρουσία, ἁρπάζω, ἡμέρα κυρίου) must be added to the Forbidden Substitution list logic in the Phase 2 system prompt, alongside the existing baseline forbidden substitutions, given their direct structural collision risk with Metteyya-expectation, merit-based ascension, and cyclical-cosmology frameworks respectively.
- High-risk new term θλῖψις (ဒုက္ခ) requires special flagging: unlike other forbidden-substitution cases, this is a case where the standard Burmese rendering itself carries the collision risk, and no clean alternative exists. Every occurrence must carry a mandatory translator note; this should be escalated for explicit theologian sign-off on rendering strategy before Phase 2 begins.
Critical Risk Terms
Day Of The Lord
Approved rendering: သခင်ဘုရား၏နေ့ရက်တော်
Transliteration: thakhin phaya i nayat-taw
Doctrine: The Day of the Lord
Rejected alternatives: ကမ္ဘာပျက်ခြင်း (cyclical kalpa world-destruction), abbreviated bare ‘that day’ gloss
Original: ἡμέρα κυρίου
Category: Eschatology
NEW CRITICAL term for this curriculum (5:1-11). Must not be confused with the decline of the current Buddha-Sasana or the cyclical arising/passing of kalpas (ကမ္ဘာပျက်ခြင်း); this is a single, linear, historical, personal day of divine reckoning tied to Christ’s return. Must also be kept distinct from the later liturgical ‘Lord’s Day’ (Sunday). Use the full compound at every occurrence; never abbreviate.
Father
Approved rendering: အဖ
Transliteration: a-pha
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Rejected alternatives: ဗြဟ္မာ
Original: πατήρ
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. Never ဗြဟ္မာ. Appears in the epistolary address (1:1) and in 3:11, 3:13.
God
Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရား, နတ်သခင်
Original: θεός
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. Never ဘုရား alone (Buddha-image/pagoda) or နတ်သခင် (nat-spirit lord). In 1 Thessalonians 1:9, explicitly contrasted with idols as ‘the living and true God’ — qualifiers must be retained in full.
Grace
Approved rendering: ကျေးဇူးတော်
Transliteration: kyayzu-taw
Doctrine: Grace
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်, ကံကောင်းခြင်း, ဝါသနာတော်
Original: χάρις
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. CRITICAL: never use ကုသိုလ် (merit) or ကံကောင်းခြင်း (good karma/luck). Occurs in the epistolary greeting (1:1) and closing benediction (5:28); grace given apart from merit-making remains the operative sense throughout.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော်
Transliteration: thangyinthaw weinnyin-taw
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: နတ်ဝိညာဉ်, ဝိညာဉ်
Original: πνεῦμα ἅγιον
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. Never ဝိညာဉ် alone or နတ်ဝိညာဉ်. In 1 Thessalonians 5:19 (‘do not quench the Spirit’) this refers to suppressing his active work, never to an impermanent consciousness-stream that could itself cease; the permanent divine Person remains.
Jesus
Approved rendering: ယေရှု
Transliteration: Yayshu
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ရှင်ယေရှု
Original: Ἰησοῦς
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package. Standard Myanmar Bible form since Judson; keep consistent across all documents.
Lord
Approved rendering: သခင်
Transliteration: thakhin
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရင်, ဆရာသခင်
Original: κύριος
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package. Exclusive supreme authority, not a merely respected teacher or earthly king. Pervasive across all five chapters of 1 Thessalonians, and emphatically doubled in 4:16 (‘the Lord himself,’ αὐτὸς ὁ κύριος) to stress the personal, bodily nature of his descent.
Parousia
Approved rendering: ကြွလာတော်မူခြင်း
Transliteration: kywa-la-taw-mu-chin
Doctrine: The Return of Christ
Rejected alternatives: မိတ္တေယျ-framed ‘awaited future arrival’ language, ရောက်ရှိနေခြင်း (Jehovah’s Witness invisible-presence framing)
Original: παρουσία
Category: Eschatology
NEW CRITICAL term for this curriculum. Central to ‘The Return of Christ’ (2:19, 3:13, 4:15, 5:23). Must never be conflated with the Theravada expectation of Metteyya (မိတ္တေယျ), the future Buddha awaited at the Sasana’s decline — Christ’s Parousia is the return of the same person who already came, died, and rose, not the first arrival of a different figure. Also must never be rendered to suggest an invisible/already-occurred presence (Jehovah’s Witness theology); this is a future, visible, bodily event. Mandatory translator note at every occurrence.
Rapture
Approved rendering: ချီဆောင်ခြင်း
Transliteration: chi-saung-chin
Doctrine: Rapture / Bodily Gathering of the Church
Rejected alternatives: ဝိညာဉ်တက်ခြင်း (spirit-medium possession-trance language), ဆွဲငင်ခြင်း-based forceful-abduction verb
Original: ἁρπάζω
Category: Eschatology
NEW CRITICAL term for this curriculum. Source of the English ‘rapture’ (4:17, ἁρπάζω). Passive voice must be preserved (an action done TO believers by God), never a self-achieved ascent to a deva realm through meditative attainment or merit. Must never use nat-medium trance vocabulary (ဝိညာဉ်တက်ခြင်း) or weizza levitation-folklore-adjacent verbs. Mandatory translator note at every occurrence.
Resurrection
Approved rendering: ထမြောက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: hta-myauk-chin
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း, ပြန်လည်မွေးဖွားခြင်း
Original: ἀνάστασις / ἀνίστημι
Category: Eschatology
Inherited from Romans package. CRITICAL: never ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း or ပြန်လည်မွေးဖွားခြင်း (rebirth into samsara). Governs both Christ’s own resurrection (4:14, ἀνέστη) and believers’ future bodily resurrection (4:16, ἀναστήσονται πρῶτον) — the same root must link both so the logical chain (Christ’s resurrection secures theirs) is visible.
Salvation
Approved rendering: ကယ်တင်ခြင်း
Transliteration: kaetin-chin
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: နိဗ္ဗာန်ရောက်ခြင်း, လွတ်မြောက်ခြင်း
Original: σωτηρία
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. CRITICAL: never နိဗ္ဗာန်ရောက်ခြင်း. In 5:8-9, salvation is the believer’s ‘helmet’ and the destiny God appoints in contrast to wrath.
High Risk Terms
Affliction
Approved rendering: ဒုက္ခ
Transliteration: dukkha
Doctrine: Hope in Grief
Original: θλῖψις
Category: Suffering
New term. HIGHEST-PRIORITY FENCING ITEM in this curriculum: ဒုက္ခ is also the precise technical term for the First Noble Truth (the universal, inherent unsatisfactoriness of conditioned existence). Occurs at 1:6, 3:3-4, 3:7. No clean substitute exists; mandatory translator note required at every occurrence, and this rendering strategy requires explicit human theologian sign-off before Phase 2 processing begins (per analysis/08_core_glossary.md note 4 and analysis/06_linguistic_gap_analysis.md §2.2/§4 ranking #1).
Called
Approved rendering: ခေါ်တော်မူသော
Transliteration: khaw-taw-mu-thaw
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Rejected alternatives: ဖိတ်ခေါ်ခြင်း
Original: κλητός
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. Context-sensitive sovereign summons, never a revocable invitation. In 1 Thessalonians 5:24, ‘he who calls you is faithful’ anchors sanctification in God’s own faithfulness, not the believer’s self-sustained effort.
Calling
Approved rendering: ခေါ်တော်မူခြင်း
Transliteration: khaw-taw-mu-chin
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Rejected alternatives: ကံဇာတာ
Original: κλῆσις
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. Never conflate with ကံဇာတာ (astrologically fixed fate). Underlies 1:4-5’s election-evidenced-by-gospel-arrival logic and 4:7’s call to holiness.
Dead In Christ
Approved rendering: ခရစ်တော်၌ သေလွန်သူများ
Transliteration: Khayitto-thi thay-lwan thumyar
Doctrine: Resurrection of Believers
Rejected alternatives: dropping the ခရစ်တော်၌ qualifier (generic ‘the dead’)
Original: νεκροὶ ἐν Χριστῷ
Category: Eschatology
New term. In 4:16, names only believers who died united to Christ. The qualifier ခရစ်တော်၌ (in Christ) must be retained without exception; without it, the phrase collapses into a generic statement about death, losing the union-with-Christ distinctive that grounds resurrection certainty.
Descend
Approved rendering: ကြွဆင်းတော်မူခြင်း
Transliteration: kywa-hsin-taw-mu-chin
Doctrine: The Return of Christ
Rejected alternatives: နတ်ဆင်းသက်ခြင်း (nat-spirit descent/possession)
Original: καταβαίνω
Category: Eschatology
New term. In 4:16, the bodily, spatial, visible descent of Christ. Must not be read through the lens of a nat-spirit’s occasional descent to possess a medium, a Burmese folk-religious pattern already flagged as a forbidden substitution under the baseline ‘incarnation’ entry. This is a single, final, visible, universally witnessed event.
Election
Approved rendering: ရွေးကောက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: ywaykauk-chin
Doctrine: Effectual Calling
Rejected alternatives: ကံဇာတာ, ကံကြမ္မာ
Original: ἐκλογή
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. God’s sovereign personal choice, never karma-fixed destiny. In 1:4, the Thessalonians’ election is evidenced by the gospel’s powerful, Spirit-accompanied arrival among them (1:5).
Glory
Approved rendering: ဘုန်းတော်
Transliteration: phon-taw
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ဘုန်းကံ
Original: δόξα
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. Avoid ဘုန်းကံ (merit-power) associations. Occurs in 2:12 and 2:20 (the Thessalonians as Paul’s ‘glory’ at Christ’s coming).
Gospel
Approved rendering: သတင်းကောင်း
Transliteration: thadin kaung
Doctrine: Gospel
Rejected alternatives: ဓမ္မသတင်း, ကောင်းသောအကြောင်းအရာ
Original: εὐαγγέλιον
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. Established Myanmar Bible term meaning ‘good news’; must be qualified as the unique announcement of salvation through Christ, not any generic positive report. In 1 Thessalonians 1:5, 2:2, 2:4, 2:8-9 the gospel’s arrival is described with accompanying divine power (တန်ခိုးတော်) and the Holy Spirit; render as an authoritative, Spirit-empowered proclamation, not generic good news.
Holiness State
Approved rendering: သန့်ရှင်းသောသဘော
Transliteration: thangyin-thaw thabaw
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: သီလ practiced for personal merit
Original: ἁγιωσύνη
Category: Sanctification
New term. Near-synonym of ἁγιασμός, denoting the resulting state (3:13): ‘blameless in holiness… at the coming of our Lord Jesus.’ Links Sanctification directly to the Return of Christ; same doctrinal cautions as သန့်ရှင်းခြင်း apply — the Spirit’s transforming work, not self-directed precept-observance for merit.
Holy
Approved rendering: သန့်ရှင်းသော
Transliteration: thangyin-thaw
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: စင်ကြယ်သော
Original: ἅγιος
Category: Sanctification
Inherited from Romans package. Set apart for God and morally pure, not merely ritual/ceremonial cleanliness. Frequent throughout 1 Thessalonians (2:10, 3:13, 4:4, 4:7-8, 5:23, 5:26).
Hope
Approved rendering: မျှော်လင့်ခြင်း
Transliteration: hmyaw-lin-chin
Doctrine: Hope in Grief
Rejected alternatives: ပတ္ထနာ (merit-contingent aspiration for a favorable rebirth)
Original: ἐλπίς
Category: Faith
New term. Central to ‘Hope in Grief’ (1:3, 4:13, 5:8). Must be taught as certain expectation grounded in Christ’s accomplished resurrection and God’s promise, not a wish of uncertain outcome. The grammatical object/ground of hope must be stated in the same or adjacent clause at every occurrence.
Idols
Approved rendering: ကိုးကွယ်ရာဆင်းတု
Transliteration: koe-kwe-yar hsin-du
Doctrine: Conversion from Idolatry
Rejected alternatives: direct unqualified reference to ဘုရားပုံ/Buddha images without allegiance-exclusivity framing
Original: εἴδωλα
Category: Sin
New term. In 1:9, the turn from idols to ‘the living and true God’ unavoidably intersects with the veneration of Buddha images central to Burmese religious material culture. Requires significant pastoral sensitivity: the text asserts the exclusive claim of the true God on total allegiance, not an ethnographic attack on any specific image.
Love
Approved rendering: ချစ်ခြင်းမေတ္တာ
Transliteration: chit-chin metta
Doctrine: Brotherly Love (Agape)
Rejected alternatives: မေတ္တာ alone without a Spirit-given qualifier
Original: ἀγάπη
Category: Sanctification
New term. Established Myanmar Bible rendering, retained for consistency (3:6, 3:12, 4:9, 5:8, 5:13). မေတ္တာ is also one of the four Brahmavihāra (self-cultivated meditative ‘sublime states’) in Theravada Buddhism; biblical ἀγάπη is Spirit-given and God-sourced (4:9, ‘taught by God’), not a self-generated meditative attainment. Requires a translator/teaching note at first occurrence.
Passion Lust
Approved rendering: တပ်မက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: tat-mak-chin
Doctrine: Sexual Purity and Holy Living
Rejected alternatives: လောဘ (one of the three unwholesome roots in Buddhist psychology)
Original: ἐπιθυμία
Category: Sin
New term. In 4:5, disordered desire tied to not knowing God, not to desire as inherently evil. Avoid လောဘ, whose remedy is extinguishing craving itself; the biblical remedy is sanctification through the Spirit and God’s design for marriage (4:3-5).
Power Of God
Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်၏တန်ခိုးတော်
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin i tankhoe-taw
Doctrine: Power of God for Salvation
Rejected alternatives: အနုဘော်တန်ခိုး
Original: δύναμις (θεοῦ)
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. Never အနုဘော်တန်ခိုး (relic/amulet potency). In 1 Thessalonians 1:5 the gospel’s arrival is accompanied by God’s own power, rendered here as တန်ခိုးတော် consistently with the baseline usage.
Quench Spirit
Approved rendering: ငြိမ်းသတ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: nyain-that-chin
Doctrine: Life in the Spirit / Not Quenching the Spirit
Rejected alternatives: framing implying the Spirit could cease to exist as an impermanent consciousness-stream
Original: σβέννυμι
Category: God
New term. In 5:19, ‘do not quench the Spirit’ — describes suppressing the Spirit’s active work, not any notion of an impermanent consciousness-stream that could itself cease; the permanent divine Person remains even when his work is resisted.
Sanctification
Approved rendering: သန့်ရှင်းခြင်း
Transliteration: thangyin-chin
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: ရေချိုးသန့်စင်ခြင်း
Original: ἁγιασμός
Category: Sanctification
Inherited from Romans package. The Spirit’s ongoing work of making believers holy, distinct from ritual bathing/purification. The programmatic term of 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4, 4:7: ‘this is the will of God, your sanctification.‘
Sleep Death Euphemism
Approved rendering: အိပ်ပျော်ခြင်း
Transliteration: eain-pyaw-chin
Doctrine: Resurrection of Believers
Rejected alternatives: ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း (rebirth), ဝိညာဉ်ခရီးဆက်ခြင်း (consciousness-journey funeral-rite language)
Original: κοιμάομαι
Category: Eschatology
New term. Euphemism for a believer’s death (4:13-15) transfers naturally into Burmese, but requires a mandatory translator note: temporary rest awaiting bodily resurrection, never an intermediate state within a cycle of rebirths, and never confused with Burmese Buddhist funeral rites describing a deceased person’s consciousness journeying toward a next existence.
Spirit Soul Body
Approved rendering: ဝိညာဉ်၊ စိတ်၊ ခန္ဓာကိုယ်
Transliteration: weinnyin, seik, khandakoe
Doctrine: Wholeness of the Human Person (Spirit, Soul, Body)
Rejected alternatives: khandha (aggregate) framework implying no persisting self
Original: πνεῦμα, ψυχή, σῶμα
Category: Anthropology
New term. In 5:23, presumes an enduring human person preserved blameless for Christ’s Parousia. Must be explicitly distinguished from Theravada anatta (no-self) doctrine, which denies any permanent, unified self persisting through the impermanent aggregates (khandhas).
Word From The Lord
Approved rendering: သခင့်နှုတ်ကပတ်တော်အားဖြင့်
Transliteration: thakhin nhoke-kapat-taw a-phyin
Doctrine: Inspiration of the Word of God
Rejected alternatives: a plain proverb/wise-saying framing
Original: λόγῳ κυρίου
Category: Covenant
New term. In 4:15, a specific, authoritative saying attributed to direct revelation from Christ, undergirding the resurrection/return teaching of 4:13-18. Elevated above the baseline ‘prophecy’ Low-risk category because of the Critical doctrines it directly grounds here.
Word Of God
Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်၏နှုတ်ကပတ်တော်
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin i nhoke-kapat-taw
Doctrine: Inspiration of the Word of God
Rejected alternatives: framing that equates this with the Tipitaka’s Buddha-derived authority
Original: λόγος θεοῦ
Category: Covenant
New term. In 2:13, the gospel message is received ‘not as the word of men but… the word of God.’ Must be distinguished from the authoritative pronouncements of a respected teacher or the Tipitaka’s authority, which rests on the Buddha’s own enlightened insight rather than a personal God speaking through chosen human authors.
Wrath
Approved rendering: အမျက်တော်
Transliteration: a-myet-taw
Doctrine: Divine Wrath and Judgment
Rejected alternatives: ကံ (impersonal karmic cause-and-effect)
Original: ὀργή
Category: God
New term. Occurs at 1:10, 2:16, 5:9. Must be taught as the personal, moral, judicial response of a holy God to sin, never explained through ကံ, which would strip divine wrath of its personal and relational character.
Medium Risk Terms
Apostle
Approved rendering: တမန်တော်
Transliteration: tamantaw
Doctrine: Apostleship
Rejected alternatives: ဆရာတော်, ဆရာကြီး
Original: ἀπόστολος
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package. In 2:6, the apostles could have ‘made demands’ but did not — a servant-authority model distinguished from a senior-monk (ဆရာတော်) style role commanding deference by status.
Archangel
Approved rendering: ကောင်းကင်တမန်အကြီးအကဲ
Transliteration: kaung-gin-taman a-kyi-a-ke
Doctrine: The Return of Christ
Rejected alternatives: deva/nat-hierarchy independently venerable power framing, Jehovah’s Witness identification of the archangel with Christ himself
Original: ἀρχάγγελος
Category: Eschatology
New term. In 4:16, a ranking angelic being whose voice accompanies Christ’s descent — a subordinate agent, not an object of worship. Must be kept distinct from the ranked 37-nat pantheon or deva-hierarchies, and must never be rendered so as to suggest identification with Christ (a Jehovah’s Witness Arian-subordinationist move that must never be echoed).
Church
Approved rendering: အသင်းတော်
Transliteration: athin-taw
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရားကျောင်း, ဘုရားရိပ်သာ
Original: ἐκκλησία
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package. Never ဘုရားကျောင်း/ဘုရားရိပ်သာ (pagoda/monastic compound). Opens the letter (1:1, ‘the church of the Thessalonians’).
Faith
Approved rendering: ယုံကြည်ခြင်း
Transliteration: yun-kyi-chin
Doctrine: Faith
Rejected alternatives: သဒ္ဓါတရား
Original: πίστις
Category: Faith
Inherited from Romans package. Object of faith must always be specified as Christ. In 1 Thessalonians 4:14 faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection is the explicit logical ground of resurrection hope; also occurs at 3:2, 3:5-7, 3:10, 5:8.
Grief
Approved rendering: ဝမ်းနည်းခြင်း
Transliteration: wan-nyay-chin
Doctrine: Hope in Grief
Rejected alternatives: non-attachment/detachment framing as the resolution to loss
Original: λύπη
Category: Suffering
New term. Standard Burmese grief vocabulary (4:13); real but bounded by hope, distinguished from the goal-directed non-attachment cultivated in Buddhist practice to reduce suffering at loss.
Impurity
Approved rendering: မစင်ကြယ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: ma-sin-kyar-chin
Doctrine: Sexual Purity and Holy Living
Rejected alternatives: merely ceremonial/ritual defilement framing
Original: ἀκαθαρσία
Category: Sanctification
New term. In 4:7, ‘God has not called us for impurity but for holiness’ — moral impurity of the whole person before a personal God, not ritual uncleanness removable by ablution.
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်၏နိုင်ငံတော်
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin i nainggan-taw
Doctrine: Kingdom Mission
Rejected alternatives: ဘုန်းတော်နိုင်ငံ
Original: βασιλεία θεοῦ
Category: Kingdom
Inherited from Romans package. In 2:12, believers are called to walk worthily of the God ‘who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.‘
Meeting The Lord
Approved rendering: ကြိုဆိုခြင်း
Transliteration: kyo-so-chin
Doctrine: The Return of Christ
Rejected alternatives: generic ‘to meet’ losing the Hellenistic escort-procession sense, weizza levitation-folklore-adjacent flight vocabulary
Original: ἀπάντησις
Category: Eschatology
New term. In 4:17, ἀπάντησις names a formal Hellenistic delegation going out to welcome and escort home an arriving dignitary. A plain ‘meet’ risks losing this sense; a translator note explaining the civic background is recommended, since it supports Christ’s Parousia as a visible, honored, public event rather than a private or invisible one.
Peace
Approved rendering: ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: nyein-thet-chin
Doctrine: Peace with God
Rejected alternatives: ကိလေသာငြိမ်းခြင်း
Original: εἰρήνη
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. Occurs in the epistolary greeting (1:1) and as a divine title, ‘the God of peace’ (5:23).
Saints
Approved rendering: သန့်ရှင်းသူများ
Transliteration: thangyin thu myar
Doctrine: Sainthood
Rejected alternatives: ရဟန္တာ, ရှင်ရဟန်း
Original: ἅγιοι
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package. Every believer set apart in Christ, not an ascetic elite comparable to a ရဟန္တာ (arahant). In 1 Thessalonians 3:13, describes the full assembly of God’s people (living and departed) accompanying Christ at his Parousia, directly linking sainthood to the return/resurrection complex of chapter 4.
Satan
Approved rendering: စာတန်
Transliteration: Satan
Doctrine: Spiritual Warfare / Satanic Opposition
Rejected alternatives: absorption into the 37-nat pantheon as one more roughly-equal spirit
Original: Σατανᾶς / πειραστής
Category: Spiritual Warfare
New term. The personal, malicious chief spiritual adversary (2:18, 3:5). Transliterated proper name already familiar in Myanmar Christian usage; care must be taken that popular nat-spirit categories do not absorb him as merely one more malevolent spirit.
Sexual Immorality
Approved rendering: မတရားမေထုန်
Transliteration: mahtaya-methun
Doctrine: Sexual Purity and Holy Living
Original: πορνεία
Category: Sanctification
New term. Named component of sanctification (4:3). Overlaps with the Buddhist third precept (lowering total-incomprehension risk), but the biblical motive (belonging to God, honoring one’s body and one’s brother, 4:6) must not collapse into precept-observance for merit.
Sober Watchful
Approved rendering: သတိရှိစွာစောင့်နေခြင်း
Transliteration: thati-shi-swa saung-nay-chin
Doctrine: Watchfulness and Readiness for the Day of the Lord
Rejected alternatives: သတိ (sati) self-directed mindfulness technique
Original: νήφω / γρηγορέω
Category: Eschatology
New term. In 5:6, 5:8, 5:10, expectant hope oriented toward Christ’s promised return, sustained by faith, love, and hope, distinguished from Buddhist mindfulness practice as a self-directed technique for personal insight into impermanence.
Sons Of Light
Approved rendering: အလင်း၏သားများ
Transliteration: a-lin i tharmyar
Doctrine: Watchfulness and Readiness for the Day of the Lord
Rejected alternatives: dualistic light/darkness cosmic-balance framing, LDS tiered-exaltation framing
Original: υἱοὶ φωτός
Category: Eschatology
New term. In 5:4-5, moral/spiritual readiness categories under one sovereign God, not a dualistic folk-cosmological framework treating light and darkness as impersonal, balancing cosmic forces.
Those Who Lead
Approved rendering: ရှေ့ဆောင်သူများ
Transliteration: shay-saung thumyar
Doctrine: Mutual Edification and Church Leadership
Rejected alternatives: monastic seniority hierarchy framing (ဆရာတော်-style)
Original: προϊστάμενοι
Category: Church
New term. In 5:12, an early, informal designation of local church leadership; should be framed as servant-leadership within the congregation, not assimilated to a monastic seniority hierarchy.
Vessel
Approved rendering: မိမိကိုယ်ခန္ဓာ
Transliteration: meiimi koe-khanda
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: literal container rendering without an interpretive body/self gloss
Original: σκεῦος
Category: Sanctification
New term. In 4:4, σκεῦος interpreted as ‘one’s own body/self,’ per majority modern translation practice, over a literal ‘vessel/container.’ Flag for translator note explaining the interpretive choice between body and spouse readings.
Low Risk Terms
Admonish
Approved rendering: ဆုံးမသတိပေးခြင်း
Transliteration: hson-ma thati-pay-chin
Doctrine: Mutual Edification and Church Leadership
Original: νουθετέω
Category: Church
New term. In 5:12, 5:14, mutual, loving correction and warning within the church; minimal doctrinal risk.
Birth Pains
Approved rendering: မီးဖွားခြင်းဝေဒနာ
Transliteration: mi-phwa-chin waydana
Doctrine: The Day of the Lord
Original: ὠδίν
Category: Eschatology
New term. In 5:3, figures the inescapable, precisely-timed suddenness of judgment on the complacent; natural figurative image in Burmese.
Brotherly Love
Approved rendering: ညီအစ်ကိုချင်းချစ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: nyi-ah-ko-chin chit-chin
Doctrine: Brotherly Love (Agape)
Original: φιλαδελφία
Category: Church
New term. In 4:9, said to be Spirit-taught (‘taught by God’) rather than humanly instructed; low risk, but should not be read as ordinary social cohesion alone.
Crown
Approved rendering: ဂုဏ်သရဖူ
Transliteration: goon-tha-yabu
Doctrine: The Return of Christ
Original: στέφανος
Category: Eschatology
New term. In 2:19, the Thessalonian believers themselves are Paul’s ‘crown of boasting’ at Christ’s Parousia — relational ministry fruit; standard, well-understood figurative image.
Exhort
Approved rendering: တိုက်တွန်းနှိုးဆော်ခြင်း
Transliteration: taik-tun hnoso-chin
Doctrine: Mutual Edification
Original: παρακαλέω
Category: Faith
Inherited from Romans package. Encouragement sense (not entreaty) is active at 4:18 (grief comfort), 5:11, and 5:14.
Imitators
Approved rendering: အတုယူသူများ
Transliteration: a-tu-yu thumyar
Doctrine: General / Discipleship
Original: μιμηταί
Category: Church
New term. In 1:6, the Thessalonians became imitators of Paul and of the Lord — a discipleship pattern, not a self-generated moral achievement.
Joy
Approved rendering: ဝမ်းမြောက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: wan-myauk-chin
Doctrine: Hope in Grief
Original: χαρά
Category: Suffering
New term. In 1:6, Spirit-given joy present even amid affliction; a fruit of the Holy Spirit’s presence, not the absence of suffering.
Prophecy
Approved rendering: ပရောဖက်ပြုချက်
Transliteration: parawpeq-pyu-chet
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
Rejected alternatives: ဗေဒင်စာတမ်း
Original: προφητεία
Category: Covenant
Inherited from Romans package. In 5:20, ‘do not despise prophecies,’ paired with the command to test everything (5:21) — genuine but discernible revelation, distinct from astrological forecasting.
Test Examine
Approved rendering: စစ်ဆေးခြင်း
Transliteration: sit-hsay-chin
Doctrine: Mutual Edification and Church Leadership
Original: δοκιμάζω
Category: Church
New term. In 5:21, discernment applied even to prophetic utterances, ‘test everything, hold fast what is good’; standard discernment vocabulary.
Thanksgiving
Approved rendering: ကျေးဇူးတင်ခြင်း
Transliteration: kyayzu-tin-chin
Doctrine: Thanksgiving
Original: εὐχαριστία
Category: Faith
Inherited from Romans package. Frequent in 1 Thessalonians’ opening and closing (1:2, 2:13, 5:18); minor risk of collapsing into ritual merit-dedication language (ကုသိုလ်ရှေးရေး) — the object of thanks must remain God himself.
Thief
Approved rendering: သူခိုး
Transliteration: thu-khoe
Doctrine: The Day of the Lord
Original: κλέπτης
Category: Eschatology
New term. In 5:2, 5:4, a figure of speech for the suddenness and unpredictability of the Day of the Lord’s arrival, not a moral statement about Christ’s character.
Trumpet
Approved rendering: တံပိုးခရာ
Transliteration: tan-poe khayar
Doctrine: The Return of Christ
Original: σάλπιγξ
Category: Eschatology
New term. OT-rooted image (Sinai, Day-of-the-Lord texts) of divine, public, unmistakable summons at Christ’s descent (4:16); no significant collision risk in Burmese.
Referenced passages