Semantic Analysis
07 Semantic Analysis — Acts 1–28 (Koine Greek → Burmese)
Scope and Method
This document analyzes the full book of Acts in the original Koine Greek, chapter by chapter, for load-bearing theological vocabulary relevant to translation into Burmese. The core passage, Acts 2:1–41, receives verse-by-verse treatment. Every other chapter receives a chapter-level section covering its load-bearing terms with the same analytical fields. Where a chapter introduces no new theological vocabulary beyond terms already treated, this is stated explicitly rather than omitted.
Governing rule: Any term already recorded in the baseline Romans translation_memory.json (gospel, grace, faith, righteousness, justification, salvation, apostle, called, calling, holy, saints, sanctification, adoption, resurrection, lord, son_of_god, incarnation, peace, spiritual_gifts, thanksgiving, fellowship, church, kingdom_of_god, law, sin, gentiles, glory, obedience_of_faith, power_of_god, messiah, prophet, prophecy, covenant, election, intercession, providence, mission, david, israel, jesus, god, holy_spirit, father, abba, exhort, seed_of_david, imputed_righteousness) is reused with its exact recorded Burmese rendering. This document does not re-derive those renderings; it only notes where Acts extends or nuances their doctrinal use.
Each term entry provides: Original word (script) — transliteration — literal meaning — semantic range — English variants — contextual theological meaning in Acts — Burmese rendering — translation risk tier with grounded reason.
PART A — CORE PASSAGE: Acts 2:1–41 (Verse-by-Verse)
Acts 2:1
“When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.”
- Pentecost — Grk πεντηκοστή (pentēkostē), lit. “fiftieth [day]”; semantic range: the Jewish Feast of Weeks/Shavuot, fifty days after Passover, marking the wheat harvest and later linked to the giving of the Law at Sinai; English variants: “Pentecost,” “Feast of Weeks,” “Feast of Harvest.” Contextual meaning: the fixed OT covenant calendar becomes the historical moment of the Spirit’s outpouring — a one-time, linear fulfillment, not a repeating festival cycle. Burmese: ပင်တေကုတ္တေနေ့ (transliteration, “Pinteikositay-nay”). Risk: High. Burmese readers have no native concept of a fixed pilgrim-harvest feast tied to covenant history; without OT background (Lev 23:15–21) this risks defaulting to a generic Buddhist holy/full-moon observance (ubosatha day), stripping the term of its covenant-historical anchor.
Acts 2:2
“And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind.”
- wind/breath — Grk πνοή (pnoē), lit. “breath, blast”; semantic range: breath of life, wind, divine breath (cf. Gen 2:7 LXX). English variants: “wind,” “breath,” “blast.” Contextual meaning: an audible, physical sign accompanying the Spirit’s (πνεῦμα) arrival — the wordplay between pnoē (wind/breath) and pneuma (Spirit) is theologically loaded, signaling life-giving divine power, not a natural weather event. Burmese: လေပြင်းမုန်တိုင်းကဲ့သို့သော အသံ (“sound like a violent wind”). Risk: Medium — must not be flattened into ordinary weather vocabulary; a translator note should preserve the wind/Spirit wordplay link to the established holy_spirit term (သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော်).
Acts 2:3
“And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.”
- fire — Grk πῦρ (pyr), lit. “fire”; semantic range: divine presence, judgment, purification, theophany (cf. Exod 3:2, 19:18). English variants: “fire,” “flame.” Contextual meaning: visible sign of God’s holy presence resting individually on each believer, marking a new covenant Sinai-like theophany. Burmese: မီး (“fire”), in context မီးလျှံကဲ့သို့သောလျှာများ (“tongues like flames of fire”). Risk: Medium — note the deliberate wordplay: γλῶσσαι (glōssai, “tongues,” here meaning flame-shapes) in v.3 anticipates γλώσσαις (glōssais, “tongues/languages”) in v.4; this double sense should be flagged for translators so the Burmese does not accidentally merge or lose the pun’s theological point (fire-tongues → speech-tongues).
Acts 2:4
“And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
- filled with the Holy Spirit — Grk ἐπλήσθησαν πνεύματος ἁγίου (eplēsthēsan pneumatos hagiou), lit. “they were filled of Holy Spirit”; semantic range: complete saturation/empowerment by the Spirit’s presence, recurring throughout Acts (2:4; 4:8,31; 6:3,5; 7:55; 9:17; 11:24; 13:9,52) as the normative mark of Spirit-empowered witness. English variants: “filled with,” “full of.” Contextual theological meaning: divine, personal indwelling that empowers bold, intelligible proclamation — never loss of self-control or possession by another entity. Burmese: သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော်နှင့် ပြည့်ဝသည် (reusing baseline holy_spirit term သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော် + ပြည့်ဝ, “filled”). Risk: Critical. This phrase recurs as a doctrinal refrain across Acts and is the single greatest syncretism risk in the book: Burmese folk religion has a well-established, culturally vivid category of spirit-possession (နတ်ဝင်ခြင်း) in which a nat-kadaw medium’s own consciousness is displaced by a spirit during trance. “Filled with the Holy Spirit” MUST be taught as personal indwelling by the one true divine Spirit that increases the believer’s own faculties (courage, clarity, intelligible speech) rather than displacing personal agency, and must never be rendered or illustrated in a way that maps onto nat possession.
- tongues (in the sense of languages spoken) — Grk γλώσσαις ἑτέραις (glōssais heterais), lit. “other tongues”; semantic range: γλῶσσα ranges from the physical organ “tongue,” to “language/dialect,” to (later, in 1 Corinthians) ecstatic utterance. In Acts 2 the narrative (vv.6,8,11: “each one heard them speaking in his own language”) makes clear these are real, existing human languages, not unintelligible ecstatic speech. English variants: “tongues,” “other tongues,” “languages.” Contextual theological meaning: a miraculous sign of the Spirit’s coming that reverses Babel’s confusion (Gen 11) and previews the gospel’s reach to “every nation under heaven” (v.5) — intelligible communication, not glossolalic mystery. Burmese: အခြားဘာသာစကားများ (“other languages”). Risk: Critical. Beyond the general Holy Spirit collision above, this specific term carries an additional distinct risk: unintelligible ecstatic or altered-voice speech is a recognizable feature of Burmese spirit-mediumship and certain folk-Buddhist trance practices. A translator note must state plainly that Acts 2’s tongues were real, known human languages understood by hearers of those languages (v.6,8), distinguishing this Pentecost sign from both spirit-trance speech and from later, different NT phenomena.
Acts 2:5
“Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.”
- devout — Grk εὐλαβεῖς (eulabeis), lit. “reverent, taking care [in religious matters]”; semantic range: pious, God-fearing, careful observance. English variants: “devout,” “God-fearing,” “reverent.” Contextual meaning: faithful diaspora Jews present in Jerusalem for the feast, representing the global reach the gospel is about to take. Burmese: ဘုရားတရားကို လေးစားလိုက်နာသူများ. Risk: Low — background descriptive term, minor doctrinal weight.
Acts 2:6
“And at this sound the crowd came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.”
- language/dialect — Grk διάλεκτος (dialektos), lit. “manner of speaking, dialect”; semantic range: native language, mother tongue, regional speech-form — distinct from γλῶσσα (“tongue”). English variants: “language,” “dialect,” “native tongue.” Contextual meaning: reinforces that the miracle was intelligible, mother-tongue communication for each hearer — a direct enactment of the gospel’s coming multiethnic reach. Burmese: မိခင်ဘာသာစကား (“mother tongue”). Risk: Medium — should be kept visibly distinct from the term chosen for γλῶσσα above so a Burmese reader does not collapse the two Greek words into one flattened idea.
Acts 2:7–8
“And they were amazed and astonished… ‘How is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?’”
- No new load-bearing theological terms beyond language/dialect (v.6) and general astonishment vocabulary (ἐξίσταντο/ἐθαύμαζον, “amazed/astonished” — Burmese: အံ့သြခြင်း, Low risk, descriptive).
Acts 2:9–11
List of nations: Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, Rome, Cretans, Arabians.
- Proper geographic/ethnic names; Risk: Low, transliterate per Myanmar Bible convention. Theological weight: the list’s deliberate diversity anticipates the doctrine of The Gospel to Jews and Gentiles and the Great Commission Fulfilled, foreshadowing Acts 1:8’s “ends of the earth” — flag this list for a contextual note connecting it forward even though individual names carry low translation risk.
Acts 2:12–13
“And all were amazed and perplexed… But others mocking said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’”
- new wine — Grk γλεῦκος (gleukos), lit. “sweet [new] wine”; semantic range: unfermented or freshly fermented grape wine, associated with intoxication. English variants: “new wine,” “sweet wine.” Contextual meaning: the mocking crowd’s misreading of Spirit-filled boldness as drunkenness — the text itself anticipates and rejects the very confusion between Spirit-fullness and altered/intoxicated states that is the central Burmese syncretism risk for this passage. Burmese: စည်ချောင်းသစ် (“new/sweet wine”). Risk: Medium — this verse is doctrinally useful precisely because it lets a translator note explicitly state: “Spirit-filling is not intoxication or trance,” directly countering the possession-parallel risk flagged at v.4.
Acts 2:14–15
“But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice… ‘these men are not drunk… it is only the third hour of the day.’”
- drunk — Grk μεθύω (methyō), lit. “to be drunk”; reinforces the v.13 contrast above. Risk: Low, supporting term for the Medium-risk contrast already flagged.
Acts 2:16
“but this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel.”
- Reuses baseline prophet (ပရောဖက်) and prophecy (ပရောဖက်ပြုချက်) terms exactly. Contextual meaning: formal citation formula establishing that Pentecost is the direct, linear fulfillment of a specific, named OT prophecy — anchoring the doctrine of Fulfillment of Prophecy already established at High risk in the Romans baseline. Risk: High (inherited) — must not be softened into a generic “as it was said,” which would lose the specific fulfillment claim.
Acts 2:17–18
“‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh… your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams… I will pour out my Spirit.’”
- last days — Grk ἐσχάταις ἡμέραις (eschatais hēmerais), lit. “in the last/final days”; semantic range: the eschatological era inaugurated by Messiah’s first coming, running to his return — a single, linear, unrepeatable epoch. English variants: “last days,” “latter days,” “final days.” Contextual meaning: Pentecost marks the decisive entry into history’s final epoch. Burmese: နောက်ဆုံးသောနေ့ရက်များ. Risk: High — Burmese Buddhist cosmology frames time as a vast cycle of world-ages (ကမ္ဘာ, kabba) endlessly arising and dissolving; “last days” must be taught as the one, final, linear era moving toward Christ’s return and final judgment, not one more turn of a cosmic wheel.
- pour out — Grk ἐκχεῶ (ekcheō), lit. “I will pour out”; semantic range: lavish, abundant outpouring (of liquid, blood, or here the Spirit). English variants: “pour out,” “pour forth.” Contextual meaning: generous, universal Spirit-giving, not a scarce or merited resource. Burmese: သွန်းလောင်းမည်. Risk: Medium — pairs with the grace doctrine (Critical, baseline) in emphasizing the Spirit as unearned gift, not merit-based attainment.
- dreams / visions — Grk ἐνύπνια (enypnia, “dreams”) and ὁράσεις (horaseis, “visions”); semantic range: God-given revelatory experience during sleep or waking state. English variants: “dreams,” “visions.” Contextual meaning: Spirit-given revelation available across every social class and generation (sons/daughters, young/old), not privileged religious specialists. Burmese: အိပ်မက်များ (dreams) / ဗျာဒိတ်ရူပါရုံများ (visions). Risk: Medium — Burmese culture has strong folk-astrological dream-omen interpretation traditions (dream almanacs used for lottery numbers, fortune); must be distinguished as God-initiated revelation to a specific person for God’s redemptive purposes, not a coded fortune to be divined by a manual.
Acts 2:19–20
“‘And I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below… The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.’”
- day of the Lord — Grk ἡμέρα Κυρίου (hēmera Kyriou), lit. “day of the Lord”; semantic range: the decisive, final day of divine judgment and vindication, a fixed OT prophetic category. English variants: “Day of the Lord,” “that day,” “the great day.” Contextual meaning: history moves toward one final, unrepeatable day of reckoning, not a recurring cosmic dissolution/re-formation. Burmese: ဘုရားသခင်၏နေ့တော်ကြီး. Risk: High — must be kept distinct from the Buddhist cosmological pattern of a kappa (world-age) ending in destruction and beginning anew; this is a singular, linear, morally decisive day, tied to the person of the returning Lord (reuse baseline lord သခင်), not an impersonal cosmic cycle-turn.
Acts 2:21
“‘And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”
- call upon the name of the Lord — Grk ἐπικαλέσηται τὸ ὄνομα Κυρίου (epikalesētai to onoma Kyriou), lit. “shall call upon the name of the Lord”; semantic range: to invoke, appeal to, or confess allegiance to a named person for rescue. English variants: “call on the name,” “invoke the name.” Contextual meaning: salvation is granted personally and directly to anyone — without ethnic or social restriction — who appeals to the Lord Jesus by name; this is the same salvation-confession category as Romans 10:9–13, already Critical in the baseline. Burmese: သခင်ဘုရား၏နာမတော်ကို ခေါ်တောင်းသောသူ (reusing baseline lord သခင် term). Risk: Critical — this is the salvation-defining confession of the whole book of Acts (echoed at 2:38; 3:16; 4:12; 16:31; 22:16) and must never be diluted into a generic invocation formula; it names Jesus specifically as the exclusive object of appeal, directly against a devotional culture accustomed to invoking multiple refuges (Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha) or propitiating multiple nats for protection.
- saved — reuse baseline salvation term ကယ်တင်ခြင်း exactly. Contextual note: here the universal “everyone” (πᾶς) must be preserved without qualification — ties directly to the Universal Scope of the Gospel doctrine flagged High in the baseline.
Acts 2:22
“‘Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know.’”
- signs and wonders — Grk δυνάμεσι καὶ τέρασι καὶ σημείοις (dynamesi kai terasi kai sēmeiois), lit. “with powers and wonders and signs” (a three-fold formula recurring at 2:43; 4:30; 5:12; 6:8; 14:3; 15:12); semantic range: δύναμις = inherent power/capability, τέρας = an awe-inspiring portent, σημεῖον = a meaningful, pointing sign. English variants: “miracles,” “wonders,” “signs,” “mighty works.” Contextual meaning: authenticating acts by which God publicly attests his chosen agents (Jesus, then the apostles) — never self-generated spiritual attainment or occult potency. Burmese: တန်ခိုးများ၊ အံ့ဖွယ်အမှုများ၊ နိမိတ်လက္ခဏာများ (reusing baseline power_of_god တန်ခိုးတော် for δύναμις). Risk: High — direct collision risk with (a) the supernatural powers (iddhi/abhiññā) traditionally attributed to advanced meditators and arahants in Buddhist teaching, and (b) the esoteric power claimed by weizza adepts and amulet/relic potency (အနုဘော်တန်ခိုး, already forbidden in the baseline for a related reason). This doctrine anchors Apostolic Authority and Miracles: these signs authenticate God’s message and messenger by divine initiative, not personal spiritual accomplishment purchasable or attainable through discipline.
Acts 2:23
“‘this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.’”
- foreknowledge — Grk πρόγνωσις (prognōsis), lit. “knowing beforehand”; semantic range: God’s prior, purposive knowledge and determination of events. English variants: “foreknowledge,” “foreordained plan.” Contextual meaning: Christ’s death was neither an accident nor a tragedy overtaking God’s plan, but the deliberate outworking of God’s sovereign purpose — ties to the baseline providence (ဘုရားသခင်၏ကြည့်ရှုစောင့်ရှောက်မှု) and election (ရွေးကောက်ခြင်း) terms. Burmese: ဘုရားသခင်၏ ရှေးကြိုသိတော်မူခြင်း. Risk: High — must be distinguished from impersonal karmic determinism (ကံ); this is the personal, purposive foreknowledge of a sovereign God, not the automatic unfolding of cause-and-effect law.
- definite plan — Grk βουλή (boulē), lit. “counsel, will, deliberate purpose”; reused later at 4:28, 13:36, 20:27 (“whole counsel of God”). Burmese: အကြံအစည်တော်. Risk: Medium — supports the same providence doctrine.
Acts 2:24
“‘God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.’”
- raised — reuse baseline resurrection term ထမြောက်ခြင်း exactly (verb form: ထမြောက်စေတော်မူ). Risk: Critical (inherited from baseline) — NEVER ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း (rebirth into samsara). This is the first of many resurrection statements clustered in this sermon (vv.24,31,32) and throughout Acts (3:15,26; 4:2,10,33; 5:30; 10:40-41; 13:30-37; 17:31-32; 26:23), making Acts, alongside Romans, a primary anchor text for the resurrection_of_christ doctrine.
- pangs of death — Grk ὠδῖνας τοῦ θανάτου (ōdinas tou thanatou), lit. “birth-pangs/labor-pains of death”; idiom for death’s binding agony, from which resurrection is a decisive release. Burmese: သေခြင်း၏ဝေဒနာနှောင်ကြိုး (“cords/bonds of death’s suffering”). Risk: Medium — vivid idiom; ensure the Burmese rendering conveys deliverance FROM death’s grip, not merely the end of suffering in a generalized sense.
Acts 2:25–28
“For David says concerning him, ‘I saw the Lord always before me… you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption…’”
- Hades — Grk ᾍδης (Hadēs), lit. the Greek name for the realm/personification of the dead; in LXX usage renders Hebrew Sheol, the shadowy abode of all the dead awaiting resurrection. English variants: “Hades,” “the grave,” “the realm of the dead.” Contextual meaning: the temporary state of death from which Christ’s soul was not abandoned — a holding place, not a final destiny nor a station in a cycle of rebirths. Burmese: မရင်းနိုင်သောသေမင်းနိုင်ငံ or transliterated ဟေဒက် (“Hades”). Risk: High — must be clearly distinguished from the Buddhist naraka (hell realms) and preta (hungry ghost) realms, which are karmic rebirth destinations within an ongoing cycle; Hades here is a temporary intermediate state preceding a single, final bodily resurrection, not a station passed through en route to a next life.
- corruption — Grk διαφθορά (diaphthora), lit. “decay, destruction”; contextual meaning: Christ’s body did not decompose, a physical, historical claim supporting bodily resurrection. Burmese: ပုပ်သိုးခြင်း. Risk: Medium, supports the Critical resurrection doctrine.
- Holy One — reuse concept parallel to holy (baseline သန့်ရှင်းသော) applied here as a title for Christ; Risk: High as a Christological title (see also 3:14 “Holy and Righteous One” below).
Acts 2:29–31
“‘Brothers, I may say to you confidently about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried… Being therefore a prophet… he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ.’”
- patriarch — Grk πατριάρχης (patriarchēs), lit. “father-ruler, clan-founder”; English variants: “patriarch,” “forefather.” Burmese: ဘိုးဘေးအမျိုးရင်းသား or established term ဘိုးဘေးဘီဘင်. Risk: Low — background genealogical/covenantal term, supports baseline david and covenant terms.
- Reuses baseline prophet, messiah (မေရှိယ, here rendered contextually as ခရစ်တော် “the Christ”), and resurrection terms — Risk: Critical (inherited), since this verse makes explicit that David’s own prophecy specifically foretold the Messiah’s bodily resurrection, reinforcing Messianic Promise and Fulfillment of Prophecy.
Acts 2:32–33
“‘This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.’”
- witnesses — Grk μάρτυρες (martyres), lit. “witnesses”; semantic range: legal/eyewitness testifiers, later (post-NT) developing the sense “martyr” (one who testifies unto death). English variants: “witnesses,” “testifiers.” Contextual meaning: the apostles’ authoritative, firsthand eyewitness testimony to the historical resurrection anchors both Apostolic Authority and Persecution and Bold Witness doctrines. Burmese: သက်သေများ. Risk: Medium — must retain the specific sense of firsthand eyewitness legal testimony, not vague “believer” or general storyteller.
- right hand / exalted — Grk τῇ δεξιᾷ τοῦ θεοῦ ὑψωθείς (tē dexia tou theou hypsōtheis), lit. “having been exalted by/at the right hand of God”; semantic range: enthronement, supreme honor and authority conferred by God. English variants: “exalted,” “raised to God’s right hand.” Contextual meaning: unique, unrivaled enthronement of the risen Christ in supreme divine authority — reinforces lordship_of_christ and deity_of_christ (both Critical in baseline). Burmese: ဘုရားသခင်၏လက်ယာတော်ဘက်၌ ချီးမြှောက်ခြင်းခံရသော. Risk: High — must not be softened into a merely honorary or metaphorical elevation; nor confused with a Brahma-realm ascent attained through accumulated merit, since Christ’s exaltation is uniquely conferred by the Father upon the eternal, incarnate Son, not achieved through spiritual practice.
- Reuses baseline holy_spirit, father terms exactly.
Acts 2:34–35
“‘For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he said, “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”’”
- Reuses lord (သခင်) term twice with distinct referents (God the Father addressing the Son) — Risk: Critical, since this OT quotation (Ps 110:1) is a key Trinitarian proof-text; the double use of κύριος must be rendered so a Burmese reader can distinguish the Father’s address to the Son without implying two separate, unrelated deities. Flag for translator note explaining the Father-Son relationship within the one God.
Acts 2:36
“‘Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.’”
- Culminating confession combining reused baseline terms lord (သခင်), messiah/christ (မေရှိယ / ခရစ်တော်), and israel (ဣသရေလ). Risk: Critical — this is the sermon’s climactic Christological confession and must be rendered with the same precision and consistency required for Romans 10:9 in the baseline (per the cross-document consistency rule); any future Acts translation of this verse must match the register and clarity of the Romans Lord-confession rendering.
Acts 2:37
“Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’”
- cut to the heart — Grk κατενύγησαν τὴν καρδίαν (katenygēsan tēn kardian), lit. “they were pierced/stung in the heart”; semantic range: sharp, sudden conviction, deep emotional-spiritual distress. English variants: “cut to the heart,” “pierced in heart,” “deeply troubled.” Contextual meaning: Spirit-produced conviction of sin and guilt over crucifying the Messiah, the necessary prelude to repentance. Burmese: နှလုံးသားထိခိုက်ခြင်း. Risk: Medium — should be distinguished from ordinary regret or shame (which Burmese honor-shame culture readily supplies); this is conviction that specifically drives a person toward the Lord Jesus for the remedy, not merely social embarrassment or self-reproach.
- Reuses baseline apostle term exactly.
Acts 2:38
“And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’”
- repent — Grk μετανοήσατε (metanoēsate, imperative of μετανοέω, metanoeō), lit. “change your mind/purpose”; semantic range: a decisive reorientation of mind and will, turning away from sin and toward God. English variants: “repent,” “turn,” “change one’s mind.” Contextual meaning: the necessary human response to the gospel proclamation, inseparably linked here with baptism and forgiveness. Burmese: နောင်တရသည်. Risk: High — must be taught as a Spirit-enabled turning of the whole person toward God in trust, not merely emotional remorse or regret (ဝန်ခံစိတ်ပူပန်ခြင်း), and not a Buddhist confession-of-fault ritual performed to reduce demerit; this term anchors the Repentance and Baptism doctrine core to Acts.
- baptized — Grk βαπτισθήτω (baptisthētō, from βαπτίζω, baptizō), lit. “let him be immersed/dipped”; semantic range: ritual immersion in water signifying cleansing, identification, and initiation. English variants: “baptize,” “immerse.” Contextual meaning: the public, once-for-all sign of repentance and union with Christ’s death and resurrection (cf. Rom 6:3–4, baseline), and the mark of entry into the believing community. Burmese: ဗတ္တိဇံခံယူသည် (established Myanmar Christian term, transliterated). Risk: High — must be distinguished from Buddhist ritual water-pouring for merit-dedication (ရေသွန်းကုသိုလ်ဝေခြင်း) and from ordinary ceremonial bathing; baptism here is a public identification with Christ’s finished work, received once, not a repeatable merit-generating rite.
- name of Jesus Christ — reuse of the name motif (see 2:21 above) applied specifically to baptism; Burmese: ယေရှုခရစ်၏နာမတော်၌. Risk: Critical — the exclusivity of the Name in salvation and baptism formulas recurs at 3:6,16; 4:7,10,12,17-18,30; 8:12,16; 9:14-16,27-28; 10:43,48; 16:18; 19:5,13,17; 21:13; 22:16; 26:9, making it one of the most frequent load-bearing phrases in the entire book — never generalize to “in a divine name” or soften the exclusivity.
- forgiveness of sins — Grk ἄφεσιν τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν (aphesin tōn hamartiōn), lit. “release/pardon of sins” (from ἀφίημι, “to send away, release”); semantic range: legal remission/cancellation of a debt or offense. English variants: “forgiveness,” “remission,” “pardon.” Contextual meaning: God’s judicial release of sinners from the guilt and penalty of sin through Christ, received freely upon repentance. Burmese: အပြစ်လွတ်ငြိမ်းခြင်း (reusing baseline sin အပြစ် term as base). Risk: Critical — must be sharply distinguished from the Buddhist concept of reducing demerit (အကုသိုလ်) through merit-transfer or ritual dedication; this is a decisive, complete pardon granted by a personal God on the basis of Christ’s work, not a partial offsetting of a moral ledger that still awaits future karmic reckoning.
- gift of the Holy Spirit — Grk δωρεὰν τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ ἁγίου (dōrean tou pneumatos tou hagiou), lit. “the free gift of the Holy Spirit”; δωρεά specifically denotes a gift given freely, gratis, without payment or merit (cognate with the NT’s grace-vocabulary family). English variants: “gift of the Spirit,” “the Spirit as a gift.” Contextual meaning: the Spirit’s indwelling presence is received as an unearned gift upon repentance and faith, not attained through spiritual discipline or purchased through devotion. Burmese: သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော်၏ လက်ဆောင် (reusing baseline holy_spirit term). Risk: Critical — directly parallels the Critical grace doctrine in the baseline; must never be rendered in a way suggesting the Spirit is earned through merit, discipline, or ritual purity.
Acts 2:39
“‘For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.’”
- promise — Grk ἐπαγγελία (epangelia), lit. “a promise, pledge”; semantic range: a solemn, binding assurance, particularly God’s covenant promises to Israel now extended outward. English variants: “promise,” “pledge.” Contextual meaning: the Spirit’s gift is grounded in God’s own covenant promise (echoing baseline covenant ပဋိညာဉ် term) and is now extended beyond ethnic Israel to “all who are far off” — a direct anchor for The Gospel to Jews and Gentiles. Burmese: ကတိတော်. Risk: Medium — ensure the universal extension (“far off,” i.e., Gentiles) is not narrowed back to an ethnically exclusive promise.
- Reuses baseline called/calling term exactly (ခေါ်တော်မူသော) — Risk: High (inherited): God’s own sovereign initiative in calling, not human self-selection.
Acts 2:40
“And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, ‘Save yourselves from this crooked generation.’”
- Reuses baseline exhort term (တိုက်တွန်းနှိုးဆော်ခြင်း) and the salvation term (ကယ်တင်ခြင်း, here reflexive “save yourselves,” meaning respond to the rescue offered, not self-generated deliverance — flag for translator note to avoid implying self-salvation). Risk: Critical (inherited from salvation doctrine) — must clarify this is an appeal to receive/respond to the salvation being offered, not to accomplish it by one’s own effort, which would collide directly with the Critical grace doctrine.
Acts 2:41
“So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”
- added — Grk προσετέθησαν (prosetethēsan, from προστίθημι), lit. “were added to”; semantic range: incorporation into an existing group/number. English variants: “added,” “joined,” “incorporated.” Contextual meaning: the first recorded, numerically explicit growth of the church as a community, marking the doctrine of The Church as Community from its very first day. Burmese: တိုးပွားလာသည် / ပေါင်းစည်းခြင်းခံရသည်. Risk: Low — supports the Medium-risk church baseline term but carries little independent doctrinal risk itself.
- Reuses baseline baptism (as established above) — Risk: High (inherited).
PART B — CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER STUDY OF THE WHOLE BOOK
Chapter 1 — Ascension, Waiting for the Spirit, Judas’s Replacement
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| witness | μάρτυς (martys) | “witness” | eyewitness testifier; legal witness; (later) martyr | witness, testify | Acts 1:8, “you will be my witnesses” — the apostles’ commissioned, authoritative eyewitness testimony to the risen Christ, the programmatic verse for the whole book | သက်သေ / သက်သေခံခြင်း | Medium — must retain firsthand testimonial force, foundational to Persecution and Bold Witness doctrine |
| ends of the earth | ἕως ἐσχάτου τῆς γῆς (heōs eschatou tēs gēs) | “to the last part of the earth” | totality of geographic/ethnic reach | to the ends of the earth, to the uttermost parts | Acts 1:8 — the geographic scope of the Great Commission, fulfilled narratively across the book’s structure (Jerusalem→Judea→Samaria→Rome) | မြေကြီးစွန်းတိုင်အောင် | Medium — anchors The Great Commission Fulfilled; must retain totality, not a partial or regional scope |
| ascension / taken up | ἀνελήμφθη (anelēmphthē, from ἀναλαμβάνω) | “was taken up” | bodily removal/exaltation to heaven | ascended, was taken up | Acts 1:9,11 — the historical, bodily, visible departure of the risen Christ to heaven, distinct from death, and the basis for his promised bodily return | ကောင်းကင်ဘုံသို့ဆောင်ယူခြင်းခံရသည် | High — Christology-adjacent event; must not be rendered as a generic apotheosis, a spirit’s release from the body, or one stage within a chain of successive existences; this is the same unique, incarnate body being taken up bodily, correlating with the resurrection doctrine’s forbidden-substitution logic |
| casting lots | κλῆρος (klēros) | “lot, portion” | a marked object cast to determine an outcome believed to reflect divine will | lot, casting lots, inheritance | Acts 1:26 — choosing Matthias by lot, trusting God’s sovereign providence to determine the outcome | စာရေးတံချခြင်း | Low — background practice; supports the providence baseline doctrine (God’s governance even through a seemingly random process), not to be confused with divination or fortune-telling practices condemned elsewhere in Acts (8:9-24; 13:6-11; 16:16-18) |
| the Twelve | οἱ δώδεκα (hoi dōdeka) | “the twelve” | the twelve apostles as a defined, authoritative body | the Twelve, the twelve apostles | Acts 1:26 and throughout — the reconstituted apostolic foundation of the church | တစ်ကျိပ်နှစ်ပါး | Low — supports baseline apostle term; numeric completeness signals continuity with the twelve tribes of Israel |
Also reuses baseline kingdom_of_god, power_of_god, holy_spirit, apostle, called terms exactly.
Chapter 2 — See Part A above (Acts 2:1–41, core passage) for verse-by-verse treatment.
Acts 2:42–47 (remainder of chapter, beyond the core passage):
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| breaking of bread | κλάσις τοῦ ἄρτου (klasis tou artou) | “breaking of the loaf” | shared communal meal, with Christological/memorial overtones (cf. Luke 22:19) | breaking of bread, the Lord’s Supper (background) | Acts 2:42,46 — the earliest church’s regular, shared table fellowship, both an ordinary meal and (at least proto-typically) a memorial of Christ | ပေါင်မုန့်ဖဲ့ခြင်း | Medium — distinguish from Buddhist ritual almsgiving of food to monks (ဆွမ်းကျွေးခြင်း) as a merit-earning act; this is shared fellowship among equal members of Christ’s body, not a merit transaction between a lay donor and a religiously superior recipient |
| common possessions / sharing | κοινά (koina, from κοινός) | “common things” | shared/communal property; distribution according to need | ”had all things in common,” shared possessions | Acts 2:44–45 (also 4:32–35) — voluntary, Spirit-motivated sharing within the believing community out of love and unity | ဥစ္စာပစ္စည်းများကို ဝေမျှခြင်း | Medium — must be distinguished from dana (ဒါန), the Buddhist practice of giving to accumulate personal merit toward a better rebirth; this sharing flows from love and Spirit-given unity within Christ’s body, generating no personal merit-credit, and anchors The Church as Community doctrine |
| fear / awe | φόβος (phobos) | “fear, awe, reverence” | terror; reverent awe before divine power | fear, awe | Acts 2:43 — reverent astonishment at God’s authenticating signs through the apostles | ကြောက်ရွံ့ရိုသေခြင်း | Medium — this is awe at the personal God’s power displayed through his apostles, distinguished from the propitiatory fear of an unpredictable, potentially harmful nat spirit that must be appeased with offerings |
| favor (with the people) | χάριν (charin, accusative of χάρις) | “favor, goodwill” | here used in a general social sense: goodwill, approval | favor, goodwill | Acts 2:47 — “having favor with all the people”; NOTE: this is the same Greek word, χάρις, rendered elsewhere as the doctrinally Critical grace — here used in its ordinary secular sense of social goodwill/approval, not the technical soteriological sense | လူအများ၏ ကျေးဇူးရှိသည် / လူအများနှစ်သက်လက်ခံသည် | Medium — translator note required: this occurrence of χάρις must NOT be rendered with the theologically loaded ကျေးဇူးတော် (the baseline term reserved for saving grace), to avoid implying the early church “earned merit” with outsiders; use a socially neutral goodwill expression instead |
Also reuses church, apostle, holy_spirit, salvation, fellowship, thanksgiving baseline terms.
Chapter 3 — Healing of the Lame Man; Peter’s Temple Sermon
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Holy and Righteous One | τὸν ἅγιον καὶ δίκαιον (ton hagion kai dikaion) | “the Holy and Righteous One” | Christological title combining moral purity and forensic righteousness | Holy and Righteous One | Acts 3:14 — a title for Jesus asserting his unique, sinless moral perfection, distinct from any created being | သန့်ရှင်း၍ ဖြောင့်မတ်တော်မူသောသူ (reusing baseline holy and righteousness terms) | Critical — a compact Christological title combining two of the baseline’s Critical-risk terms; must be preserved as a title for the unique divine-human Christ, not weakened into general praise adjectives |
| servant | παῖς (pais) | “servant, child” | Suffering Servant of Isaiah (LXX παῖς translates Heb. ‘ebed); also can mean “child, boy” | servant, child, Son | Acts 3:13,26 — “his servant Jesus” — identifies Jesus as the promised Isaianic Suffering Servant, fulfilling prophecy through suffering and exaltation | အစေခံတော် | High — this title carries OT-fulfillment weight (Fulfillment of Prophecy doctrine) and must not be flattened to an ordinary “servant” without messianic overtones; requires OT background teaching |
| Author of life | ἀρχηγόν τῆς ζωῆς (archēgon tēs zōēs) | “originator/pioneer of life” | founder, source, champion, first cause | Author of life, Prince of life, Pioneer of life | Acts 3:15 — Christ as the source and originator of resurrection life, not merely its recipient | အသက်၏အရှင်အကြီးအကဲ | High — Christological title tied to the Critical resurrection doctrine; must convey that Christ is life’s source, not merely one who was fortunate enough to be raised |
| restoration of all things | ἀποκατάστασις πάντων (apokatastasis pantōn) | “restoration of all things” | eschatological renewal/restoration | restoration, times of refreshing | Acts 3:20–21 — the future, final restoration awaiting Christ’s return, a linear eschatological hope | ခပ်သိမ်းသောအရာတို့ကို ပြန်လည်ထားရှိခြင်း | Medium — must not be confused with the cyclical arising-and-passing of world-ages in Buddhist cosmology; this restoration is a single, final, Christ-centered consummation of history |
Also reuses repentance, name (of Jesus), prophet/prophecy, messiah, resurrection, israel, covenant, father baseline/Acts terms.
Chapter 4 — Peter and John Before the Council; Prayer for Boldness; Sharing of Goods
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| boldness | παρρησία (parrēsia) | “freedom/frankness of speech” | outspoken confidence, courage to speak without fear | boldness, confidence, courage in speech | Acts 4:13,29,31 (also throughout Acts: 9:27-28; 13:46; 14:3; 18:26; 19:8; 26:26; 28:31) — Spirit-given fearless proclamation despite threat of persecution | ရဲရင့်ခြင်း | Medium — anchors Persecution and Bold Witness doctrine; distinguish from mere aggressive confrontation, which the baseline’s Evangelism doctrine notes must be avoided in Burma’s socially costly conversion context |
| no other name | οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν ἄλλῳ οὐδενὶ ἡ σωτηρία (ouk estin en allō oudeni hē sōtēria) | “there is no salvation in any other” | exclusivity formula | ”no other name,” salvation in Christ alone | Acts 4:12 — an unqualified exclusivity claim: salvation is available only through the name of Jesus | အခြားနာမတွင် ကယ်တင်ခြင်းမရှိ | Critical — the sharpest exclusivity statement in the book, directly confronting a multi-refuge devotional culture (Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, and the 37 nats); must never be softened into “salvation is also found through Jesus” or any relativizing paraphrase |
| Sanhedrin | συνέδριον (synedrion) | “council, assembly” | the supreme Jewish religious-legal council in Jerusalem | Sanhedrin, council, Jewish ruling council | Acts 4:15 (recurring 5:21,27,34,41; 6:12,15; 22:30; 23:1,6,15,20,28; 24:20) — the central Jewish judicial-religious body that repeatedly opposes the apostles | လွှတ်တော်ကြီး | Low — background institutional term; note distinct from the modern political sense of “parliament” (လွှတ်တော်) — retain the religious-judicial context |
Also reuses great grace (χάρις μεγάλη, Acts 4:33 — baseline grace term ကျေးဇူးတော်, Critical, inherited), common possessions (from ch.2), filled with the Holy Spirit (Critical, inherited), holy_spirit, apostle.
Chapter 5 — Ananias and Sapphira; Apostolic Signs; Gamaliel’s Counsel
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| lie to / test the Holy Spirit | ψεύσασθαι… τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον / πειράσαι τὸ πνεῦμα Κυρίου | ”to lie to / to test the Holy Spirit” | deceiving or provoking a personal divine agent | lie to the Holy Spirit, tempt the Spirit | Acts 5:3,9 — Ananias and Sapphira’s deceit is treated as a sin against the personal Holy Spirit himself, not merely against the church community | သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော်ကို လှည့်စားခြင်း / စုံစမ်းခြင်း | Critical — decisive proof that the Holy Spirit is a personal divine agent who can be sinned against directly, reinforcing (against the baseline’s already-Critical concern) that the Spirit is not an impersonal force or life-principle; must retain the personal, relational offense |
| Sadducees | Σαδδουκαῖοι (Saddoukaioi) | proper name of a Jewish religious-political party | denied bodily resurrection, angels, and an afterlife spirit-existence | Sadducees | Acts 4:1; 5:17 (also 23:6-8) — a Jewish party theologically opposed to the apostles’ central resurrection message | ဆဒ္ဒုကဲ | Medium — background party name; useful teaching point that even within Judaism, resurrection was contested — helps frame why the apostles’ resurrection preaching was doctrinally, not merely culturally, controversial |
| Gamaliel | Γαμαλιήλ | proper name | respected Pharisee teacher of the Law | Gamaliel | Acts 5:34-39 — his cautious counsel to let the apostles’ movement be tested by time, illustrating providence at work even through a non-believing authority | ဂါမလျေလ | Low — proper name |
Also reuses signs and wonders, fear (5:5,11), apostle.
Chapter 6 — Appointment of the Seven; Stephen Seized
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| deacon / service | διακονία (diakonia, noun); διάκονος (diakonos, agent noun) | “service, ministry” / “servant, minister” | table-service, practical ministry to needs; later becomes a formal church office | ministry, service, deacon | Acts 6:1-6 — the appointment of seven men to oversee daily food distribution, freeing the apostles for the ministry of the word; the origin of the later formal office of deacon | သင်းထောက် / အမှုတော်ဆောင်ခြင်း | Medium — distinguish from the Buddhist lay-supporter (kappiya) role that provisions monks for merit; this is Spirit-qualified practical service within the one body of Christ, not a merit-generating patron-client relationship, and anchors The Church as Community doctrine |
| Hellenists | Ἑλληνισταί (Hellēnistai) | “Greek-speakers” | Greek-speaking Jews of the diaspora, as distinct from Aramaic-speaking “Hebrews” | Hellenists, Grecian Jews | Acts 6:1 — an internal ethnic-linguistic tension within the earliest church requiring practical, Spirit-guided resolution, foreshadowing the wider Jew-Gentile tensions to come | ဟေလသလူမျိုး / ဂရိစကားပြောယုဒလူများ | Low — background ethnic-linguistic term; useful to flag as an early instance of the church navigating internal diversity, relevant to The Church as Community and Unity of Jews and Gentiles doctrines |
| widows | χῆραι (chērai) | “widows” | economically and socially vulnerable women without male provider | widows | Acts 6:1 — the specific vulnerable group whose care sparked the deacon appointment | မုဆိုးမ | Low — background social-care term |
Also reuses holy_spirit, filled with the Holy Spirit, apostle.
Chapter 7 — Stephen’s Speech and Martyrdom
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Son of Man | ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (ho huios tou anthrōpou) | “the son of man” | Danielic apocalyptic title (Dan 7:13-14) for the exalted, divine-human figure who receives everlasting dominion; also Jesus’s own preferred self-designation in the Gospels | Son of Man | Acts 7:56 — Stephen’s dying vision of the exalted Christ standing at God’s right hand, identified by this specific divine-human title | လူသား | High — must retain its Danielic, exalted, divine-human force; a superficial rendering (“a human being,” “a person”) would strip the title of its deity-adjacent theological weight, undermining the deity_of_christ and lordship_of_christ doctrines |
| stoning | λιθοβολέω (lithoboleō) | “to throw/pelt with stones” | a method of capital punishment | stoning, stoned to death | Acts 7:58-59 — Stephen’s execution, the first Christian martyrdom, launching the era of active persecution | ခဲနှင့်ပစ်၍ သတ်ခြင်း | Low — descriptive term, but historically anchors Persecution and Bold Witness doctrine as its inaugurating event |
| blasphemy | βλασφημία (blasphēmia) | “slanderous/irreverent speech against God” | speech regarded as an outrage against the divine | blasphemy | Acts 6:11 — the false charge against Stephen, ironically fulfilled in truth when he testifies to Christ’s divine glory | ဘုရားပုတ်ခတ်ခြင်း / ဓမ္မကိုကဲ့ရဲ့ခြင်း | Medium — background legal-religious charge term |
| stiff-necked | σκληροτράχηλοι (sklērotrachēloi) | “hard/stiff of neck” | idiom for stubborn resistance | stiff-necked, stubborn | Acts 7:51 — Stephen’s indictment of persistent resistance to the Holy Spirit across Israel’s history | လည်ပင်းခက်သော (idiom, “stubborn”) | Low — vivid OT idiom, minor independent risk |
Also reuses holy_spirit, glory, prophet, covenant, father, david, israel, law.
Chapter 8 — Philip in Samaria; Simon Magus; the Ethiopian Eunuch
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Samaria / Samaritans | Σαμάρεια / Σαμαρῖται | proper names | region and ethnic-religious group considered religiously and ethnically compromised by mainstream Judaism | Samaria, Samaritans | Acts 8:1,5,9,14,25 — the gospel deliberately crosses a bitter ethnic-religious boundary, fulfilling Acts 1:8’s “Samaria” stage and anchoring both Unity of Jews and Gentiles and The Gospel to Jews and Gentiles doctrines | ရှမာရိ / ရှမာရိလူမျိုး | Medium — flag the cultural parallel already noted in the baseline (Israel/Gentiles entry) to Myanmar’s own Bamar-Buddhist-majority/ethnic-minority religious tensions; the gospel’s crossing of this specific ancient boundary should be taught with full force, not softened |
| sorcery / magic | μαγεία (mageia) | “the practice of magic” | occult arts, spiritual power sought for personal gain or prestige | sorcery, magic, magic arts | Acts 8:9-11 — Simon’s prior occupation, and his later attempt (8:18-24) to purchase apostolic spiritual power with money | မှော်အတတ် | High — direct collision with Myanmar’s widespread practice of astrology (ဗေဒင်), esoteric weizza adept practice, and spirit-mediumship; the text’s condemnation of purchasing spiritual power for personal prestige is a distinct point from (though related to) the Critical grace-vs-merit doctrine, and must be taught as: the Spirit’s gifts cannot be bought, whether with money or with merit |
| evangelist | εὐαγγελιστής (euangelistēs) | “one who proclaims good news” | a person with the specific role/gift of proclaiming the gospel | evangelist | Acts 8 narrates Philip’s evangelistic ministry (the title itself appears at 21:8) | ဧဝံဂေလိဆရာ (built on baseline gospel term သတင်းကောင်း) | Low-Medium — role/office term, low independent doctrinal risk beyond the inherited High-risk gospel term |
| eunuch | εὐνοῦχος (eunouchos) | “eunuch, castrated court official” | a high court official, often literally castrated, who by OT law (Deut 23:1) was excluded from full temple worship | eunuch | Acts 8:27,34,36,38-39 — the gospel deliberately reaches a socially marginalized, temple-excluded foreign official, foreshadowing full Gentile inclusion | ဂျုနုခ် (transliteration) | Low — background social-status term, but theologically significant for the doctrine of the gospel reaching the marginalized and foreign; may warrant a brief cultural note rather than a doctrinal flag |
Also reuses name (of Jesus), holy_spirit, repentance, baptism.
Chapter 9 — Conversion of Saul; Ananias; Saul’s Early Ministry
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| the Way | ἡ ὁδός (hē hodos) | “the road, the way” | a name for the early Christian movement (also 19:9,23; 22:4; 24:14,22) | “the Way,” this Way, the Christian movement | Acts 9:2 — Saul persecutes “any belonging to the Way,” an early self-designation of the church centered on following the risen Christ | ထိုလမ်းစဉ်တော် | Critical — the sharpest terminological collision risk in Acts outside the Holy Spirit vocabulary: Buddhism has a deeply embedded, central concept of “the Path” (မဂ်ဂင်ရှစ်ပါး, the Noble Eightfold Path) as a self-directed discipline toward liberation. Christian “the Way” must be taught explicitly as personal allegiance to and following of a living person (Jesus, who himself says “I am the Way,” John 14:6), received through grace, not a self-powered ethical-meditative discipline pursued to attain one’s own liberation |
| persecute | διώκω (diōkō) | “to pursue, chase, persecute” | hostile pursuit with intent to harm | persecute, pursue, hunt down | Acts 9:1,4-5 (recurring throughout Acts) — Saul’s (and later others’) active hostility against the church, and Jesus’s direct identification with the persecuted (“why do you persecute ME”) | ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်ခြင်း | Medium — anchors Persecution and Bold Witness doctrine; note the theological significance that Christ identifies personally with his persecuted people |
| chosen instrument | σκεῦος ἐκλογῆς μοι (skeuos eklogēs) | “a vessel of choosing/election” | a container or tool set apart for a specific divine purpose | chosen instrument, vessel of election | Acts 9:15 — God’s description of Saul/Paul as an instrument sovereignly selected for a specific mission before Paul’s own initiative | ရွေးကောက်ထားသော တန်ဆာပလာ (reusing baseline election term ရွေးကောက်ခြင်း) | High — directly ties Paul’s conversion to the baseline’s High-risk election doctrine; must retain the sense of sovereign divine initiative and purposive selection, not a person’s own religious achievement or self-selection into ministry |
Also reuses baptism, holy_spirit, filled with the Holy Spirit, disciple (μαθητής, established Myanmar term တပည့်တော်, Medium risk — distinguish from a monk’s pupil/student relationship built on years-based seniority within a monastic hierarchy).
Chapter 10 — Cornelius’s Vision; Peter’s Vision; the Gentiles Receive the Spirit
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| God-fearer | φοβούμενος τὸν θεόν (phoboumenos ton theon) | “one fearing God” | a Gentile sympathetic to and observant of Jewish monotheism/morality without full conversion (circumcision) | God-fearing, devout | Acts 10:2,22 (also 13:16,26; 16:14; 17:4,17; 18:7) — Cornelius’s status as a righteous Gentile prepared by God to receive the gospel apart from becoming a full proselyte | ဘုရားသခင်ကို ကြောက်ရွံ့သူ | Medium — important category for The Gospel to Jews and Gentiles doctrine: God’s grace reaches Cornelius apart from the ritual requirements (circumcision) later debated at the Jerusalem council |
| vision / trance | ὅραμα (horama) / ἔκστασις (ekstasis) | “a thing seen” / “a standing outside [oneself]“ | horama: a God-given visual revelation; ekstasis: an altered state of consciousness during which revelation is received | vision, trance | Acts 10:3,10,17,19; 11:5 — both Cornelius and Peter receive direct, God-initiated revelatory experiences that reshape the mission of the church | ဗျာဒိတ်ရူပါရုံ / ဝိညာဉ်ထူးဆန်းသောအခြင်းအရာ | High — the term ekstasis especially risks conflation with the altered/trance states of Burmese spirit-mediumship (nat-kadaw possession) or Buddhist meditative absorption (jhāna); must be explicitly taught as a God-initiated, content-specific revelatory experience given for a particular redemptive purpose, not a self-induced altered state or a state entered through ritual/meditative technique |
| unclean / clean | κοινός (koinos, “common, profane”) / ἀκάθαρτος (akathartos, “unclean”) vs. καθαρός (katharos, “clean”) | “common/profane,” “unclean,” “clean” | ritual purity categories under Mosaic dietary law, here declared abolished by direct divine revelation | unclean, common, clean | Acts 10:14-15,28; 11:8-9 — “What God has made clean, do not call common” — the abolition of the OT clean/unclean food distinction, symbolically representing the full inclusion of Gentiles without requiring adherence to Jewish ritual law | မသန့်ရှင်းသော / သန့်ရှင်းသော | High — CAUTION: Burmese may use the same root (သန့်ရှင်း) for both ritual/moral “clean” here and the doctrinally Critical holy (from the baseline, also သန့်ရှင်းသော). A translator note is required distinguishing ritual/ceremonial cleanness (the category here abolished) from moral/relational holiness/set-apartness (the baseline’s continuing doctrine), so learners do not conclude that “holiness” itself has been abolished |
| God shows no partiality | οὐκ ἔστιν προσωπολήμπτης ὁ θεός (ouk estin prosōpolēmptēs ho theos) | “God is not a receiver/respecter of faces [i.e., of persons]“ | impartiality, absence of favoritism based on external status | God shows no partiality, God is no respecter of persons | Acts 10:34 — Peter’s climactic realization: God accepts anyone who fears him and does what is right, from every nation, without ethnic favoritism | ဘုရားသခင်သည် မျက်နှာသာမပေး | High — a direct doctrinal anchor for both Universal Scope of the Gospel and Unity of Jews and Gentiles; must not be softened to suggest any residual ethnic-religious priority, directly confronting any notion of Bamar-Buddhist religious priority over minority groups |
| angel | ἄγγελος (angelos) | “messenger” | a created heavenly being sent by God to deliver a message or accomplish a task | angel | Acts 10:3,7,22; (recurring 5:19; 8:26; 12:7-11,23; 27:23) — God’s messenger delivering specific revelation/direction, always subordinate to and sent by God | ကောင်းကင်တမန် | Medium — must be clearly distinguished from the nat (spirit) pantheon of Burmese folk religion, which are objects of worship, propitiation, and negotiation for favor; biblical angels are created servants of the one God, never objects of worship or appeasement themselves (cf. Acts’s own narrative concern, e.g., Rev 22:8-9 pattern, though outside Acts itself, the distinction must still be actively taught) |
Also reuses holy_spirit, filled with the Holy Spirit, gentiles, household (οἶκος, oikos, “household” — Burmese အိမ်ထောင်စု, Low risk).
Chapter 11 — Peter’s Report to Jerusalem; the Church at Antioch; Famine Relief
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Christian | Χριστιανός (Christianos) | “Christ-one, follower of Christ” | a formal designation coined by outsiders at Antioch | Christians | Acts 11:26 — “the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch,” marking the movement’s recognized, distinct identity | ခရစ်ယာန် | Low — established Myanmar Bible/Christian term, minimal ambiguity |
| repentance leading to life | μετάνοιαν εἰς ζωήν (metanoian eis zōēn) | “repentance unto/leading to life” | repentance as the doorway to receiving eternal life | repentance that leads to life | Acts 11:18 — the Jerusalem church’s astonished recognition that God has granted saving repentance to Gentiles as well as Jews | အသက်ရရန် ဦးတည်သော နောင်တရခြင်း | High (inherited from repentance) — the specific doctrinal point here is the extension of the same saving repentance to Gentiles without qualification, doubly anchoring both Repentance and Baptism and The Gospel to Jews and Gentiles doctrines |
| elders | πρεσβύτεροι (presbyteroi) | “elder ones” | church leadership office of oversight and teaching | elders | Acts 11:30 (first occurrence; recurring 14:23; 15:2,4,6,22-23; 16:4; 20:17; 21:18) — recognized, appointed local church leaders receiving famine relief funds on behalf of the Judean church | အသင်းတော်လူကြီးများ | Medium — distinguish from a village traditional elder or from Buddhist monastic seniority (thera, based on years since ordination); this is a Spirit-recognized, appointed pastoral-governance office within a local congregation, anchoring The Church as Community doctrine |
Also reuses gentiles, holy_spirit, church, prophet (Agabus, also in ch.21).
Chapter 12 — Herod’s Persecution; Peter’s Miraculous Release; Herod’s Death
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| the word of God grew | ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ ηὔξανεν (ho logos tou theou ēuxanen) | “the word of God was growing/increasing” | organic growth metaphor for gospel advance | the word of God grew, the word increased | Acts 12:24 (recurring 6:7; 19:20) — a recurring narrative refrain marking gospel advance even amid persecution and opposition, framing Acts’s structure around The Great Commission Fulfilled | ဘုရားသခင်၏နှုတ်ကပတ်တော် တိုးပွားလာသည် | Medium — a structurally important motif; ensure “word of God” is not flattened to a generic religious message but retained as God’s own authoritative, living speech |
Also reuses angel (12:7-11, releasing Peter from prison — reinforcing the distinction from nat-spirits established in ch.10), holy_spirit, persecute, church, providence (God’s care through the prison escape).
Chapter 13 — Barnabas and Saul Sent from Antioch; Preaching in Cyprus and Pisidian Antioch
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| fasting | νηστεία (nēsteia) | “abstention from food” | a discipline of prayer and seeking God’s guidance | fasting | Acts 13:2-3; 14:23 — the Antioch church fasts and prays before sending out Barnabas and Saul, and elders are appointed with fasting | အစာရှောင်ခြင်း | Medium — must be distinguished from Buddhist meritorious fasting practices (e.g., the eight precepts’ restriction on eating after midday) undertaken to accumulate merit; here fasting accompanies prayer for divine guidance and blessing, not merit accumulation |
| justification by faith (explicit statement) | δικαιοῦται (dikaioutai, “is justified”) | “is declared righteous” | forensic declaration of righteous status | justified, is justified | Acts 13:38-39 — “through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed/justified from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses” — explicit statement of the Justification apart from the Law doctrine | ဖြောင့်မတ်ရာသို့ ရောက်ခြင်း (reusing baseline justification term exactly) | Critical (inherited) — this is one of the clearest explicit statements in Acts of the doctrine that the baseline Romans package establishes as Critical; the contrast with “the law of Moses” here must be preserved with full force, paralleling Romans 3:20-28 |
| light for the Gentiles | φῶς ἐθνῶν (phōs ethnōn) | “a light of/for the nations” | OT prophetic image (Isa 49:6) of the Servant’s mission to bring salvation beyond Israel | light for the Gentiles, light to the nations | Acts 13:47 — Paul and Barnabas’s programmatic quotation of Isaiah, justifying the turn to Gentile mission when rejected by the synagogue | တစ်ပါးအမျိုးသားတို့အဖို့ အလင်းတော် (reusing baseline gentiles term) | Medium — ties Fulfillment of Prophecy and The Gospel to Jews and Gentiles doctrines together; must retain the specific OT-fulfillment force, not read as a generic “we should be nice to foreigners” sentiment |
Also reuses prophet, teacher (διδάσκαλος, didaskalos — Burmese ဆရာ, Low-Medium risk; distinguish the Christian teaching-office from the honorific respect given to Buddhist monastic teachers), sorcery (Elymas, reinforcing ch.8’s term), holy_spirit, filled with the Holy Spirit, gospel, resurrection, david, messiah, grace, faith.
Chapter 14 — Ministry in Lystra, Derbe, and Return to Antioch
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| living God | θεὸς ζῶν (theos zōn) | “living God” | a God who is personally alive and active, contrasted with lifeless idols | the living God | Acts 14:15 — Paul and Barnabas correct the Lystrans, who mistake them for the gods Zeus and Hermes, by pointing to the one living God who made all things | အသက်ရှင်တော်မူသောဘုရားသခင် (reusing baseline god term) | Medium — a key polemical contrast term against idol veneration; useful for distinguishing the living, personal Creator from both Greco-Roman deities in the text and, by extension, from lifeless images venerated in Myanmar folk and Buddhist practice — requires sensitivity given the deep cultural reverence for Buddha images |
| Zeus and Hermes | Ζεύς / Ἑρμῆς | proper names | Greco-Roman deities the Lystran crowd mistakenly identifies Barnabas and Paul with | Zeus, Hermes | Acts 14:12 — illustrates the danger of religious misidentification and the apostles’ immediate rejection of being worshiped as gods | ဇုသ်၊ ဟေရမေ (transliteration) | Low — background proper names; theological point (apostles refuse worship) is more significant than the names themselves — flag that this refusal of worship parallels the concern about angel-veneration in ch.10 |
Also reuses elders (appointing local elders, 14:23), signs and wonders, grace, faith, gospel, persecute.
Chapter 15 — The Jerusalem Council
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| circumcision | περιτομή (peritomē) / ἀπερίτμητος (aperitmētos, “uncircumcised”) | “cutting around” | the OT covenant-sign rite; here the specific controversy: whether Gentile believers must be circumcised to be saved | circumcision, uncircumcised | Acts 15:1,5 (recurring 10:45; 11:2-3; 21:21) — the central controversy resolved at the Jerusalem council: circumcision (and the law generally) is NOT required for salvation | အရေဖျားလှီးခြင်း | Critical — this is the flashpoint test case for the whole book’s Justification apart from the Law doctrine; must retain the full force of the council’s ruling that adding law-observance to faith as a requirement for salvation is explicitly rejected, directly reinforcing Romans’s own Critical grace/righteousness/justification terms |
| it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us | ἔδοξεν τῷ πνεύματι τῷ ἁγίῳ καὶ ἡμῖν (edoxen tō pneumati tō hagiō kai hēmin) | “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” | a formula asserting Spirit-guided, apostolically-ratified collective decision-making | it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us | Acts 15:28 — the council’s decree is presented as jointly authored by the Holy Spirit and the apostolic/elder assembly, establishing a model for the doctrine of Apostolic Authority and Miracles extended to Apostolic Authority in governance | သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော်နှင့် ငါတို့သည် လျော်ကန်သည်ဟု စီရင်ကြ၏ | High — a foundational statement combining Spirit-guidance with recognized human apostolic/elder authority; must not collapse into either extreme (pure human decision-making with a religious veneer, or a claim to unmediated new revelation bypassing apostolic deliberation) |
| yoke | ζυγός (zygos) | “a yoke [for oxen]“ | metaphor for an oppressive burden of obligation | yoke, burden | Acts 15:10 — Peter’s rhetorical question, “why put a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither we nor our fathers were able to bear,” referring to the law as a burden from which grace liberates | ဂျို့ကျင်း | Medium — reinforces the Critical grace-vs-law contrast; must not be read as demeaning the law’s original goodness, but as rejecting it as a requirement for salvation |
| food offered to idols / sexual immorality / blood / strangled | εἰδωλόθυτα (eidōlothyta) / πορνεία (porneia) / αἷμα (haima) / πνικτόν (pnikton) | “things sacrificed to idols” / “sexual immorality” / “blood” / “what has been strangled” | the four items of the Jerusalem council’s minimal requirement for Gentile believers, to preserve fellowship with Jewish believers | food sacrificed to idols, sexual immorality, blood, things strangled | Acts 15:20,29 — a pastoral accommodation, not a re-imposition of the law, aimed at preserving table-fellowship unity between Jewish and Gentile believers | ရုပ်တုကိုကပ်လှူသော အစားအစာ / ကာမဂုណ်တရားကို မတရားကျူးလွန်ခြင်း / အသွေးပါသောအစား / လည်၍သတ်သောအသား | High for the idol-food and sexual immorality items (direct collision with Myanmar’s Buddha-image veneration and prevailing moral categories, requiring careful framing as a pastoral accommodation for Jewish-Gentile unity rather than a new universal law); Low-Medium for the dietary items (blood, strangled), which are background ritual accommodations with lower independent doctrinal weight |
Also reuses law, grace, faith, gentiles, holy_spirit, elders, apostle.
Chapter 16 — Timothy Joins; Lydia’s Conversion; the Philippian Jailer
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved | πίστευσον ἐπὶ τὸν Κύριον Ἰησοῦν, καὶ σωθήσῃ (pisteuson epi ton Kyrion Iēsoun, kai sōthēsē) | “believe upon the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” | the salvation-confession formula, combining faith, lordship, and salvation | ”Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved” | Acts 16:31 — Paul and Silas’s direct answer to the jailer’s desperate question, “what must I do to be saved?” — a second major salvation-confession text alongside 2:21,38 and 4:12 | သခင်ယေရှုကို ယုံကြည်လော့။ သို့ပြုလျှင် ကယ်တင်တော်မူခြင်းသို့ ရောက်လိမ့်မည် (reusing baseline faith, lord, salvation terms exactly) | Critical — per the cross-document consistency rule established in the baseline (which mandates identical rendering of key confession texts across all curriculum documents), this verse must be treated with the same rigor as Romans 10:9–10; do not soften “believe” into mere intellectual assent or “saved” into a this-worldly rescue from prison alone (the narrative’s immediate context) — the household application (“you and your household”) extends but does not dilute the individual-faith requirement |
| God-fearing | σεβομένη τὸν θεόν (sebomenē ton theon) | “worshiping/reverencing God” | (of Lydia) a Gentile woman devoted to the God of Israel prior to full conversion | God-fearing, worshiper of God | Acts 16:14 — reinforces the God-fearer category established in ch.10 | ဘုရားသခင်ကို ကိုးကွယ်သူ | Medium (inherited from ch.10 God-fearer term) |
Also reuses baptism, faith, repentance (implicit), providence (the earthquake opening the prison), fellowship, household.
Chapter 17 — Thessalonica, Berea, and the Areopagus in Athens
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| examining the Scriptures | ἀνακρίνοντες τὰς γραφάς (anakrinontes tas graphas) | “examining/scrutinizing the Scriptures” | careful, critical study to verify a claim against an authoritative text | examining the Scriptures, searching the Scriptures | Acts 17:11 — the Bereans commended for testing Paul’s preaching directly against Scripture rather than accepting or rejecting it on reputation alone | ကျမ်းစာတော်ကို စစ်ဆေးလေ့လာခြင်း | Low — reinforces Inspiration of Scripture (baseline High-risk doctrine) as the authoritative standard for testing all teaching |
| idols | εἴδωλα (eidōla) | “idols, images” | objects of worship representing false gods | idols | Acts 17:16 — Paul is “greatly distressed” seeing Athens “full of idols” | ရုပ်တု | Critical — a direct polemical term with extremely high sensitivity in Myanmar, where Buddha-image veneration (ဘုရားပုံ၊ ဘုရားရုပ်တု) is a beloved, central, and near-universal cultural-religious practice; must be handled with extraordinary theological and cultural care — the doctrinal point (idols are not to be worshiped as though divine) must be preserved without gratuitous cultural offense; note this reinforces the baseline’s own concern about ဘုရား (phaya, image/pagoda) versus ဘုရားသခင် (the one true God) |
| unknown god | ἀγνώστῳ θεῷ (agnōstō theō) | “to an unknown god” | inscription on an Athenian altar, used rhetorically by Paul as a bridge to proclaim the true God | the unknown god, an unknown god | Acts 17:23 — Paul’s rhetorical strategy: using existing religious search/uncertainty as a starting point to proclaim the one true God who can be known | မသိသောဘုရား | High — must be taught carefully as a rhetorical bridge Paul uses to reach an audience already open to religious inquiry, NOT as an endorsement that Burmese folk deities, nats, or the impersonal Buddhist “ultimate reality” are partial, valid revelations of the true God awaiting only a name; the sermon’s climax (17:24-31) explicitly corrects, rather than affirms, prior religious frameworks |
| in him we live and move and have our being | ἐν αὐτῷ ζῶμεν καὶ κινούμεθα καὶ ἐσμέν (en autō zōmen kai kinoumetha kai esmen) | “in him we live and move and are” | a philosophical-poetic quotation (from Stoic sources) repurposed to describe total dependence on the Creator | ”in him we live and move and have our being” | Acts 17:28 — Paul quotes pagan poets to establish common ground before making his exclusive claim for the God who “commands all people everywhere to repent” (17:30) | သူ၏အားဖြင့် ငါတို့သည် အသက်ရှင်လျက် လှုပ်ရှားလျက် ရှိကြ၏ | Medium — a bridge-building quotation; the translator note must clarify that the quotation is a rhetorical starting point, immediately followed by the sermon’s uncompromising call to repentance and warning of judgment (17:30-31), not a syncretistic conclusion in itself |
| mocking of the resurrection | ἐχλεύαζον (echleuazon, “they mocked/scoffed”) | “they were mocking” | derisive rejection | some mocked, some scoffed | Acts 17:32 — the Athenian philosophers’ scornful reaction to bodily resurrection, illustrating the cross-cultural offense of this doctrine even in antiquity | ပြက်ရယ်ပြုကြသည် | Critical (inherited from resurrection doctrine) — useful teaching point: even non-Buddhist, non-Jewish Greek philosophical culture found bodily resurrection intellectually offensive; this universal difficulty should be named honestly rather than minimized, while the Burmese forbidden-substitution rule (never ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း) still applies absolutely |
Also reuses repentance (17:30, extended universally — “God commands all people everywhere to repent” — Universal Scope of the Gospel), judgment, god.
Chapter 18 — Corinth; Aquila and Priscilla; Apollos; Paul’s Vow
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nazirite vow | (implied by κειράμενος τὴν κεφαλήν, “having shaved his head,” Acts 18:18; cf. Num 6) | “a vow involving hair-cutting” | OT votive practice of temporary, self-dedicating consecration | Nazirite vow | Acts 18:18 (also 21:23-26) — Paul’s own observance of a Jewish vow, showing cultural-religious continuity rather than blanket rejection of all Jewish practice for Jewish believers themselves | နာဇရိပဋိညာဉ် (transliteration) | Medium — requires OT background teaching (Num 6:1-21); should be distinguished from Buddhist temporary monastic ordination vows (shin-pyu, novitiate), which are meritorious self-discipline practices — Paul’s vow here is a personal, culturally-rooted act of devotion, not a requirement imposed on Gentile believers (consistent with the Jerusalem council’s ruling in ch.15) |
Also reuses God-fearing, gospel, holy_spirit, synagogue (background term, low risk), teacher, proconsul (ἀνθύπατος, background legal-office term, Low risk).
Chapter 19 — Ephesus; Disciples of John; the Sons of Sceva; the Riot
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| baptism of John vs. Christian baptism | βάπτισμα Ἰωάννου (baptisma Iōannou) vs. εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Κυρίου Ἰησοῦ (eis to onoma tou Kyriou Iēsou) | “John’s baptism” vs. “into the name of the Lord Jesus” | preparatory baptism of repentance vs. Christ-centered baptism accompanied by the gift of the Holy Spirit | John’s baptism, baptism in the name of Jesus | Acts 19:1-7 — some disciples had only received John’s preparatory baptism of repentance without knowledge of the Holy Spirit’s fuller gift now available in Christ; Paul re-baptizes and lays hands on them, and they receive the Spirit | ယောဟန်၏ဗတ္တိဇံ / သခင်ယေရှု၏နာမတော်ဖြင့် ဗတ္တိဇံ | High — an important nuance within the Repentance and Baptism doctrine: not all baptism-language is equivalent; Christian baptism is specifically tied to the completed work of Christ and the gift of the Spirit, a distinction requiring careful translator explanation |
| sons of Sceva | (proper name; the episode illustrates misuse of “the name of Jesus” as a magical formula, Acts 19:13-16) | — | attempted exorcism using Jesus’s name as an incantation formula, which fails disastrously | the sons of Sceva | Acts 19:13-16 — reinforces that the name of Jesus is not a magical formula to be wielded by unbelievers for personal gain, directly parallel to the Simon Magus episode (ch.8) | (proper name; no separate Burmese term needed beyond reused name, sorcery, evil spirit terms) | Critical (inherited) — powerfully reinforces the distinction between genuine, Spirit-authorized exorcism/authority over evil spirits and magical incantation as practiced by weizza adepts; must be taught as: Jesus’s name carries authority only for those in genuine relationship with him, not as a formula with independent magical potency |
| evil / unclean spirit | πνεῦμα πονηρόν (pneuma ponēron) / πνεῦμα ἀκάθαρτον (pneuma akatharton) | “evil spirit” / “unclean spirit” | a malevolent, personal spiritual being opposed to God, subject to Christ’s authority | evil spirit, unclean spirit, demon | Acts 19:12-16 (also 5:16; 8:7; 16:16-18) — spiritual beings that afflict people and must be authoritatively expelled in Jesus’s name, always shown subordinate to Christ | ညစ်ညမ်းသောဝိညာဉ် / နတ်ဆိုး | Critical — the single most direct collision with the entire Burmese nat-spirit cosmology, in which spirits (nats) are numerous, ranked, and must typically be propitiated/negotiated with rather than authoritatively commanded; biblical evil spirits are always subordinate, hostile-to-God beings that Christ’s authority overcomes, never entities to be appeased, bargained with, or worshiped, and must be sharply distinguished from the Holy Spirit (already Critical in the baseline) at every occurrence |
| Diana / Artemis | Ἄρτεμις (Artemis) | proper name | the great goddess of Ephesus, whose temple and silver-shrine trade the gospel’s advance economically threatens | Diana, Artemis | Acts 19:24,27-28,34-35 — the riot in Ephesus is triggered as much by threatened commercial interests tied to idol-worship as by theological conviction, illustrating that gospel advance can threaten entrenched religious-economic systems | အာတမစ် (transliteration) | Medium-High — reinforces the idols Critical-risk term; also offers a useful, sensitive parallel point (without direct equivalence) that gospel advance can be perceived as an economic threat to systems built around religious commerce, a dynamic with some resonance in contexts where pagoda-centered economies are significant, though this parallel must be drawn with care and pastoral sensitivity |
Also reuses the word of the Lord grew and prevailed (19:20, reusing the ch.12 growth-motif term), repentance, holy_spirit, name (of Jesus).
Chapter 20 — Paul’s Farewell at Miletus
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| whole counsel of God | πᾶσαν τὴν βουλὴν τοῦ θεοῦ (pasan tēn boulēn tou theou) | “the whole counsel/purpose of God” | the entirety of God’s revealed will and purpose, withheld nothing | the whole counsel of God, the whole will of God | Acts 20:27 — Paul’s claim to have faithfully proclaimed all of God’s purpose without omission, a model for faithful apostolic ministry | ဘုရားသခင်၏ အကြံအစည်တော်အလုံးစုံ (reusing the βουλή term from 2:23) | Medium — anchors Apostolic Authority doctrine as faithful, comprehensive transmission, not selective or convenience-driven teaching |
| overseer | ἐπίσκοπος (episkopos) | “one who watches over” | a church leadership office of oversight (used interchangeably here with “elder,” presbyteros, v.17) | overseer, bishop | Acts 20:28 — church leaders are called to “care for the church of God,” combining the elder and overseer terms as overlapping offices in this early period | သင်းအုပ်ဆရာ | Medium — church office term; note the terminological overlap with elders (πρεσβύτεροι) in this passage, useful for later doctrine work on church governance |
| shepherd / flock | ποιμήν (poimēn, “shepherd”) / ποίμνιον (poimnion, “flock”) | “shepherd” / “little flock” | pastoral metaphor for spiritual care and leadership | shepherd, pastor, flock | Acts 20:28-29 — leaders must “shepherd” (verb ποιμαίνειν) the flock, a metaphor with deep OT roots (God/David as shepherd) | သိုးထိန်း / သိုးအုပ် | Medium — established pastoral metaphor; low collision risk but doctrinally significant for the church-community and leadership doctrines |
| wolves | λύκοι (lykoi) | “wolves” | metaphor for predatory false teachers who threaten the flock | wolves | Acts 20:29 — Paul warns that “fierce wolves” (false teachers) will arise after his departure to prey on the church | ဝံပုလွေများ | Low — vivid metaphor, low independent doctrinal risk |
| more blessed to give than to receive | μακάριόν ἐστιν μᾶλλον διδόναι ἢ λαμβάνειν (makarion estin mallon didonai ē lambanein) | “it is more blessed to give than to receive” | a saying of Jesus (otherwise unrecorded in the Gospels) cited by Paul | ”more blessed to give than to receive” | Acts 20:35 — models generous, self-giving ministry as the pattern for church leaders, without merit-transaction framing | ပေးခြင်းသည် ခံယူခြင်းထက် မင်္ဂလာရှိသည် | Low-Medium — should be distinguished from dana-style meritorious giving (accumulating personal spiritual credit); this generosity flows from love and modeled after Christ’s own self-giving, not merit-banking |
Also reuses breaking of bread (20:7,11), holy_spirit, church, elders.
Chapter 21 — Paul’s Journey to Jerusalem; the Temple Riot
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agabus’s prophecy | (Acts 21:10-11, symbolic prophetic sign-act with a belt) | — | dramatized prophetic warning | prophecy, prophetic sign | Acts 21:10-11 — reinforces the prophet/prophecy baseline terms with a vivid enacted-sign form of prophecy, showing continuity with OT prophetic tradition (e.g., Jeremiah, Ezekiel’s sign-acts) | ပရောဖက်ပြုချက် (reused exactly) | Low (inherited) — illustrative extension of the baseline prophecy term |
| defile the temple | κοινοῖ τὸν τόπον (implied, Acts 21:28) | “to make [the place] common/profane” | ritual defilement accusation | defile, profane | Acts 21:28 — the false charge against Paul (bringing a Gentile into a restricted temple area), sparking the riot that leads to his arrest | ဗိမာန်တော်ကို ညစ်ညမ်းစေခြင်း | Medium — reinforces the ritual-purity unclean/clean term category from ch.10, with a concrete narrative example of the tension between the abolished ritual-purity boundary and continuing Jewish sensitivities |
Also reuses Nazirite vow (Paul’s purification for others, 21:23-26), elders, gentiles, persecute.
Chapter 22 — Paul’s Defense Before the Jerusalem Crowd
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| defense / apology | ἀπολογία (apologia) | “a speech in defense” | formal legal or rhetorical self-defense | defense, apology (in the classical sense), vindication | Acts 22:1 (also 24:10; 25:8,16; 26:1-2,24) — Paul’s formal, reasoned defense of his conduct and message before hostile crowds and officials, becoming a recurring structural feature of Acts’s second half | ခုခံချေပချက် | Medium — this term structures the doctrine of Persecution and Bold Witness in the book’s latter chapters; note it denotes reasoned, respectful legal/rhetorical defense, not confrontational argument |
| Roman citizen | πολίτης Ῥωμαῖος (politēs Rhōmaios) / Ῥωμαῖος (Rhōmaios) | “Roman citizen” | formal legal status granting specific rights and protections under Roman law | Roman citizen | Acts 22:25-29 (also 16:37-38; 25:10-11) — Paul’s citizenship provides legal protection from summary punishment and grounds his eventual appeal to Caesar | ရောမနိုင်ငံသား | Low — background legal-status term, relevant to the Persecution and Bold Witness doctrine’s portrayal of legitimate use of legal rights in the course of bold gospel witness |
Also retells Saul’s conversion narrative, reusing the Way, name (of Jesus), heavenly vision (see ch.26), chosen instrument.
Chapter 23 — Paul Before the Sanhedrin; Plot Against His Life
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| conscience | συνείδησις (syneidēsis) | “a knowing-with-oneself, moral self-awareness” | inner moral faculty testifying to right/wrong before God | conscience | Acts 23:1 — “I have lived my life before God in all good conscience,” Paul’s claim of moral integrity throughout his conduct, both before and after conversion | သိစိတ် | Medium — must be taught as a God-oriented moral faculty testifying to a personal God’s standard, not a self-generated ethical monitoring system analogous to tracking one’s own karmic ledger |
Also reuses Sanhedrin, Sadducees/Pharisees (23:6-8, their dispute over resurrection reused), resurrection.
Chapter 24 — Paul Before Felix
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| self-control | ἐγκράτεια (enkrateia) | “self-mastery, self-control” | disciplined restraint over one’s desires and impulses | self-control, temperance | Acts 24:25 — Paul reasons with Felix “about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment,” causing Felix alarm | မိမိကိုယ်ကို ချုပ်တည်းခြင်း | Medium — must be distinguished from Buddhist sīla (precept-keeping self-restraint) practiced to build merit toward a better rebirth; here self-control is presented alongside righteousness (reuse baseline Critical term) and coming judgment as part of a gospel appeal, flowing from right relationship with God rather than being itself the means of merit or salvation |
| judgment to come | κρίσις (krisis) | “judgment, decision” | final divine reckoning and accountability | the coming judgment, judgment to come | Acts 24:25 — the certainty of a future divine judgment as part of Paul’s evangelistic appeal to a Roman governor | နောင်ကျမည့် စစ်ကြောစီရင်ခြင်း | High — ties to Universal Human Accountability (baseline High-risk doctrine); must retain a single, final, personal divine reckoning, not a graded karmic accounting across multiple lifetimes |
Also reuses righteousness, the Way (24:14,22 — “the Way” as the name outsiders use for the movement), faith.
Chapter 25 — Paul Before Festus; Appeal to Caesar
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| appeal to Caesar | Καίσαρα ἐπικαλοῦμαι (Kaisara epikaloumai) | “I appeal to Caesar” | formal legal appeal to the highest Roman judicial authority | appeal to Caesar | Acts 25:11 — Paul exercises his legal right as a citizen, setting in motion the final journey to Rome that fulfills Acts 1:8’s “ends of the earth” trajectory | ကဲသာဘုရင်ထံ အယူခံဝင်ခြင်း | Low — legal-procedural term, but structurally significant for The Great Commission Fulfilled doctrine (Rome as the narrative’s climactic destination) |
No other new load-bearing theological vocabulary; chapter reuses persecute, apologia (defense), resurrection, the Way.
Chapter 26 — Paul’s Defense Before Agrippa
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| heavenly vision | οὐρανίῳ ὀπτασίᾳ (ouraniō optasia) | “heavenly vision/appearance” | a visual divine revelation from heaven | heavenly vision | Acts 26:19 — Paul’s own retrospective term for his Damascus-road encounter with the risen Christ, the definitive Conversion of Paul narrative repeated a third time in Acts (chs. 9, 22, 26) | ကောင်းကင်ဗျာဒိတ်ရူပါရုံ | High (inherited from vision term, ch.10) — the threefold repetition of this conversion narrative across the book signals its structural and doctrinal centrality; must be consistently rendered across all three tellings per the cross-document consistency principle established in the baseline |
| opened eyes / turn from darkness to light | ἀνοῖξαι τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτῶν… ἐπιστρέψαι ἀπὸ τοῦ σκότους εἰς τὸ φῶς καὶ τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ Σατανᾶ ἐπὶ τὸν θεόν (Acts 26:18) | “to open their eyes… to turn from darkness to light and from the authority of Satan to God” | conversion imagery: reversal of spiritual blindness and rescue from Satan’s dominion to God’s | opening eyes, turning from darkness to light | Acts 26:18 — Paul’s own summary of his commission’s purpose: full conversion involving forgiveness of sins (reuse Critical term) and receiving an inheritance among the sanctified (reuse baseline saints/sanctification terms) | မျက်စိဖွင့်ပေးခြင်း / မှောင်မိုက်မှ အလင်းသို့ ပြောင်းလဲခြင်း | High — combines several Critical/High baseline terms (forgiveness of sins, sanctification, saints) into a single commissioning statement; must retain the personal spiritual-authority contrast (Satan’s dominion vs. God’s) without flattening into generic “bad to good” moral improvement language |
Also reuses repentance, resurrection, messiah, gentiles, the Way, chosen instrument, apologia.
Chapter 27 — The Voyage and Shipwreck
No new load-bearing theological vocabulary is introduced in chapter 27. The chapter reuses the established providence doctrine (God’s sovereign care preserving Paul and all aboard through the storm and shipwreck, cf. Acts 27:22-25,34) and the angel term (27:23, an angel’s assuring message to Paul). This chapter is reviewed and confirmed to introduce no new theological terms requiring separate glossary entries.
Chapter 28 — Malta, and Arrival in Rome
| Term | Original (translit.) | Literal | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Meaning | Burmese Rendering | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| preaching the kingdom of God with all boldness, unhindered | κηρύσσων τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ… μετὰ πάσης παρρησίας ἀκωλύτως (kēryssōn tēn basileian tou theou… meta pasēs parrēsias akōlytōs) | “proclaiming the kingdom of God… with all boldness, without hindrance” | the book’s final, climactic summary statement | preaching the kingdom of God, with all boldness, unhindered | Acts 28:31, the book’s closing verse — Paul preaches openly in the very capital of the empire, entirely unhindered, providing the deliberately open-ended climax of The Great Commission Fulfilled doctrine: the gospel has reached “the ends of the earth” (Rome, symbolically) and continues advancing beyond the narrative’s close | ဘုရားသခင်၏နိုင်ငံတော်ကို အပြည့်အဝ ရဲရင့်စွာ၊ အဆီးအတားမရှိ ဟောပြောခြင်း (reusing baseline kingdom_of_god, and Acts’s own boldness/parrēsia term) | Medium-High — the deliberately unresolved, open ending must be preserved in translation as intentional (the gospel’s advance continues past the narrative, not merely “the story stops here”); combines the Medium-risk kingdom_of_god baseline term with the Medium-risk boldness term into the book’s summary doctrinal statement |
Also reuses viper (background, low risk), healing/signs and wonders (Malta miracles, reinforcing Apostolic Authority and Miracles), lord (28:31, “the Lord Jesus Christ”), providence (safe arrival after shipwreck).
Summary of Full-Book Coverage
All 28 chapters of Acts have been reviewed. Chapters 1–26 and 28 each introduce or reinforce load-bearing theological vocabulary as documented above. Chapter 27 introduces no new load-bearing theological vocabulary and is noted explicitly as reviewed, reusing the established providence and angel terms from earlier chapters.
See 08_core_glossary.md for the consolidated per-term glossary table covering both reused Romans baseline terms and newly identified Acts-specific terms.