Core Glossary
08 Core Glossary — 3 John | English/Greek → Burmese
This glossary extends the baseline Romans translation_memory.json for the 3 John curriculum. Terms already fixed in the baseline MUST reuse the baseline’s exact recorded Burmese rendering; these are marked “Reused (baseline)” in the Status column. New terms introduced by 3 John are marked “New (3 John)” and are proposed here as candidates for addition to translation memory before Phase 2 begins, per the Language Package’s term-discovery instructions.
All terms occur within 3 John chapter 1 (the entire book); no chapter reference column is needed beyond the doctrine grouping, since the book has a single chapter.
Reused Terms (from baseline Romans translation_memory.json — enforce exactly)
| Term (Greek) | Transliteration | Burmese Rendering | Risk | Doctrine Link | Status | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| θεός | theos | ဘုရားသခင် | Critical | Imitating Good rather than Evil (v.11) | Reused (baseline) | Never render ဘုရား alone or နတ်သခင်; full compound required. |
| ἐκκλησία | ekklēsia | အသင်းတော် | Medium | Church Leadership and Pride; Truth and Fellowship (vv.6, 9, 10) | Reused (baseline) | Never render as ဘုရားကျောင်း/ဘုရားရိပ်သာ (pagoda/monastery). |
| εἰρήνη | eirēnē | ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း | Medium | Truth and Christian Fellowship (v.14) | Reused (baseline) | Used here as epistolary farewell blessing, not a new sense. |
| ἐθνικός (root shared with ἔθνη) | ethnikos | တစ်ပါးအမျိုးသား | Medium | Hospitality to Traveling Ministers (v.7) | Reused (baseline) | Contextual nuance shift: here = unbelieving non-patron outsiders, not the ethnic-theological “nations” category of Romans; translator note required. |
New Terms Introduced by 3 John (proposed for translation memory)
| Term (Greek) | Transliteration | Literal Meaning | Proposed Burmese Rendering | Risk | Doctrine Link | Rationale / Collision Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| πρεσβύτερος | presbyteros | elder, older man | အသက်ကြီးသူ (church-office sense) | Medium | Church Leadership and Pride (v.1) | Must be distinguished from senior-monk titles (e.g., ဘုန်းတော်ကြီး) so the office reads as Christian pastoral authority, not monastic seniority rank. |
| ἀγαπητός | agapētos | beloved, dearly loved | ချစ်လှစွာသောသူ | Low | Truth and Christian Fellowship (vv.1,2,5,11) | Straightforward affectionate address; keep distinct from ἀδελφός and φίλος below. |
| ἀγάπη / ἀγαπάω | agapē / agapaō | love (self-giving, covenantal) | ချစ်ခြင်းမေတ္တာ | High | Truth and Christian Fellowship; Hospitality (vv.1, 6) | Established Myanmar Bible compound risks conflation with မေတ္တာ, the non-relational, non-discriminating Brahmavihāra loving-kindness of Buddhist meditation practice. Must be taught as costly, relational, self-giving love demonstrated in concrete hospitality, not detached benevolence toward all beings. |
| ἀλήθεια | alētheia | truth, genuine reality | သမ္မာတရား | High | Truth and Christian Fellowship; Commendation of Demetrius (vv.1,3,4,8,12) | The root “သမ္မာ” parallels sammā of the Noble Eightfold Path (e.g., sammā-diṭṭhi, “right view”), risking a reading of truth as a self-attained correct-view achievement rather than God’s revealed truth received relationally and centered on Christ. Central term of the whole letter; every occurrence needs this distinction reinforced. |
| ψυχή | psychē | soul, inner life | စိတ်ဝိညာဉ် | Medium | (general well-being, v.2) | Shares the anattā-collision family flagged for holy_spirit in the baseline (no permanent self in Theravada doctrine); here used in an everyday well-being greeting, so risk is present but lower urgency than holy_spirit itself. |
| εὐοδοῦσθαι | euodousthai | to prosper, go well | စည်ပင်ဖြိုးမြောက်ခြင်း / အောင်မြင်ခြင်း | Medium | (general well-being, v.2) | Must not read as a prosperity-gospel guarantee or as good luck/fortune (already-forbidden ကံကောင်းခြင်း territory from the baseline grace entry); anchored and limited by the parallel spiritual clause in the same verse. |
| ὑγιαίνω | hygiainō | to be healthy, sound | ကျန်းမာစွာနေခြင်း | Low | (general well-being, v.2) | Standard courteous well-wishing; minimal doctrinal risk. |
| περιπατέω (fig.) | peripateō | to walk (fig. conduct of life) | ကျင့်ကြံနေထိုင်ခြင်း | Medium | Truth and Christian Fellowship (vv.3,4) | Figurative “conduct of life” sense must be secured over literal “walking”; avoid implying self-directed progress toward attainment (cf. Buddhist magga/path imagery). |
| τέκνα (spiritual sense) | tekna | children (of one’s ministry) | ဝိညာဉ်ရေးသားသမီးများ | Medium | Truth and Christian Fellowship (v.4) | Must be marked clearly as a spiritual-relational metaphor, echoing the baseline adoption doctrine’s full-sonship emphasis, not a literal or monastic lineage claim. |
| πιστός | pistos | faithful, trustworthy | သစ္စာရှိသော | Medium | Hospitality; Commendation of Demetrius (v.5) | Adjectival cognate distinct from the baseline noun ယုံကြည်ခြင်း (saving faith); must not be collapsed into “an act that produces/equals faith.” |
| ἀδελφός | adelphos | brother (fellow believer) | ညီအစ်ကိုများ | Low | Hospitality; Church Leadership (vv.3,5,10) | Keep distinct from φίλος (“friends,” v.14) and from πρεσβύτερος (the office-elder); three distinct relational registers in one short letter. |
| ξένος | xenos | stranger, guest | ဧည့်သည် | Medium | Hospitality to Traveling Ministers (v.5) | Must be taught as gospel-partnership hospitality, not merit-earning dāna-style generosity toward monks/travelers. |
| μαρτυρέω / μαρτυρία | martyreō / martyria | to testify / testimony | သက်သေခံခြင်း / သက်သေခံချက် | Medium-High | Commendation of Demetrius; Hospitality (vv.3,6,12) | Must carry formal, reliable, legally-weighted attestation, not a casual report; central to the threefold testimony given for Demetrius in v.12. |
| προπέμπω | propempō | to send on one’s way (with provision) | ခရီးလွှတ်ပေးခြင်း | Medium | Hospitality to Traveling Ministers (v.6) | Must convey active, costly material support for onward gospel travel, not a bare farewell; connects to baseline’s mission (သာသနာပြုလုပ်ငန်း) caution. |
| ἀξίως | axiōs | worthily, fittingly | ထိုက်တန်စွာ | Low | Hospitality to Traveling Ministers (v.6) | Minimal risk; standard adverbial qualifier. |
| ὄνομα (absolute, “the Name”) | onoma | the Name (of Christ) | နာမတော် | Medium | Hospitality to Traveling Ministers (v.7) | Must be rendered as the reverent, absolute, Christ-specific “the Name,” not a generic personal name. |
| ὑπολαμβάνω | hypolambanō | to receive/support | လက်ခံကူညီခြင်း | Medium | Hospitality to Traveling Ministers (v.8) | Same dāna-collision caution as ξένος; this is truth-partnership, not merit-generosity. |
| συνεργός | synergos | fellow worker, co-laborer | လုပ်ဖော်ဆောင်ဖက် | Medium | Hospitality; Truth and Christian Fellowship (v.8) | Must convey active, shared labor toward the gospel’s advance, not passive association; doctrinal core of lived fellowship. |
| φιλοπρωτεύων | philoprōteuōn | one who loves to be first | ဦးစွာဖြစ်လိုသောသူ | High | Church Leadership and Pride (v.9) | Central named vice of Diotrephes; must convey specific status-seeking ambition within a religious community, without implicating legitimate humble eldership as such. |
| ἐπιδέχομαι | epidechomai | to receive/accept/welcome (authority or persons) | လက်ခံခြင်း | Medium | Church Leadership and Pride (vv.9,10) | Distinguish from the hospitality-reception vocabulary of vv.5–8: here refusal targets authority/correspondence (v.9) and then persons (v.10). |
| ὑπομιμνήσκω | hypomimnēskō | to remind, call attention to | သတိပေးခြင်း | Low | Church Leadership and Pride (v.10) | Signals legitimate corrective pastoral confrontation; minimal risk. |
| ἔργα | erga | works, deeds | လုပ်ဆောင်ချက်များ | Medium | Church Leadership and Pride (v.10) | Keep register distinct from Romans’ soteriological “works vs. grace” vocabulary; here purely descriptive of a pattern of conduct under church discipline. |
| φλυαρέω | phlyareō | to make malicious/baseless accusations | ကောလဟလပြောဆိုခြင်း | Medium | Church Leadership and Pride (v.10) | Must convey deliberate slander, not mere disagreement or fair criticism. |
| ἀρκέω | arkeō | to be content/satisfied | ရောင့်ရဲခြင်း | Low | Church Leadership and Pride (v.10) | Minimal risk; marks escalation of Diotrephes’ behavior. |
| βούλομαι | boulomai | to wish, want, be willing | ဆန္ဒရှိသည် | Low | Hospitality; Church Leadership (v.10) | Names those in the congregation wanting to extend hospitality but prevented; minimal risk. |
| κωλύω | kōlyō | to forbid, hinder | တားဆီးခြင်း | Medium | Church Leadership and Pride (v.10) | Must read as illegitimate suppression of a commended practice (hospitality), not a neutral leadership decision. |
| ἐκβάλλω | ekballō | to cast out, expel | နှင်ထုတ်ခြင်း | High | Church Leadership and Pride (v.10) | Doctrinal climax of the leadership-pride warning: forcible removal from the congregation as abuse of authority; must not be softened into a minor social exclusion nor overstated as valid disciplinary precedent. |
| μιμέομαι | mimeomai | to imitate | အတုယူခြင်း | Medium | Imitating Good rather than Evil (v.11) | Must carry deliberate patterning of one’s life after a named example (Demetrius, not Diotrephes). |
| κακός | kakos | bad, evil (conduct/character) | မကောင်းမှု / ဆိုးညစ်သော | Medium | Imitating Good rather than Evil (v.11) | Keep lexically distinct from the baseline’s အပြစ် (“sin,” forensic transgression); this is a broader ethical-example category. |
| ἀγαθός | agathos | good (conduct/character) | ကောင်းမှု | High | Imitating Good rather than Evil (v.11) | Shares the root of ကောင်းမှုကုသိုလ် (merit-making “good deed”), the everyday Buddhist merit vocabulary already flagged critical in the baseline grace entry. Must be taught as fruit flowing from relationship with God, not a merit-generating act. |
| ἀγαθοποιέω | agathopoieō | to do good, be a doer of good | ကောင်းမှုပြုခြင်း | High | Imitating Good rather than Evil (v.11) | Same merit-collision as ἀγαθός; “is of God” names the cause (identity/relationship), and doing good is the effect — reverse of the merit-accumulation causal direction. |
| κακοποιέω | kakopoieō | to do evil, be a doer of evil | မကောင်းမှုပြုခြင်း | Medium | Imitating Good rather than Evil (v.11) | Negative parallel to ἀγαθοποιέω; marks absence of genuine relational knowledge of God. |
| ὁράω (ἑώρακεν) | horaō | to see; fig. to have known/perceived | မြင်ခြင်း (fig. ဆက်ဆံသိကျွမ်းခြင်း) | Medium | Imitating Good rather than Evil (v.11) | Figurative Johannine idiom for relational/experiential knowledge of God, not literal ocular vision or mystical vision-experience; translator note recommended. |
| ἀληθής | alēthēs | true, truthful | ဟုတ်မှန်သော | Medium | Commendation of Demetrius (v.12) | Adjectival cognate of ἀλήθεια certifying the reliability of a specific testimony; carries forward the same truth-vocabulary caution noted for ἀλήθεια. |
| στόμα πρὸς στόμα | stoma pros stoma | mouth to mouth (idiom) | မျက်နှာချင်းဆိုင် | Low | Truth and Christian Fellowship (v.14) | Idiom for direct personal communication; do not translate literally as “mouth to mouth.” |
| φίλος | philos | friend | မိတ်ဆွေ | Low | Truth and Christian Fellowship (v.14) | Keep distinct from ἀδελφός (“brother”) and from the baseline’s မိတ်သဟာယ (“fellowship,” koinōnia, a different Greek lexeme not literally present in 3 John), so the letter’s three relational-vocabulary layers remain visible. |
| χαίρω / χαρά | chairō / chara | to rejoice / joy | ဝမ်းမြောက်ခြင်း | Low | Truth and Christian Fellowship (vv.3,4) | Joy tied specifically to reports of truth-consistent conduct; minimal independent risk. |
Doctrine Label Renderings (for curriculum document headers)
| English Doctrine Label | Burmese Rendering | Risk Tier (of the doctrine as a whole) |
|---|---|---|
| Hospitality to Traveling Ministers | ခရီးသွားဓမ္မဆရာများအား ဧည့်ဝတ်ပြုခြင်း | Medium |
| Imitating Good rather than Evil | အကောင်းကိုသာ အတုယူ၍ အဆိုးကိုအတုမယူခြင်း | High |
| Church Leadership and Pride (Diotrephes) | အသင်းတော်ခေါင်းဆောင်မှုနှင့် ဒီယုတြေဖက်၏ ဦးစွာဖြစ်လိုသောစိတ် | High |
| Commendation of a Faithful Witness (Demetrius) | သစ္စာရှိသောသက်သေဖြစ်သူ ဒေမေတရိအား ချီးမွမ်းခြင်း | Medium-High |
| Truth and Christian Fellowship | သမ္မာတရားနှင့် ခရစ်ယာန်မိတ်သဟာယ | High |
Note on proper names (reuse Myanmar Bible established forms, consistent with the baseline’s transliteration standards):
- Gaius = ဂါယု (Gayu)
- Diotrephes = ဒီယုတြေဖက် (Diyotrepheq)
- Demetrius = ဒေမေတရိ (Demetri)
- John (traditional author, “the Elder”) = ယောဟန် (Yawhan) — used only in introductory/teaching material, not in the letter body itself, which is unsigned by name.
Critical Risk Terms
God
Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin
Doctrine: Imitating Good rather than Evil
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရား, နတ်သခင်
Original: θεός
Category: God
CRITICAL: ဘုရား alone is the everyday word for a Buddha image, pagoda, or the Buddha himself; နတ်သခင် evokes the nat-spirit pantheon. ဘုရားသခင် must always be used in full. Inherited from Romans package. Relevant to 3 John because 3 John 1:6 (hospitality worthy of God) and 1:11 (“is of God” / “has not seen God”) both hinge on this term retaining its full, personal, Trinity-consistent sense.
Grace
Approved rendering: ကျေးဇူးတော်
Transliteration: kyayzu-taw
Doctrine: Imitating Good rather than Evil
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်, ကံကောင်းခြင်း, ဝါသနာတော်
CRITICAL: never render as merit or good karma. Inherited from Romans package. Relevant to 3 John only as the governing precedent for the letter’s single highest-risk collision at v.11 (ἀγαθός/ἀγαθοποιέω vs. ကောင်းမှုကုသိုလ်); the same merit-vs-grace directionality principle established here for grace extends to that verse’s ‘doing good’ vocabulary.
High Risk Terms
Do Good
Approved rendering: ကောင်းမှုပြုခြင်း
Transliteration: kaung-hmu-pyu-chin
Doctrine: Imitating Good rather than Evil
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်ရှာခြင်း (seeking merit)
Original: ἀγαθοποιέω
Category: Ethics
New (3 John). ἀγαθοποιέω (v.11), habitual practice of good conduct as a marker of spiritual identity/origin (‘is of God’). Same merit-collision risk as good_conduct; must be rendered and taught so that doing good is fruit flowing from a God-given identity/relationship, not a cause that earns or improves standing before God. Mandatory theologian-reviewed translator note on every occurrence.
Expel
Approved rendering: နှင်ထုတ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: hnin-htoke-chin
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride (Diotrephes)
Rejected alternatives: ထွက်ခိုင်းခြင်း (minor social exclusion, too mild)
Original: ἐκβάλλω
Category: Church Leadership
New (3 John). ἐκβάλλω (v.10), Diotrephes’ most severe abuse, unilaterally expelling faithful believers from the church for showing hospitality; doctrinal climax of the Church-Leadership-and-Pride warning. Must convey formal, forcible removal as a serious abuse of authority, neither softened into a minor social slight nor hardened into a valid disciplinary precedent. Some independently circulated Burmese leadership literature reframes this as commendable decisive shepherding; that reframing must never be echoed.
Good Conduct
Approved rendering: ကောင်းမှု
Transliteration: kaung-hmu
Doctrine: Imitating Good rather than Evil
Rejected alternatives: ကောင်းမှုကုသိုလ် (merit-making compound)
Original: ἀγαθός
Category: Ethics
New (3 John). ἀγαθός (v.11), morally good conduct exemplified by Demetrius, the pattern believers should imitate. The natural rendering ကောင်းမှု shares its root with the everyday Buddhist compound ကောင်းမှုကုသိုလ် (‘good deed/merit’), the single most reinforced religious-ethical category in Burmese Buddhist daily life. Mandatory translator note on every occurrence: ‘doing good’ is evidence flowing from an existing relationship with God (‘is of God’), not a merit-generating act that produces or improves standing before God — the causal direction is reversed from the merit framework. This is the single highest silent-syncretism risk verse in the letter.
Love
Approved rendering: ချစ်ခြင်းမေတ္တာ
Transliteration: chit-chin-myittar
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: မေတ္တာ (used alone, without ချစ်ခြင်း)
Original: ἀγάπη / ἀγαπάω
Category: Fellowship
New (3 John). ἀγάπη/ἀγαπάω (vv.1,6). The established Myanmar Bible compound incorporates မေတ္တာ, the Pali-derived Brahmavihāra term for detached, non-relational loving-kindness cultivated in meditation toward all beings without personal cost. Must be taught as costly, relational, self-giving love demonstrated in real material provision for specific known people (Gaius, ‘the brothers,’ ‘strangers’), not a generalized meditative disposition. Never render မေတ္တာ alone.
Loves To Be First
Approved rendering: ဦးစွာဖြစ်လိုသောသူ
Transliteration: u-swar-hpyit-lo-thaw-thu
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride (Diotrephes)
Rejected alternatives: ဂုဏ်ကြီးမှု (generic pride, too broad), မာနကြီးမှု (generic arrogance, too broad)
Original: φιλοπρωτεύων
Category: Church Leadership
New (3 John). φιλοπρωτεύων (v.9), the defining vice named directly of Diotrephes and linchpin of the Church-Leadership-and-Pride doctrine. A single-word ‘proud’ rendering loses the specific ‘wants first place’ status-seeking nuance; must be a compound phrase. Burmese culture’s high, largely unquestioned deference to senior religious figures (ဆရာတော်/ဘုန်းတော်ကြီး) risks this reading as ordinary or even praiseworthy seniority rather than a named, condemned vice. Must not implicate legitimate, humble eldership itself (cf. πρεσβύτερος, v.1) — the critique targets abuse, not the office.
Sin
Approved rendering: အပြစ်
Transliteration: a-pyit
Doctrine: Imitating Good rather than Evil
Rejected alternatives: အကုသိုလ်
Moral transgression against a personal God, not demerit (အကုသိုလ်). Inherited from Romans package. Relevant to 3 John only as a contrast anchor: κακός (‘evil conduct,’ v.11, see new entry ‘evil_conduct’) is a broader ethical-example category and must be kept lexically distinct from this narrower forensic term.
Testify Testimony
Approved rendering: သက်သေခံခြင်း
Transliteration: thet-thay-khan-chin
Doctrine: Commendation of a Faithful Witness (Demetrius)
Rejected alternatives: သတင်းပြောခြင်း (casual report)
Original: μαρτυρέω / μαρτυρία
Category: Testimony
New (3 John). μαρτυρέω/μαρτυρία (vv.3,6,12), formal legal-flavored attestation. The threefold, escalating testimony for Demetrius at v.12 (from everyone, from ‘the truth itself,’ and from the elder) must retain cumulative evidentiary weight, rendered as three visibly distinct clauses, not flattened into a single generic compliment.
Truth
Approved rendering: သမ္မာတရား
Transliteration: thamma-tayar
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
Original: ἀλήθεια
Category: Truth
New (3 John). ἀλήθεια, occurring 6 times in 14 verses (vv.1,3,4,6,8,12), including a personified use at v.12 (‘testified to by the truth itself’). The root သမ္မာ parallels Pali sammā (sammā-diṭṭhi, ‘right view,’ a limb of the Noble Eightfold Path), risking a reading of truth as self-attained correct-view rather than God’s revealed, Christ-centered truth received relationally. No viable substitute exists without inventing an unfamiliar neologism; mitigate exclusively via mandatory translator notes on every occurrence, prioritized at v.12’s personified use.
Medium Risk Terms
Adoption
Approved rendering: သားအဖြစ်လက်ခံခြင်း
Transliteration: thar-a-phyit let-khan-chin
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: ဝမ်းစုတင်ခြင်း
Full, permanent legal son-status with inheritance rights, not a probationary status. Inherited from Romans package. Relevant to 3 John only as a contrast anchor: τέκνα (‘spiritual children,’ v.4, see new entry ‘spiritual_children’) must be taught with this same full-sonship emphasis rather than as a literal or monastic master-disciple lineage claim.
Church
Approved rendering: အသင်းတော်
Transliteration: athin-taw
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride (Diotrephes)
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရားကျောင်း, ဘုရားရိပ်သာ
Original: ἐκκλησία
Category: Church
The gathered people of God; never a pagoda/monastic compound. Inherited from Romans package. Relevant to 3 John because ἐκκλησία occurs at 1:6, 1:9, and 1:10 — the local congregation before whom Gaius’s love is testified and from which Diotrephes wrongly expels believers.
Do Evil
Approved rendering: မကောင်းမှုပြုခြင်း
Transliteration: ma-kaung-hmu-pyu-chin
Doctrine: Imitating Good rather than Evil
Original: κακοποιέω
Category: Ethics
New (3 John). κακοποιέω (v.11), habitual practice of evil conduct, negative parallel to do_good; marks the absence of genuine relational knowledge of God, exemplified by Diotrephes.
Elder
Approved rendering: အသက်ကြီးသူ
Transliteration: a-thet-kyi-thu
Doctrine: Pastoral Authority and Eldership
Rejected alternatives: ဆရာတော်, ဘုန်းတော်ကြီး, ဆရာကြီး
Original: πρεσβύτερος
Category: Church Leadership
New (3 John). The letter’s self-designation of its author (πρεσβύτερος, v.1). Must read as delegated, recognized Christian pastoral office, distinct from senior-monk honorifics (ဆရာတော်, ဘုန်းတော်ကြီး) which carry self-generated, ordination-seniority religious status. Must also be explicitly fenced from φιλοπρωτεύων (v.9) so the critique of Diotrephes targets abuse of position, not the legitimacy of eldership itself.
Evil Conduct
Approved rendering: ဆိုးညစ်သော
Transliteration: soe-nyit-thaw
Doctrine: Imitating Good rather than Evil
Rejected alternatives: အပြစ် (baseline sin term, too narrowly forensic)
Original: κακός
Category: Ethics
New (3 John). κακός (v.11), bad/harmful conduct exemplified by Diotrephes, which must not be imitated. Keep lexically distinct from the baseline’s အပြစ် (‘sin,’ forensic transgression) so this reads as a broader ethical-example category.
Faith
Approved rendering: ယုံကြည်ခြင်း
Transliteration: yun-kyi-chin
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: သဒ္ဓါတရား
Trust in Christ as a person, not generalized belief. Inherited from Romans package. Relevant to 3 John only as a contrast anchor: πιστός (‘faithful,’ v.5, see new entry ‘faithful_deed’) is an adjectival cognate describing trustworthy conduct and must NOT be collapsed into this baseline noun for saving faith.
Faithful Deed
Approved rendering: သစ္စာရှိသော
Transliteration: thissa-shi-thaw
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Rejected alternatives: ယုံကြည်ခြင်း (the baseline noun for saving faith)
New (3 John). πιστός (v.5), describing Gaius’s hospitality itself as reliable, trustworthy conduct. Adjectival cognate of πίστις; must not be collapsed into the baseline noun for saving faith, so readers do not read ‘a faithful deed’ as ‘an act that produces or equals belief.‘
Fellow Worker
Approved rendering: လုပ်ဖော်ဆောင်ဖက်
Transliteration: loq-phaw-saung-phet
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: အဖော် (passive companion, lacks active-labor sense)
Original: συνεργός
Category: Fellowship
New (3 John). συνεργός (v.8), a partner in shared labor toward the gospel’s advance; by hosting traveling ministers, believers become active co-laborers in the truth’s advance even without traveling themselves. Doctrinal core of lived truth-and-fellowship partnership; must convey active shared labor, not passive association.
Forbid Hinder
Approved rendering: တားဆီးခြင်း
Transliteration: tar-si-chin
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride (Diotrephes)
Original: κωλύω
Category: Church Leadership
New (3 John). κωλύω (v.10), Diotrephes actively blocking others from hospitality. Must read clearly as illegitimate suppression of a commended practice, not a neutral leadership decision.
Gentiles Outsiders
Approved rendering: တစ်ပါးအမျိုးသား
Transliteration: tabar-amyothar
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Original: ἐθνικός (root shared with ἔθνη)
Category: Church
New sense (3 John), reusing the baseline rendering exactly for lexical consistency. ἐθνικός (v.7) shares its root with ἔθνη but functions here more narrowly as ‘unbelieving non-patron outsiders’ from whom missionaries refused support, protecting the gospel’s reputation from patronage-driven religious service. A translator note is required flagging this contextual shift from Romans’ broader ethnic-theological ‘Gentiles as a people-group’ sense, so the nuance is not lost.
Gentiles
Approved rendering: တစ်ပါးအမျိုးသား
Transliteration: tabar-amyothar
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Rejected alternatives: လူမျိုးခြား
Non-Jews; the ethnic-theological category of Romans. Inherited from Romans package. Relevant to 3 John because ἐθνικός at 1:7 shares this root; see the separate ‘gentiles_outsiders’ entry below for the contextual sense-shift required at that verse.
Imitate
Approved rendering: အတုယူခြင်း
Transliteration: a-tu-yu-chin
Doctrine: Imitating Good rather than Evil
Rejected alternatives: အတုခိုးခြင်း (copy/counterfeit, negative connotation)
Original: μιμέομαι
Category: Ethics
New (3 John). μιμέομαι (v.11), the letter’s central ethical command: deliberate patterning of one’s life after a named example. Must connect directly to the specific named contrast surrounding it (Diotrephes = evil, Demetrius = good).
Malicious Accusation
Approved rendering: ကောလဟလပြောဆိုခြင်း
Transliteration: kaw-la-hala-pyaw-hso-chin
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride (Diotrephes)
Rejected alternatives: ဝေဖန်ခြင်း (fair criticism, too mild)
Original: φλυαρέω
Category: Church Leadership
New (3 John). φλυαρέω (v.10), baseless, malicious charges. Must convey deliberate, unfounded, damaging speech (slander), not mere disagreement or fair criticism, to preserve the severity of the charge.
Mission
Approved rendering: သာသနာပြုလုပ်ငန်း
Transliteration: thathana-pyu lokngan
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Retained Myanmar Christian usage for missionary work, requiring a translator note that it is proclamation of the gospel, not propagation of a Sasana-style institution. Inherited from Romans package. Relevant to 3 John because προπέμπω (v.6, see new entry ‘send_on_journey’) describes material provisioning of itinerant gospel workers whose labor is this same category of gospel-sending work.
Peace
Approved rendering: ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: nyein-thet-chin
Doctrine: Christian Greeting and Relational Closing
Rejected alternatives: ကိလေသာငြိမ်းခြင်း
Original: εἰρήνη
Category: Salvation
Relational, covenantal peace, not the meditative stilling of mental defilements. Inherited from Romans package. Relevant to 3 John because εἰρήνη closes the letter at 1:14 as an epistolary farewell blessing; the farewell usage must not read as a lesser, merely social peace distinct from the theological sense used elsewhere in the curriculum.
Prosper
Approved rendering: စည်ပင်ဖြိုးမြောက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: si-pin-hpyo-myauk-chin
Doctrine: Spiritual Well-Being versus Material Prosperity
Rejected alternatives: ကံကောင်းခြင်း
Original: εὐοδοῦσθαι
Category: Well-Being
New (3 John). εὐοδοῦσθαι (v.2), used twice: generally and of the soul. Must never read as a prosperity-gospel guarantee or as good fortune/luck (ကံကောင်းခြင်း, already forbidden in the baseline grace entry). The parallel spiritual-health clause in the same verse anchors and limits this material wish. This is a documented circulation risk: independent Myanmar prosperity-teaching tracts isolate this verse as a stand-alone health-and-wealth promise. Do not format or isolate v.2 in any pull-quote or emphasized display divorced from its bounding clause.
Receive Accept
Approved rendering: လက်ခံခြင်း
Transliteration: let-khan-chin
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride (Diotrephes)
Original: ἐπιδέχομαι
Category: Church Leadership
New (3 John). ἐπιδέχομαι (vv.9,10), accepting a person, their authority, or their message. Diotrephes refuses the elder’s authority/letter (v.9) and then the brothers themselves (v.10). Must be distinguished contextually from the hospitality-reception vocabulary of vv.5-8: here refusal targets authority/correspondence, then persons, not merely physical welcome.
Receive Support
Approved rendering: လက်ခံကူညီခြင်း
Transliteration: let-khan-ku-nyi-chin
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Rejected alternatives: ဒါနပေးခြင်း (merit-giving frame)
Original: ὑπολαμβάνω
Category: Hospitality
New (3 John). ὑπολαμβάνω (v.8), receiving and materially supporting traveling gospel workers. Same dāna-collision caution as stranger_guest above: active partnership in gospel truth, not merit-generosity.
Seen Known God
Approved rendering: မြင်ခြင်း
Transliteration: myin-chin
Doctrine: Imitating Good rather than Evil
Rejected alternatives: ဗျာဒိတ်ရခြင်း (mystical vision/revelation experience)
Original: ὁράω (ἑώρακεν)
Category: Ethics
New (3 John). ὁράω, perfect ἑώρακεν, ‘has not seen God’ (v.11), a Johannine idiom for genuine relational/experiential knowledge of God, not literal ocular sight. Given the cultural prominence of claimed visions of nats or Buddha images as markers of spiritual power/favor in Burmese folk practice, a literalized rendering risks implying God can be seen ocularly or inviting comparison with folk vision-claims. Translator note required.
Send On Journey
Approved rendering: ခရီးလွှတ်ပေးခြင်း
Transliteration: khayi-hlut-pay-chin
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Rejected alternatives: နှုတ်ဆက်ခြင်း (mere farewell/see-off)
Original: προπέμπω
Category: Hospitality
New (3 John). προπέμπω (v.6), active logistical/material provision for a traveler’s onward gospel work, a technical term of ancient missionary support. A generic ‘see off’ loses this sense; connects to the baseline’s mission doctrine and its caution against Sasana-style institutional framing.
Soul
Approved rendering: စိတ်ဝိညာဉ်
Transliteration: seiq-weinnyin
Doctrine: Spiritual Well-Being versus Material Prosperity
Rejected alternatives: ဝိညာဉ် (alone, without စိတ် modifier)
Original: ψυχή
Category: Well-Being
New (3 John). ψυχή (v.2), the standard by which Gaius’s outward prosperity is measured. Shares the anattā (no-permanent-self) collision family already flagged Critical for holy_spirit in the baseline, though urgency is lower here as an everyday well-being greeting rather than a doctrinal assertion. Keep focus on relational spiritual vitality; do not expand into a metaphysical debate.
Spiritual Children
Approved rendering: ဝိညာဉ်ရေးသားသမီးများ
Transliteration: weinnyin-yay tharthami myar
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: တပည့် (disciple, monastic master-pupil)
Original: τέκνα
Category: Pastoral Relationship
New (3 John). τέκνα (v.4), those under the elder’s pastoral influence. Must be clearly marked as a spiritual-relational metaphor, echoing the baseline adoption doctrine’s full-sonship emphasis, not a literal genealogical claim nor a ဆရာ-တပည့် monastic lineage claim.
Stranger Guest
Approved rendering: ဧည့်သည်
Transliteration: hnget-thae
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Rejected alternatives: ဒါန ခံသူ (dāna-recipient framing)
Original: ξένος
Category: Hospitality
New (3 John). ξένος (v.5), an unfamiliar traveling gospel worker welcomed despite not being personally known. Burmese hospitality culture readily supplies warm vocabulary for guests, but this risks collapse into dāna (ဒါန), merit-earning generosity toward monks and travelers. Must be taught as truth-partnership (v.8, ‘fellow workers with the truth’), not merit accumulation; never introduce dāna vocabulary even as explanatory gloss.
The Name
Approved rendering: နာမတော်
Transliteration: nama-taw
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Rejected alternatives: အမည် (generic personal name), an added interpretive possessive such as ‘of the Lord’ not present in the Greek
Original: ὄνομα
Category: Christology
New (3 John). ὄνομα used absolutely, ‘the Name’ (v.7), a reverent shorthand for the name of Jesus Christ. Must be rendered with the honorific နာမတော် to preserve the absolute, reverent, Christ-specific reference; never add an interpretive possessive gloss not present in the source, and never adopt Jehovah’s Witness NWT-style redirection of this absolute usage toward a different divine-name referent.
True Reliable
Approved rendering: ဟုတ်မှန်သော
Transliteration: hoke-hman-thaw
Doctrine: Commendation of a Faithful Witness (Demetrius)
Original: ἀληθής
Category: Testimony
New (3 John). ἀληθής (v.12), adjectival cognate of ἀλήθεια certifying the reliability of the elder’s own testimony about Demetrius; closes the doctrinal loop between truth and testimony running through the whole letter.
Walk Conduct
Approved rendering: ကျင့်ကြံနေထိုင်ခြင်း
Transliteration: kyin-kyan-nay-htaing-chin
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: လမ်းစဉ် (path, magga-associated)
Original: περιπατέω
Category: Ethics
New (3 John). περιπατέω, figurative (vv.3-4), the whole ongoing conduct/manner of life, not a single act. A literal rendering risks sounding like physical journeying; keep grammatically bound to ‘in truth’ (adverbial) rather than standing alone as an independent ‘the walk/the path’ noun phrase, which would invite association with Buddhist magga (self-directed progress toward attainment).
Works Deeds
Approved rendering: လုပ်ဆောင်ချက်များ
Transliteration: loq-shaung-chet myar
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride (Diotrephes)
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်/အကုသိုလ် (merit/demerit register)
Original: ἔργα
Category: Church Leadership
New (3 John). ἔργα (v.10), Diotrephes’ visible, repeated pattern of wrongful conduct. Keep register distinct from Romans’ soteriological works-vs-grace vocabulary; here purely descriptive of a pattern of conduct under church discipline.
Low Risk Terms
Beloved
Approved rendering: ချစ်လှစွာသောသူ
Transliteration: chit-hla-swar-thaw-thu
Doctrine: Truth and Christian Fellowship
Original: ἀγαπητός
Category: Relational Address
New (3 John). Term of affectionate address for Gaius (ἀγαπητός, vv.1,2,5,11). Keep lexically distinct from ἀδελφός (‘brother’) and φίλος (‘friend’) so the letter’s three relational-address layers remain visible.
Brother
Approved rendering: ညီအစ်ကိုများ
Transliteration: nyi-ah-ko myar
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Original: ἀδελφός
Category: Relational Address
New (3 John). ἀδελφός (vv.3,5,10), fellow believers, here the traveling ministers received by Gaius. Keep lexically distinct from πρεσβύτερος (elder office) and φίλος (friend, v.14).
Content Satisfied
Approved rendering: ရောင့်ရဲခြင်း
Transliteration: yaung-yeh-chin
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Pride (Diotrephes)
Original: ἀρκέω
Category: Church Leadership
New (3 John). ἀρκέω (v.10), Diotrephes ‘not content’ with slander alone; marks escalation.
Face To Face
Approved rendering: မျက်နှာချင်းဆိုင်
Transliteration: myet-hna-chin-hsaing
Doctrine: Christian Greeting and Relational Closing
Rejected alternatives: နှုတ်ချင်းဆိုင် (literal ‘mouth to mouth’ calque)
Original: στόμα πρὸς στόμα
Category: Epistolary
New (3 John). στόμα πρὸς στόμα (v.14), a Hebraic idiom for direct, unmediated personal communication. Do not translate literally; use a natural Burmese idiom for in-person conversation.
Friend
Approved rendering: မိတ်ဆွေ
Transliteration: meik-hswe
Doctrine: Christian Greeting and Relational Closing
Rejected alternatives: ညီအစ်ကို (brother, collapsing distinct register)
Original: φίλος
Category: Relational Address
New (3 John). φίλος (v.14), a term of affectionate personal bond distinct from ἀδελφός (‘brother’) and ἀγαπητός (‘beloved’); the letter’s closing circle of named local believers. Keep distinct also from the baseline’s မိတ်သဟာယ (fellowship, koinōnia, a different Greek lexeme not literally present in 3 John) so the letter’s three relational-vocabulary layers remain visible.
Health
Approved rendering: ကျန်းမာစွာနေခြင်း
Transliteration: kyan-mar-swar-nay-chin
Doctrine: Spiritual Well-Being versus Material Prosperity
Original: ὑγιαίνω
Category: Well-Being
New (3 John). ὑγιαίνω (v.2). Standard courteous well-wishing paired with, and subordinate to, spiritual prosperity.
Rejoice Joy
Approved rendering: ဝမ်းမြောက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: wun-myauk-chin
Doctrine: Joy Tied to Truth-Consistent Living
Original: χαίρω / χαρά
Category: Fellowship
New (3 John). χαίρω/χαρά (vv.3,4), joy tied specifically to reports of another believer’s truth-consistent conduct, not generic emotional pleasure or the diffuse benevolence of Buddhist mudita.
Remind
Approved rendering: သတိပေးခြင်း
Transliteration: thati-pay-chin
Doctrine: Legitimate Pastoral Confrontation and Discipline
Original: ὑπομιμνήσκω
Category: Church Leadership
New (3 John). ὑπομιμνήσκω (v.10), the elder’s stated intent to confront Diotrephes’ conduct directly. Signals legitimate pastoral confrontation; must remain visibly distinct from Diotrephes’ own illegitimate unilateral expulsion of believers within the same verse.
Wish Want
Approved rendering: ဆန္ဒရှိသည်
Transliteration: san-da-shi-thi
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Original: βούλομαι
Category: Church Leadership
New (3 John). βούλομαι (v.10), those in the congregation who wanted to extend hospitality but were prevented. Shows Diotrephes’ pride harming the wider community’s ability to practice the Hospitality doctrine.
Worthily
Approved rendering: ထိုက်တန်စွာ
Transliteration: htaik-tan-swar
Doctrine: Hospitality to Traveling Ministers
Original: ἀξίως
Category: Hospitality
New (3 John). ἀξίως (v.6), conduct matching the honor of the one for whom it is done, since gospel workers serve in God’s name.
Referenced passages