Core Glossary
Colossians Core Glossary
Legend
- Reuse = BASELINE REUSE; rendering is fixed exactly as recorded in the Romans translation_memory.json; no deviation permitted.
- New = term first introduced by the Colossians curriculum; rendering proposed here for ratification.
- Risk tiers: Critical (human theologian review, every occurrence) / High (human theologian review) / Medium (native speaker review) / Low (automated review).
Chapter 1 Terms
| Term (English) | Original | Transliteration | Burmese Rendering | Status | Risk | Doctrine | Collision / Rendering Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| apostle | ἀπόστολος | apostolos | တမန်တော် | Reuse | Medium | Apostleship | Cf. Romans 1:1 |
| grace | χάρις | charis | ကျေးဇူးတော် | Reuse | Critical | Grace | Never ကုသိုလ်/ကံကောင်းခြင်း |
| peace | εἰρήνη | eirēnē | ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း | Reuse | Medium | Peace with God | — |
| faith | πίστις | pistis | ယုံကြည်ခြင်း | Reuse | Medium | Faith | Object = Christ, must stay explicit |
| love | ἀγάπη | agapē | မေတ္တာ | New | High | (cross-cutting) | Collides with Buddhist metta bhavana; teach as God’s covenantal self-giving love, not self-cultivated impartial mental state |
| hope | ἐλπίς | elpis | မျှော်လင့်ခြင်း | New | Medium | (Supremacy/assurance) | Distinguish from aspiration toward better rebirth |
| gospel | εὐαγγέλιον | euangelion | သတင်းကောင်း | Reuse | High | Gospel | — |
| bear fruit | καρποφορέω | karpophoreō | အသီးအပွင့်ဆောင်ခြင်း | New | Low | Mutual Edification | — |
| full knowledge | ἐπίγνωσις | epignōsis | အကြွင်းမဲ့သိမှု / ပြည့်စုံသောအသိပညာ | New | Medium | (vs. false wisdom) | Distinguish from meditative nyan (insight-knowledge) |
| saints | ἅγιοι | hagioi | သန့်ရှင်းသူများ | Reuse | Medium | Sainthood | Not an ascetic elite |
| inheritance/portion | κλῆρος | klēros | အမွေအနှစ် | New | Medium | (Reconciliation/assurance) | Not a karmic lot; a given, secured share |
| domain of darkness | ἐξουσία τοῦ σκότους | exousia tou skotous | မှောင်မိုက်၏ အာဏာစက် | New | High | Warning against Syncretism | — |
| light | φωτί | phōti | အလင်းရောင် | New | High | Warning against Syncretism | Not self-attained enlightenment; a God-accomplished rescue-transfer |
| kingdom of the Son | βασιλεία τοῦ υἱοῦ | basileia tou huiou | ချစ်တော်မူသော သားတော်၏ နိုင်ငံတော် | New (extends Reuse root) | Medium | Kingdom Mission | Builds on baseline ဘုရားသခင်၏နိုင်ငံတော် formation |
| redemption | ἀπολύτρωσις | apolytrōsis | ရွေးနှင်းခြင်း | New | Critical | Reconciliation through the Cross | Price paid by another, for the captive |
| forgiveness of sins | ἄφεσις τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν | aphesis tōn hamartiōn | အပြစ်လွှတ်ခြင်း | New | High | Reconciliation | Sin (အပြစ်) is Reuse |
| sin | ἁμαρτία | hamartia | အပြစ် | Reuse | High | Universal Human Accountability | — |
| image | εἰκών | eikōn | ပုံသဏ္ဍာန်တော် | New | High | Supremacy of Christ / Fullness of Deity | Not a crafted cultic image |
| invisible | ἀόρατος | aoratos | မမြင်နိုင်သော | New | Low | — | — |
| firstborn | πρωτότοκος | prōtotokos | သားဦး | New | Critical | Supremacy of Christ | Rank/inheritance, NOT first-created being; pair with v.16-17 clarification always |
| creation | κτίσις | ktisis | ဖန်ဆင်းတော်မူသောအရာခပ်သိမ်း | New | Medium | Supremacy of Christ | Personal willed act, not impersonal arising |
| create | κτίζω | ktizō | ဖန်ဆင်းတော်မူ | New | Medium | Supremacy of Christ | — |
| all things | τὰ πάντα | ta panta | အလုံးစုံ | New | Medium | Supremacy of Christ | Keep unqualified totality throughout |
| cosmic powers (thrones/dominions/rulers/authorities) | θρόνοι, κυριότητες, ἀρχαί, ἐξουσίαι | thronoi, kyriotētes, archai, exousiai | ရာဇပလ္လင်များ၊ အစိုးရမှုများ၊ အထွဋ်အာဏာများ၊ အခွင့်အာဏာရှိသူများ | New | High | Warning against Syncretism | Parallels 37-nat hierarchy; all subordinate to/created by Christ |
| before all things | πρὸ πάντων | pro pantōn | အလုံးစုံမတိုင်မီ ရှိတော်မူသောသူ | New | Critical | Supremacy of Christ | Safeguards against “first-created” misreading of firstborn |
| hold together | συνέστηκεν (συνίστημι) | synestēken | အလုံးစုံကို စည်းစုတည်ရှိစေတော်မူ | New | High | Sufficiency of Christ | Personal sustaining agency, not impersonal natural law |
| head | κεφαλή | kephalē | ဦးခေါင်း | New | Critical | Christ as Head of the Church | Organic union AND ruling authority together; identical at 1:18, 2:10, 2:19 |
| body (of the church) | σῶμα | sōma | ကိုယ်ခန္ဓာ | New | Medium | Christ as Head of the Church | Pair with အသင်းတော် |
| church | ἐκκλησία | ekklēsia | အသင်းတော် | Reuse | Medium | Church as God’s People | Never ဘုရားကျောင်း/ဘုရားရိပ်သာ |
| beginning | ἀρχή | archē | အစ | New | Medium | Christ as Head of the Church | Distinct from ဦးခေါင်း |
| firstborn from the dead | πρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν | prōtotokos ek tōn nekrōn | သေခြင်းမှ ထမြောက်တော်မူသော သားဦး | New (uses Reuse root) | Critical | Resurrection of Christ | ထမြောက်ခြင်း Reuse; never ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း |
| preeminent | πρωτεύων | prōteuōn | အရာရာတွင် အဦးဆုံးဖြစ်တော်မူသော | New | High | Supremacy of Christ | Retain “in everything” totality |
| was pleased | εὐδοκέω | eudokēsen | နှစ်သက်တော်မူ၍ ဆုံးဖြတ်တော်မူ | New | Medium | Fullness of Deity | God’s willed resolve |
| fullness | πλήρωμα | plērōma | ပြည့်စုံခြင်း | New | Critical | Fullness of Deity in Christ Bodily | Totality of God’s nature, not a portion distributed among powers |
| dwell | κατοικέω | katoikeō | ကျိန်းဝပ်တော်မူ | New | Medium | Fullness of Deity | Permanent, not temporary |
| reconcile | ἀποκαταλλάσσω | apokatallassō | ပြန်လည်ရင်ကြားစေ့ခြင်း | New | Critical | Reconciliation through the Cross | God’s initiative; not mutual negotiation or impersonal cosmic balance |
| make peace | εἰρηνοποιέω | eirēnopoieō | ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်းကို ဖြစ်ပွားစေတော်မူ၍ | New (uses Reuse root) | High | Reconciliation | Builds on Reuse ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း |
| blood of the cross | αἷμα τοῦ σταυροῦ | haima tou staurou | လက်ဝါးကပ်တိုင်ပေါ်ရှိ အသွေးတော် | New | High | Reconciliation | လက်ဝါးကပ်တိုင် established Myanmar Bible term |
| heaven and earth (reconciled) | εἴτε τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς εἴτε τὰ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς | eite ta epi tēs gēs eite ta en tois ouranois | မြေကြီးပေါ်ရှိသည်ဖြစ်စေ၊ ကောင်းကင်ပေါ်ရှိသည်ဖြစ်စေ | New | High | Reconciliation | Preserve exhaustive merism |
| glory | δόξα | doxa | ဘုန်းတော် | Reuse | High | Deity of Christ | — |
| Gentiles | ἔθνη | ethnē | တစ်ပါးအမျိုးသား | Reuse | Medium | Unity of Jews and Gentiles | — |
| mystery | μυστήριον | mystērion | နက်နဲသောအရာတော် | New | High | Warning against Syncretism / Mission | Must pair with “now revealed”; not perpetual esoteric secret |
| afflictions/sufferings | θλῖψις | thlipsis | ဆင်းရဲဒုက္ခ / ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်ခံခြင်း | New | High | (cross-cutting) | ဒုက္ခ collides with First Noble Truth; distinguish personal missional suffering from impersonal existential dukkha |
| minister/servant | διάκονος | diakonos | အမှုတော်ဆောင် | New | Medium | Church | Not a monastic/priestly office |
| stewardship | οἰκονομία | oikonomia | တာဝန်ဝတ္တရား | New | Medium | Church/Mission | Avoid any ကုသိုလ်-based rendering |
| wisdom | σοφία | sophia | ပညာ | New | Medium | (vs. false teaching) | Overlaps with Buddhist paññā; God-given/revealed, not self-attained |
| understanding | σύνεσις | synesis | ဉာဏ်ပညာ | New | Medium | (vs. false teaching) | — |
Chapter 2 Terms
| Term (English) | Original | Transliteration | Burmese Rendering | Status | Risk | Doctrine | Collision / Rendering Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| struggle | ἀγών | agōn | ရုန်းကန်ဆွဲဆောင်မှု | New | Low | — | — |
| tradition of men | παράδοσις τῶν ἀνθρώπων | paradosis tōn anthrōpōn | လူတို့၏ဆင့်ကမ်းယူထားသော အစဉ်အလာ | New | High | Warning against Syncretism | Vs. Christ/Scripture’s sole authority |
| philosophy | φιλοσοφία | philosophia | ဒဿနအယူဝါဒ | New | High | Warning against Syncretism | Echoes Buddhist dassana; names the specific Colossian error, not philosophy generally |
| elemental spirits/elements of the world | στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου | stoicheia tou kosmou | လောကီအခြေခံအင်အားစုများ | New | Critical | Warning against Syncretism | Parallels nats/astrology; created, subordinate, defeated in Christ |
| circumcision | περιτομή | peritomē | အရေဖျားလှီးခြင်း | New | Medium | Union with Christ | Spiritual reality, not ethnic/ritual marker alone |
| baptism | βάπτισμα | baptisma | ဗတ္တိဇံ | New | Medium | Union with Christ | Established transliteration |
| buried with | συνθάπτω | synthaptō | အတူ သင်္ဂြိုဟ်ခြင်းခံရသော | New | Critical | Union with Christ | — |
| raised with | συνεγείρω | synegeirō | အတူ ထမြောက်ခြင်း | New (uses Reuse root) | Critical | Union with Christ | ထမြောက်ခြင်း Reuse root; never rebirth language |
| certificate of debt | χειρόγραφον | cheirographon | ကြွေးမြီစာချုပ် | New | Medium | Reconciliation | Fully and permanently canceled, not gradually reduced |
| disarm/strip off | ἀπεκδύομαι | apekdyomai | ရှုံးနိမ့်စေတော်မူ၍ ချွတ်တော်မူ | New | High | Warning against Syncretism | Christ’s decisive defeat of hostile powers |
| triumph over | θριαμβεύω | thriambeuō | အောင်ပွဲခံတော်မူ | New | High | Warning against Syncretism | No need to fear/appease spirit-powers |
| shadow / substance | σκιά / σῶμα | skia / sōma | အရိပ် / အစစ်အမှန် | New | Medium | Sufficiency of Christ | Old covenant forms vs. reality found only in Christ |
| self-made religion | ἐθελοθρησκία | ethelothrēskia | ကိုယ်ပိုင်တီထွင်သော ဘာသာရေးအကျင့် | New | Critical | Warning against Syncretism | Parallels self-generated ascetic merit-practice |
| worship of angels | θρησκεία τῶν ἀγγέλων | thrēskeia tōn angelōn | ကောင်းကင်တမန်များကို ဝတ်ပြုကိုးကွယ်ခြင်း | New | Critical | Warning against Syncretism | Parallels nat veneration; worship belongs to Christ alone |
| humility (false, ch.2 / genuine, ch.3) | ταπεινοφροσύνη | tapeinophrosynē | နှိမ့်ချမှု | New | Medium | Warning against Syncretism / New Self | Same word, opposite valence — flag context each time |
| severity to the body / asceticism | ἀφειδία σώματος | apheidia sōmatos | ကိုယ်ခန္ဓာကို ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်ခြင်း | New | High | Warning against Syncretism | Parallels Buddhist ascetic practice; ineffective apart from the Spirit |
| deity/Godhead | θεότης | theotēs | ဘုရားဇာတိ | New | Critical | Fullness of Deity in Christ Bodily | Full deity, not fragment/emanation |
| bodily | σωματικῶς | sōmatikōs | ကိုယ်ခန္ဓာအားဖြင့် | New | Critical | Fullness of Deity in Christ Bodily | Genuinely physical, not docetic/apparent |
Chapter 3 Terms
| Term (English) | Original | Transliteration | Burmese Rendering | Status | Risk | Doctrine | Collision / Rendering Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| things above / things on earth | τὰ ἄνω / τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς | ta anō / ta epi tēs gēs | အထက်အရာများ / မြေကြီးပေါ်ရှိအရာများ | New | Medium | Union with Christ | Reordered loyalty, not escapism |
| hidden with Christ | κρύπτω | kryptō | ဘုရားသခင်၌ ဝှက်ထားလျက်ရှိ | New | Medium | Union with Christ | — |
| be revealed | φανερωθῇ | phaneröthē | ထင်ရှားစေတော်မူ | New | Medium | Union with Christ (future hope) | — |
| old self | παλαιὸς ἄνθρωπος | palaios anthrōpos | လူဟောင်း | New | Critical | Putting Off the Old Self | Decisive, once-for-all identity change, not gradual reform |
| new self | νέος/καινὸς ἄνθρωπος | neos/kainos anthrōpos | လူသစ် | New | Critical | Putting On the New Self | Tie back to union with Christ’s death/resurrection |
| being renewed | ἀνακαινοῦμαι | anakainoumai | အသစ်ပြုပြင်ခြင်းခံရ | New | High | Putting On the New Self | Cross-ref εἰκών (1:15) |
| idolatry | εἰδωλολατρία | eidōlolatria | ရုပ်ပွားကိုးကွယ်ခြင်း | New | High | Putting Off the Old Self | Handle with cultural sensitivity re: Buddha-image reverence |
| wrath of God | ὀργὴ τοῦ θεοῦ | orgē tou theou | ဘုရားသခင်၏ အမျက်တော် | New | High | Universal Human Accountability | Personal response, not impersonal karmic retribution |
| vice list (fornication/impurity/passion/evil desire/covetousness) | πορνεία, ἀκαθαρσία, πάθος, ἐπιθυμία κακή, πλεονεξία | porneia, akatharsia, pathos, epithymia kakē, pleonexia | မတရားမေထုန် / မစင်ကြယ်ခြင်း / ကာမဂုဏ်စိတ် / မကောင်းသောတပ်မက်မှု / လောဘလွန်ကျူးမှု | New | Medium | Putting Off the Old Self | Markers of the old self requiring decisive rejection |
| virtue list (compassion/kindness/humility/meekness/patience) | σπλάγχνα οἰκτιρμοῦ, χρηστότης, ταπεινοφροσύνη, πραΰτης, μακροθυμία | splanchna oiktirmou, chrēstotēs, tapeinophrosynē, prautēs, makrothymia | သနားကြင်နာသောစိတ်နှလုံး / ကြင်နာမှု / နှိမ့်ချမှု / နူးညံ့သိမ်မွေ့မှု / ခန္တီရဲခြင်း | New | Low-Medium | Putting On the New Self | Spirit-produced identity, not merit-cultivated virtue |
| chosen/elect | ἐκλεκτός | eklektos | ရွေးကောက်ထားသော | New (uses Reuse root) | High | Election | Builds on Reuse ရွေးကောက်ခြင်း |
| ethnic/social categories dissolved in Christ | Ἕλλην/Ἰουδαῖος, περιτομή/ἀκροβυστία, βάρβαρος/Σκύθης, δοῦλος/ἐλεύθερος | Hellēn/Ioudaios etc. | ဟေလသီ/ယုဒလူမျိုး, ကျွန်/လွတ်လပ်သူ, etc. | New | Medium | Unity of Jews and Gentiles | Relevant to Myanmar ethnic/religious social dynamics |
| submit (household) | ὑποτάσσω | hypotassō | ကျိုးနွံစွာ လက်အောက်ခံခြင်း (wives) / နာခံခြင်း (children/servants) | New | High | Household Codes | Always paired with reciprocal Christ-shaped obligation on the authority-holder; flag for pastoral care |
| bondservant / master | δοῦλος / κύριος | doulos / kyrios | ကျွန် / သခင် | New (κύριος uses Reuse root) | High | Household Codes | Deliberate wordplay with “Lord” (Christ); requires translator note |
| peace of Christ | εἰρήνη τοῦ Χριστοῦ | eirēnē tou Christou | ခရစ်တော်၏ ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း | New (uses Reuse root) | Medium | Peace with God | — |
| be thankful | εὐχάριστοι γίνεσθε | eucharistoi ginesthe | ကျေးဇူးတင်ခြင်း | Reuse | Low | Thanksgiving | — |
| psalms, hymns, spiritual songs | ψαλμοῖς, ὕμνοις, ᾠδαῖς πνευματικαῖς | psalmois, hymnois, ōdais pneumatikais | ဆာလံသီချင်း၊ ချီးမွမ်းသီချင်း၊ ဝိညာဉ်ရေးရာသီချင်းများ | New | Low | Church/Worship | — |
Chapter 4 Terms
| Term (English) | Original | Transliteration | Burmese Rendering | Status | Risk | Doctrine | Collision / Rendering Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| prayer | προσευχή | proseuchē | ဆုတောင်းခြင်း | New | Low | Prayer and Intercession | Consistent with baseline intercession vocabulary pattern |
| watch/be alert | γρηγορέω | grēgoreō | စောင့်နိုးနေခြင်း | New | Low | — | — |
| open door for the word | θύρα τοῦ λόγου | thyra tou logou | တရားစကားအတွက် တံခါးဖွင့်ပေးခြင်း | New | Low | Mission | Reuses μυστήριον τοῦ Χριστοῦ (mystery of Christ) from ch.1 |
| walk in wisdom | περιπατεῖτε ἐν σοφίᾳ | peripateite en sophia | ပညာနှင့်လျော်စွာ ကျင့်ကြံနေထိုင်ခြင်း | New (uses ch.1 root) | Medium | (vs. false wisdom) | Same collision note as ch.1 σοφία |
| salt (speech) | ἅλας | halas | ဆား | New | Low | — | Metaphor for wise, gracious speech |
| fellow servant / fellow worker / faithful minister | σύνδουλος / συνεργός / πιστὸς διάκονος | syndoulos / synergos / pistos diakonos | လုပ်ဖော်ကျွန်ဖော် / လုပ်ဖော်ဆောင်ဖက် / သစ္စာရှိသော အမှုတော်ဆောင် | New | Low | Church | Reuses διάκονος from ch.1 |
Chapter 4 note: No new Critical or High risk doctrinal terms introduced. Chapter reviewed in full; reuses ἐκκλησία (church), μυστήριον (mystery), σοφία (wisdom), βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ (kingdom of God — direct BASELINE REUSE at 4:11), and the κύριος/δοῦλος household pairing carried over from 3:22-4:1.
Risk Tier Summary (Colossians New Terms Only)
| Risk | Count | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | 12 | firstborn, before all things, head, fullness, reconcile, deity/bodily, elemental spirits, self-made religion, worship of angels, redemption, old/new self, buried/raised with |
| High | 20 | image, cosmic powers, hold together, preeminent, make peace, blood of the cross, heaven-and-earth reconciled, mystery, afflictions, love, tradition of men, philosophy, disarm/triumph, asceticism, being renewed, idolatry, wrath of God, chosen/elect, submit, bondservant/master |
| Medium | ~22 | hope, full knowledge, inheritance, kingdom of the Son, forgiveness of sins, creation, create, all things, body, beginning, was pleased, dwell, minister, stewardship, wisdom, understanding, circumcision, baptism, certificate of debt, shadow/substance, humility, things above/earth, hidden/revealed, vice list, ethnic categories, peace of Christ, walk in wisdom |
| Low | ~12 | bear fruit, struggle, psalms/hymns/songs, prayer, watch, open door, salt, fellow servant/worker, virtue list (lower end), thanksgiving (reuse) |
This glossary is the authoritative Step 8 Core Glossary for Colossians. It must be merged into a Colossians-specific translation_memory.json (extending, never contradicting, the Romans baseline) before any Phase 2 segment translation begins.
Critical Risk Terms
Before All Things
Approved rendering: အလုံးစုံမတိုင်မီ ရှိတော်မူသောသူ
Transliteration: a-lone-son ma-taing-mi shi-taw-mu-thaw-thu
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
Original: πρὸ πάντων
Category: Christology
Col 1:17. Necessary safeguard against reading 1:15’s ‘firstborn’ as ‘first-created’; establishes Christ’s eternal preexistence. Must never be softened or omitted in any paraphrase.
Bodily
Approved rendering: ကိုယ်ခန္ဓာအားဖြင့်
Transliteration: koe-handa a-hpyin
Doctrine: Fullness of Deity in Christ Bodily
Original: σωματικῶς
Category: Christology
Col 2:9. Genuinely, physically embodied — the single highest-stakes phrase in Colossians for the Incarnation doctrine cluster; guards against any docetic reading in a Gnostic- or Buddhist-mind-only-influenced direction, and against Burmese narrative patterns of apparent spirit-manifestation (နတ်ဆင်းသက်ခြင်း).
Buried With Christ
Approved rendering: အတူ သင်္ဂြိုဟ်ခြင်းခံရသော
Transliteration: a-tu thinguyeik-chin-khan-ya-thaw
Doctrine: Union with Christ
Original: συνθάπτω
Category: Union with Christ
Col 2:12. A decisive, once-for-all identification with Christ’s death, signified in baptism; must be taught paired with ‘raised with Christ’.
Christ
Approved rendering: ခရစ်တော်
Transliteration: Khayitto
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: မေရှိယ (reserved for explicit OT-fulfillment contexts only), ဗြဟ္မာ့သား, နတ်သား
Original: Χριστός
Category: Christology
NEW for the Colossians package, though the transliteration itself is the long-established Myanmar Bible form. The title/name used as Jesus’ ordinary designation throughout the letter, the one in whom all the fullness of deity dwells (1:19, 2:9) and who is preeminent over all creation (1:15-20). Never substitute a Buddhist-cosmology term for an elevated being.
Deity
Approved rendering: ဘုရားဇာတိ
Transliteration: phayar-zati
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Original: θεότης
Category: Christology
Col 2:9. The totality of God’s own divine nature dwelling permanently in Christ; not a fragment, emanation, or lesser divine being. Consistent with the Romans baseline Deity of Christ doctrine’s Burmese doctrine name.
Elemental Spirits
Approved rendering: လောကီအခြေခံအင်အားစုများ
Transliteration: lawki a-chei-gan in-ar-su myar
Doctrine: Christ’s Triumph over Hostile Spiritual Powers
Original: στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου
Category: False Teaching
Col 2:8, 2:20. Directly parallels the nat hierarchy and astrological powers (ဗေဒင်); every occurrence requires human theologian review and explicit teaching that these powers are created, subordinate, and already defeated in Christ.
Father
Approved rendering: အဖ
Transliteration: a-pha
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ဗြဟ္မာ
Original: πατήρ
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. Never ဗြဟ္မာ. God as personal Father of Christ and, through him, of believers (1:2-3, 3:17).
Firstborn From The Dead
Approved rendering: သေခြင်းမှ ထမြောက်တော်မူသော သားဦး
Transliteration: thei-chin-hma hta-myauk-taw-mu-thaw thar-u
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ
Original: πρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν
Category: Christology
Col 1:18. Builds on the baseline-reused ထမြောက်ခြင်း root; never ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း. A unique, historical, bodily event, the guarantee and pattern of believers’ own future resurrection.
Firstborn
Approved rendering: သားဦး
Transliteration: thar-u
Doctrine: Supremacy and Sufficiency of Christ over Creation
Rejected alternatives: ပထမဆုံးဖန်ဆင်းခံရသူ (first-created being — the Jehovah’s Witness/Watchtower misreading, absolutely forbidden)
Original: πρωτότοκος
Category: Christology
Col 1:15, and applied to the resurrection at 1:18. Names Christ’s rank of sovereign preeminence and inheritance-right over creation, NOT his origin as a created being. MUST never stand without the immediate co-text of 1:16-17 (creator and sustainer of, and existing before, ‘all things’) in the same teaching unit; this pairing is the single highest cult-collision safeguard in the book.
Fullness
Approved rendering: ပြည့်စုံခြင်း
Transliteration: pyi-son-chin
Doctrine: Fullness of Deity in Christ Bodily
Original: πλήρωμα
Category: Christology
Col 1:19, 2:9. The entire, undivided totality of God’s own nature residing in Christ — NOT a large but partial share, guarding against the Burmese folk-cosmology pattern of power distributed across a ranked hierarchy of nats. Must be taught together with 2:9’s ဘုရားဇာတိ (deity).
God
Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရား, နတ်သခင်
Original: θεός
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. Never ဘုရား alone or နတ်သခင်. The Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, addressed throughout the letter.
Grace
Approved rendering: ကျေးဇူးတော်
Transliteration: kyayzu-taw
Doctrine: Grace
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်, ကံကောင်းခြင်း, ဝါသနာတော်
Original: χάρις
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. Never ကုသိုလ်/ကံကောင်းခြင်း. Colossians 1:6 names the gospel itself ‘the grace of God’; Col 4:18 closes the letter with the same term.
Head
Approved rendering: ဦးခေါင်း
Transliteration: u-gaung
Doctrine: Christ as Head of the Church
Original: κεφαλή
Category: Christology
Col 1:18, 2:10, 2:19. Must communicate organic life-union AND ruling authority simultaneously; keep rendering identical across all three occurrences with an accompanying teaching gloss each time.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော်
Transliteration: thangyinthaw weinnyin-taw
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: နတ်ဝိညာဉ်, ဝိညာဉ်
Original: πνεῦμα
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. Never ဝိညာဉ် alone or နတ်ဝိညာဉ်. The Spirit in whom the Colossians’ love has been reported (1:8).
Jesus
Approved rendering: ယေရှု
Transliteration: Yayshu
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ရှင်ယေရှု
Original: Ἰησοῦς
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package. Established Myanmar Bible form since Judson; used throughout Colossians (1:1, 1:3, etc.).
Messiah
Approved rendering: မေရှိယ
Transliteration: Mei-shi-ya
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
Rejected alternatives: အရေးတော်ပုံလာမည့်သူ, မိတ္တေယျ
Original: Χριστός / מָשִׁיחַ
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package. Never မိတ္တေယျ. Reserved for explicit OT-fulfillment contexts (e.g., 1:26-27’s ‘mystery… now revealed’); distinct from ခရစ်တော်, used as Christ’s ordinary title/name throughout Colossians.
New Self
Approved rendering: လူသစ်
Transliteration: lu-thit
Doctrine: Putting Off the Old Self and Putting On the New
Original: νέος / καινὸς ἄνθρωπος
Category: Sanctification
Col 3:10. Must be connected explicitly back to 2:12/3:1 so ‘putting on’ is understood as the lived expression of an accomplished identity-change, not the mechanism producing it.
Old Self
Approved rendering: လူဟောင်း
Transliteration: lu-haung
Doctrine: Putting Off the Old Self and Putting On the New
Original: παλαιὸς ἄνθρωπος
Category: Sanctification
Col 3:9. Decisive, once-for-all identity change secured by union with Christ’s death (2:12, 3:1), not a gradual moral self-improvement narrative resembling progressive character-purification across a lifetime or lives.
Raised With Christ
Approved rendering: အတူ ထမြောက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: a-tu hta-myauk-chin
Doctrine: Union with Christ
Rejected alternatives: ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း (rebirth — never applicable here)
Original: συνεγείρω
Category: Union with Christ
Col 2:12, 3:1. Builds on the baseline-reused ထမြောက်ခြင်း root; must never shift toward rebirth/samsara language even in this derivative, corporate compound. Union is with Christ’s own one-time historical resurrection, appropriated spiritually now and bodily at the future resurrection.
Reconcile
Approved rendering: ပြန်လည်ရင်ကြားစေ့ခြင်း
Transliteration: pyan-le-yin-kyar-say-chin
Doctrine: Reconciliation through the Cross
Rejected alternatives: ရင်ကြားစေ့ခြင်း (used unfenced, i.e. without hostility-to-favor framing, since ordinary usage names mutual peer mediation)
Original: ἀποκαταλλάσσω
Category: Salvation
Col 1:20-22. God’s own unilateral initiative restoring a right relationship with a hostile creation through the cross — never a mutual negotiated settlement between equals, and never an impersonal restoration of cosmic/social balance (ငြိမ်းချမ်းမှု).
Redemption
Approved rendering: ရွေးနှင်းခြင်း
Transliteration: ywe-hnin-chin
Doctrine: Redemption and Forgiveness of Sins
Original: ἀπολύτρωσις
Category: Salvation
Col 1:14. NEW critical term for Colossians, parallel in weight to Romans’ ကယ်တင်ခြင်း (salvation) but distinct in emphasis: a price-paid release from captivity. Never a merit-based self-liberation; the price is paid by another (Christ, via his blood, 1:20).
Resurrection
Approved rendering: ထမြောက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: hta-myauk-chin
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း, ပြန်လည်မွေးဖွားခြင်း
Original: ἀνάστασις
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package. Never ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း/ပြန်လည်မွေးဖွားခြင်း. Root for Colossians’ unique compounds ‘firstborn from the dead’ (1:18) and ‘raised with Christ’ (2:12, 3:1); the rule against rebirth-language applies with equal force to every derivative compound.
Self Made Religion
Approved rendering: ကိုယ်ပိုင်တီထွင်သော ဘာသာရေးအကျင့်
Transliteration: koe-paing-ti-htwin-thaw batharyei-akyint
Doctrine: Warning against False Teaching and Syncretism
Original: ἐθελοθρησκία
Category: False Teaching
Col 2:23. Names precisely the pattern of self-directed ascetic/meritorious religious practice central to lay and monastic Buddhist devotion. Requires the most careful theological framing in the book: critiques the entire logic of self-generated religious achievement as a path to spiritual standing.
Worship Of Angels
Approved rendering: ကောင်းကင်တမန်များကို ဝတ်ပြုကိုးကွယ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: kaung-kin-tamam myar-go wut-pyu-kokwe-chin
Doctrine: Warning against False Teaching and Syncretism
Original: θρησκεία τῶν ἀγγέλων
Category: False Teaching
Col 2:18. Direct collision risk with nat veneration for protection/favor. Must be taught alongside 1:16/2:15’s teaching that all created intermediary powers are subordinate to and defeated by Christ; worship belongs to Christ alone.
High Risk Terms
Afflictions
Approved rendering: ဆင်းရဲဒုက္ခ
Transliteration: sin-yei-dukkha
Doctrine: Suffering for the Gospel
Original: θλῖψις
Category: Suffering
Col 1:24, 1:29. ဒုက္ခ names the impersonal, pervasive unsatisfactoriness of the First Noble Truth; Paul’s afflictions are personal, missional, meaningful suffering for the church’s sake, categorically distinct, and never add to the sufficiency of Christ’s own atoning work. Translator note required at every occurrence.
Asceticism
Approved rendering: ကိုယ်ခန္ဓာကို ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: koe-handa-go hnyin-pan-hnate-sat-chin
Doctrine: Warning against False Teaching and Syncretism
Original: ἀφειδία σώματος
Category: False Teaching
Col 2:23. Directly parallels dhutanga and other recognized meritorious austerity practices; must be taught as ineffective for producing true holiness, which is the Spirit’s work.
Being Renewed
Approved rendering: အသစ်ပြုပြင်ခြင်းခံရ
Transliteration: a-thit-pyu-pyin-chin-khan-ya
Doctrine: Putting Off the Old Self and Putting On the New
Original: ἀνακαινοῦμαι
Category: Sanctification
Col 3:10. Ongoing renewal in knowledge according to the image (εἰκών) of the Creator; cross-reference to 1:15 must be preserved.
Blood Of The Cross
Approved rendering: လက်ဝါးကပ်တိုင်ပေါ်ရှိ အသွေးတော်
Transliteration: lekwar-kat-tai-baw-shi a-thway-taw
Doctrine: Reconciliation through the Cross
Original: αἷμα τοῦ σταυροῦ
Category: Salvation
Col 1:20. လက်ဝါးကပ်တိုင် is the established Myanmar Bible term for cross; the sacrificial, once-for-all sense must stay distinct from Buddhist merit-transfer rituals or animist blood-offering practices to spirits.
Bondservant Master
Approved rendering: ကျွန် / သခင်
Transliteration: kyun / thakhin
Doctrine: Household Codes
Original: δοῦλος / κύριος
Category: Household
Col 3:22-4:1. သခင် is the same word rendered ‘Lord’ for Christ elsewhere; the deliberate wordplay must be marked with an explicit translator note so its point (all human authority answers to the true heavenly Master) is not lost.
Called
Approved rendering: ခေါ်တော်မူသော
Transliteration: khaw-taw-mu-thaw
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Rejected alternatives: ဖိတ်ခေါ်ခြင်း
Original: καλέω / κλητός
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. Col 3:15 grounds the peace ruling believers’ hearts in having been ‘called in one body’; never ကံဇာတာ (fixed karmic destiny).
Chosen
Approved rendering: ရွေးကောက်ထားသော
Transliteration: ywaykauk-htar-thaw
Doctrine: Effectual Calling
Original: ἐκλεκτός
Category: Salvation
Col 3:12. Builds on the baseline election root; God’s sovereign choice, not karma-determined status.
Cosmic Powers
Approved rendering: ရာဇပလ္လင်များ၊ အစိုးရမှုများ၊ အထွဋ်အာဏာများ၊ အခွင့်အာဏာရှိသူများ
Transliteration: yaza-pallin myar, a-soye-hmu myar, a-htwet-arna myar, a-khwint-arna-shi-thu myar
Doctrine: Christ’s Triumph over Hostile Spiritual Powers
Original: θρόνοι, κυριότητες, ἀρχαί, ἐξουσίαι
Category: False Teaching
Col 1:16, reprised at 2:10. A fourfold merism for the unseen spiritual hierarchy, all created through and for Christ. Parallels the 37-nat hierarchy in Burmese folk religion; must always be taught as created and subordinate, never independently propitiated.
Disarm Powers
Approved rendering: ရှုံးနိမ့်စေတော်မူ၍ ချွတ်တော်မူ
Transliteration: shone-nate-say-taw-mu-ywei chwat-taw-mu
Doctrine: Christ’s Triumph over Hostile Spiritual Powers
Original: ἀπεκδύομαι
Category: False Teaching
Col 2:15. Christ’s public, decisive stripping/disarming of hostile cosmic powers; directly relevant to fear of nats/spirits.
Domain Of Darkness
Approved rendering: မှောင်မိုက်၏ အာဏာစက်
Transliteration: hmaung-maik-i arna-sat
Doctrine: Inheritance of the Saints
Original: ἐξουσία τοῦ σκότους
Category: Salvation
Col 1:13. A decisive, God-accomplished rescue-transfer of dominion, not gradual self-attained illumination out of ignorance.
Election
Approved rendering: ရွေးကောက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: ywaykauk-chin
Doctrine: Effectual Calling
Rejected alternatives: ကံဇာတာ, ကံကြမ္မာ
Original: ἐκλογή / ἐκλεκτός
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. Root for the adjectival ‘chosen’ (ရွေးကောက်ထားသော) applied to believers in 3:12; never ကံဇာတာ/ကံကြမ္မာ.
Forgiveness Of Sins
Approved rendering: အပြစ်လွှတ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: a-pyit-hlwat-chin
Doctrine: Redemption and Forgiveness of Sins
Original: ἄφεσις τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν
Category: Salvation
Col 1:14. A decisive divine release, not an incrementally reduced karmic ledger.
Glory
Approved rendering: ဘုန်းတော်
Transliteration: phon-taw
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ဘုန်းကံ
Original: δόξα
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. Never ဘုန်းကံ (merit-power); object of hope (1:27) and of Christ’s future appearing (3:4).
Gospel
Approved rendering: သတင်းကောင်း
Transliteration: thadin kaung
Doctrine: Gospel
Rejected alternatives: ဓမ္မသတင်း, ကောင်းသောအကြောင်းအရာ
Original: εὐαγγέλιον
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. Colossians 1:5-6, 1:23 explicitly equates the gospel with ‘the grace of God’ (1:6); must survive translation bearing that link intact, not reduced to a regional teaching or a pleasant report.
Heaven And Earth Reconciled
Approved rendering: မြေကြီးပေါ်ရှိသည်ဖြစ်စေ၊ ကောင်းကင်ပေါ်ရှိသည်ဖြစ်စေ
Transliteration: myei-gyi-baw-shi-thi-hpyit-sei, kaung-kin-baw-shi-thi-hpyit-sei
Doctrine: Reconciliation through the Cross
Original: εἴτε τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς εἴτε τὰ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς
Category: Salvation
Col 1:20. Preserve the exhaustive merism without qualification, mirroring 1:16’s exhaustive creation scope.
Hold Together
Approved rendering: အလုံးစုံကို စည်းစုတည်ရှိစေတော်မူ
Transliteration: a-lone-son-go si-zu ti-shi-say-taw-mu
Doctrine: Supremacy and Sufficiency of Christ over Creation
Original: συνέστηκεν
Category: Christology
Col 1:17. Christ’s active, personal, ongoing sustaining agency; avoid a rendering suggesting a mere impersonal natural law of cohesion.
Holy
Approved rendering: သန့်ရှင်းသော
Transliteration: thangyin-thaw
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: စင်ကြယ်သော
Original: ἅγιος
Category: Sanctification
Inherited from Romans package. Describes believers’ standing (1:22) and character (3:12).
Household Submission
Approved rendering: ကျိုးနွံစွာ လက်အောက်ခံခြင်း / နာခံခြင်း
Transliteration: kyo-nwan-swar let-auk-khan-chin / na-khan-chin
Doctrine: Household Codes
Original: ὑποτάσσω
Category: Household
Col 3:18, 3:20, 3:22. Must always be taught paired with the reciprocal, Christ-shaped obligation placed on the authority-holder (husband: love without harshness 3:19; father: do not embitter 3:21; master: justice 4:1) — never presented as an unqualified, one-directional hierarchy.
Idolatry
Approved rendering: ရုပ်ပွားကိုးကွယ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: youk-pwar-kokwe-chin
Doctrine: Idolatry and Covetousness
Original: εἰδωλολατρία
Category: Sin
Col 3:5. Paul names covetousness itself idolatry — misplaced ultimate devotion of any kind. Requires careful, non-inflammatory teaching given the standard, non-pejorative cultural practice of reverence before Buddha images.
Image Of God
Approved rendering: ပုံသဏ္ဍာန်တော်
Transliteration: pum-thandan-taw
Doctrine: Supremacy and Sufficiency of Christ over Creation
Rejected alternatives: ရုပ်ပွား, ဘုရားရုပ်
Original: εἰκών
Category: Christology
Col 1:15. Ontological, personal representation of the one true, invisible God — not a crafted cultic image (ရုပ်ပွား/ဘုရားရုပ်) such as a Buddha image or nat figure that is itself an object of veneration distinct from what it depicts. Cross-referenced at 3:10 (the new self renewed after this same image).
Light
Approved rendering: အလင်းရောင်
Transliteration: a-lin-yaung
Doctrine: Inheritance of the Saints
Original: φῶς
Category: Salvation
Col 1:12-13. Must not be read as a gradually attained enlightenment state analogous to progressively extinguishing avijjā (ignorance) through one’s own practice.
Lord
Approved rendering: သခင်
Transliteration: thakhin
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရင်, ဆရာသခင်
Original: κύριος
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package (risk tier copied exactly as recorded there). Colossians reuses this term for a deliberate wordplay: the same word names both Christ’s exclusive Lordship (1:10, 3:17) and an earthly household ‘master’ (3:22-4:1). Always accompanied by an explicit translator note in that passage per the household_codes doctrine entry below so the wordplay’s theological force is not lost.
Love
Approved rendering: မေတ္တာ
Transliteration: metta
Doctrine: Christian Identity in Christ
Original: ἀγάπη
Category: Faith
Col 1:4, 1:8, 1:13, 3:14. မေတ္တာ is the specific Theravada term for loving-kindness cultivated through metta bhavana, extended impartially to all beings. Every doctrinally load-bearing occurrence requires fencing: biblical ἀγάπη is God’s own covenantal, self-giving nature shown once for all at the cross (1:20), expressed toward particular persons, not a self-cultivated impartial mental state.
Make Peace
Approved rendering: ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်းကို ဖြစ်ပွားစေတော်မူ၍
Transliteration: nyein-thet-chin-go hpyit-pwar-say-taw-mu-ywei
Doctrine: Reconciliation through the Cross
Original: εἰρηνοποιέω
Category: Salvation
Col 1:20. Builds on baseline-reused ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း; relational peace secured by Christ’s finished work at the cross, not meditative inner calm attained by one’s own practice.
Mystery
Approved rendering: နက်နဲသောအရာတော်
Transliteration: nak-nè-thaw a-yar-taw
Doctrine: The Mystery of Christ Revealed to the Nations
Original: μυστήριον
Category: Mission
Col 1:26-27, 2:2, 4:3. Must always pair with ‘now revealed’ so the term is never read as endorsing an ongoing esoteric transmission tradition (parallel: weizza/astrological hidden knowledge reserved for an initiated elite) — precisely what Colossians refutes.
Philosophy
Approved rendering: ဒဿနအယူဝါဒ
Transliteration: dathana-ayu-wada
Doctrine: Warning against False Teaching and Syncretism
Original: φιλοσοφία
Category: False Teaching
Col 2:8. ဒဿန echoes the Buddhist philosophical term dassana. Must name the specific speculative system troubling Colossae, never philosophy or Buddhist thought in general.
Power Of God
Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်၏တန်ခိုးတော်
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin i tankhoe-taw
Doctrine: Power of God for Salvation
Rejected alternatives: အနုဘော်တန်ခိုး
Original: δύναμις
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. Never အနုဘော်တန်ခိုး (relic/amulet potency). At work in the believer (1:11) and in Paul’s ministry (1:29).
Preeminent
Approved rendering: အရာရာတွင် အဦးဆုံးဖြစ်တော်မူသော
Transliteration: a-yar-yar-twin a-u-son-hpyit-taw-mu-thaw
Doctrine: Supremacy and Sufficiency of Christ over Creation
Original: πρωτεύων
Category: Christology
Col 1:18b. Climactic summary of Christ’s total supremacy; must retain ‘in everything,’ not narrowed to only spiritual or only cosmic supremacy.
Sanctification
Approved rendering: သန့်ရှင်းခြင်း
Transliteration: thangyin-chin
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: ရေချိုးသန့်စင်ခြင်း
Inherited from Romans package. Underlies Colossians’ ongoing renewal-in-Christ theme (3:1-17), distinct from self-directed precept-keeping and meditation.
Sin
Approved rendering: အပြစ်
Transliteration: a-pyit
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability
Rejected alternatives: အကုသိုလ်
Original: ἁμαρτία
Category: Sin
Inherited from Romans package. Never အကုသိုလ် (karmic demerit); forgiven in Christ (1:14), warned against in the vice-lists of 3:5-9.
Tradition Of Men
Approved rendering: လူတို့၏ဆင့်ကမ်းယူထားသော အစဉ်အလာ
Transliteration: lu-doe-i sin-kan-yu-htar-thaw a-sin-alar
Doctrine: Warning against False Teaching and Syncretism
Original: παράδοσις τῶν ἀνθρώπων
Category: False Teaching
Col 2:8. Contrasted with Christ as the sole authoritative source of truth; directly relevant to any syncretistic blending of Christian teaching with inherited Burmese Buddhist or animist custom.
Triumph Over Powers
Approved rendering: အောင်ပွဲခံတော်မူ
Transliteration: aung-pwe-khan-taw-mu
Doctrine: Christ’s Triumph over Hostile Spiritual Powers
Original: θριαμβεύω
Category: False Teaching
Col 2:15. The believer has no need to fear, appease, or seek protection from spirit-powers through folk-religious practice.
Wrath Of God
Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်၏ အမျက်တော်
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin-i a-myet-taw
Doctrine: The Wrath and Impartial Judgment of God
Original: ὀργὴ τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Sin
Col 3:6, 3:25. God’s personal, righteous response to sin, never an impersonal cosmic law of retributive consequence (karmic-retribution framing).
Medium Risk Terms
All Things
Approved rendering: အလုံးစုံ
Transliteration: a-lone-son
Doctrine: Supremacy and Sufficiency of Christ over Creation
Original: τὰ πάντα
Category: Creation
Col 1:16-17, 1:20. Repeated three times structurally; must retain unqualified totality at every recurrence without variation.
Apostle
Approved rendering: တမန်တော်
Transliteration: tamantaw
Doctrine: Apostleship
Rejected alternatives: ဆရာတော်, ဆရာကြီး
Original: ἀπόστολος
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package. Paul’s self-designation, Col 1:1.
Baptism
Approved rendering: ဗတ္တိဇံ
Transliteration: battizan
Doctrine: Union with Christ
Original: βάπτισμα
Category: Union with Christ
Col 2:12. Established transliteration; the visible sign of union with Christ in both death and resurrection, never a repeatable purification/merit rite.
Be Revealed
Approved rendering: ထင်ရှားစေတော်မူ
Transliteration: htin-shar-say-taw-mu
Doctrine: Assurance and the Hope of Glory
Original: φανερωθῇ
Category: Eschatology
Col 3:4. The future, guaranteed public appearing of believers’ true life with Christ in glory.
Beginning
Approved rendering: အစ
Transliteration: a-sa
Doctrine: Christ as Head of the Church
Original: ἀρχή
Category: Christology
Col 1:18. Christ as originating source of the church’s new-creation life; keep distinct from ဦးခေါင်း (head, ongoing authority).
Body Of Church
Approved rendering: ကိုယ်ခန္ဓာ
Transliteration: koe-handa
Doctrine: Christ as Head of the Church
Original: σῶμα
Category: Church
Col 1:18, 1:24. Pair consistently with အသင်းတော် (church) so the body/head metaphor is not misread as two separate entities.
Certificate Of Debt
Approved rendering: ကြွေးမြီစာချုပ်
Transliteration: kyway-myi-sar-chote
Doctrine: Reconciliation through the Cross
Original: χειρόγραφον
Category: Salvation
Col 2:14. Fully and permanently canceled, nailed to the cross; never an ongoing karmic debt-ledger gradually worked off.
Church
Approved rendering: အသင်းတော်
Transliteration: athin-taw
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရားကျောင်း, ဘုရားရိပ်သာ
Original: ἐκκλησία
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package. Never ဘုရားကျောင်း/ဘုရားရိပ်သာ. The body of which Christ is Head (1:18, 1:24) and the local assemblies of 4:15-16.
Circumcision
Approved rendering: အရေဖျားလှီးခြင်း
Transliteration: a-yay-hpyar-hlee-chin
Doctrine: Union with Christ
Original: περιτομή
Category: Union with Christ
Col 2:11. The spiritual reality of union with Christ’s death; keep distinct from a merely ritual/ethnic identity marker.
Create
Approved rendering: ဖန်ဆင်းတော်မူ
Transliteration: fan-hsin-taw-mu
Doctrine: Supremacy and Sufficiency of Christ over Creation
Original: κτίζω
Category: Creation
Col 1:16. The verb is applied only TO ‘all things’ BY Christ; never applied to Christ himself.
Creation
Approved rendering: ဖန်ဆင်းတော်မူသောအရာခပ်သိမ်း
Transliteration: fan-hsin-taw-mu-thaw a-yar-hkap-thein
Doctrine: Supremacy and Sufficiency of Christ over Creation
Original: κτίσις
Category: Creation
Col 1:15-16, 1:23. Personal, willed act of a personal Creator, distinct from a Buddhist cosmological ‘arising’ of phenomena through impersonal causation.
Dwell
Approved rendering: ကျိန်းဝပ်တော်မူ
Transliteration: kyein-wat-taw-mu
Doctrine: Fullness of Deity in Christ Bodily
Original: κατοικέω
Category: Christology
Col 1:19. Permanent, settled residence, echoing OT temple-dwelling language; distinguish from a temporary or partial indwelling.
Ethnic Categories Dissolved
Approved rendering: ဟေလသီ/ယုဒလူမျိုး၊ ကျွန်/လွတ်လပ်သူ
Transliteration: Helathi/Yuda-lumyo, kyun/lwatlat-thu
Doctrine: Unity of Diverse Peoples in Christ
Original: Ἕλλην/Ἰουδαῖος, περιτομή/ἀκροβυστία, βάρβαρος/Σκύθης, δοῦλος/ἐλεύθερος
Category: Church
Col 3:11. ‘Christ is all, and in all’; no ethnic, ritual, or social-status category retains ultimate significance in the new humanity, directly relevant to Myanmar’s own ethnic-majority/minority social dynamics.
Faith
Approved rendering: ယုံကြည်ခြင်း
Transliteration: yun-kyi-chin
Doctrine: Faith
Rejected alternatives: သဒ္ဓါတရား
Original: πίστις
Category: Faith
Inherited from Romans package. Object of faith (Christ Jesus) must remain explicit at every occurrence (1:4, 1:23, 2:5, 2:7).
Full Knowledge
Approved rendering: အကြွင်းမဲ့ သိမှု
Transliteration: a-kyway-me thi-hmu
Doctrine: Wisdom and Knowledge Hidden in Christ
Original: ἐπίγνωσις
Category: Faith
Col 1:9-10, 1:28. Deep, accurate knowledge of God’s will, contrasted with the false teachers’ speculative wisdom (2:3, 2:8); must not collide with Buddhist ဉာဏ် meditative insight.
Gentiles
Approved rendering: တစ်ပါးအမျိုးသား
Transliteration: tabar-amyothar
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Rejected alternatives: လူမျိုးခြား
Original: ἔθνη
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package. Among whom the mystery of Christ is now proclaimed (1:27).
Hidden With Christ
Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်၌ ဝှက်ထားလျက်ရှိ
Transliteration: phayarthakhin-hnaik hwet-htar-lyet-shi
Doctrine: Assurance and the Hope of Glory
Original: κρύπτω
Category: Union with Christ
Col 3:3. Assurance grounded in union with Christ, not present visible status.
Hope
Approved rendering: မျှော်လင့်ခြင်း
Transliteration: myaw-lin-chin
Doctrine: Assurance and the Hope of Glory
Original: ἐλπίς
Category: Faith
Col 1:5, 1:23, 1:27. Confident expectation grounded in Christ, distinct from aspiration toward a better future rebirth secured by accumulated merit.
Humility
Approved rendering: နှိမ့်ချမှု
Transliteration: hnate-cha-hmu
Doctrine: Sanctification
Original: ταπεινοφροσύνη
Category: Sanctification
Col 2:18, 2:23 (censured, performative sense) vs. 3:12 (commended, genuine sense). Same Burmese word, opposite valence; must carry an explicit context flag every occurrence.
Inheritance
Approved rendering: အမွေအနှစ်
Transliteration: a-mway-a-hnit
Doctrine: Inheritance of the Saints
Original: κλῆρος
Category: Salvation
Col 1:12. A given, secured share, not an accumulated karmic ‘lot’ determining rebirth.
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်၏နိုင်ငံတော်
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin i nainggan-taw
Doctrine: Kingdom Mission
Rejected alternatives: ဘုန်းတော်နိုင်ငံ
Original: βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Kingdom
Inherited from Romans package. Fellow workers for it named in 4:11; root formation extended in Colossians to ‘kingdom of the Son’ (1:13).
Kingdom Of The Son
Approved rendering: ချစ်တော်မူသော သားတော်၏ နိုင်ငံတော်
Transliteration: chit-taw-mu-thaw thar-taw-i nainggan-taw
Doctrine: Kingdom of the Son
Original: βασιλεία τοῦ υἱοῦ
Category: Kingdom
Col 1:13. Builds on the baseline kingdom_of_god formation; the Son’s present spiritual reign, distinct from a territorial or political nainggan.
Minister
Approved rendering: အမှုတော်ဆောင်
Transliteration: a-hmu-taw-saung
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Original: διάκονος
Category: Church
Col 1:7, 1:23, 1:25, 4:7. A commissioned gospel-service role open to any believer Christ appoints, distinct from a monastic or priestly office.
Mission
Approved rendering: သာသနာပြုလုပ်ငန်း
Transliteration: thathana-pyu lokngan
Doctrine: Mission to the Nations
Original: θύρα τοῦ λόγου / ἀποστολή
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package. သာသနာပြု carries a Buddhist-institutional connotation; every occurrence requires a clarifying note that Colossians 4:2-6 describes gracious gospel witness, not Sasana-style institution-building.
Peace Of Christ
Approved rendering: ခရစ်တော်၏ ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: Khayitto-i nyein-thet-chin
Doctrine: Peace with God
Original: εἰρήνη τοῦ Χριστοῦ
Category: Salvation
Col 3:15. Builds on the baseline ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း; relational, not meditative self-attained calm.
Peace
Approved rendering: ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: nyein-thet-chin
Doctrine: Peace with God
Rejected alternatives: ကိလေသာငြိမ်းခြင်း
Inherited from Romans package. Salutation formula (1:2); root for the new compound ‘peace of Christ’ (ခရစ်တော်၏ ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း, 3:15) and ‘made peace’ (1:20).
Saints
Approved rendering: သန့်ရှင်းသူများ
Transliteration: thangyin thu myar
Doctrine: Sainthood
Rejected alternatives: ရဟန္တာ, ရှင်ရဟန်း
Original: ἅγιοι
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package. Never ရဟန္တာ; all believers addressed corporately (1:2, 1:4, 1:12, 1:26, 3:12), not an ascetic elite.
Shadow And Substance
Approved rendering: အရိပ် / အစစ်အမှန်
Transliteration: a-yate / a-sit-a-hman
Doctrine: Supremacy and Sufficiency of Christ over Creation
Original: σκιά / σῶμα
Category: Christology
Col 2:17. Old covenant regulations as preview shadow; Christ is the substance/reality they anticipated.
Stewardship
Approved rendering: တာဝန်ဝတ္တရား
Transliteration: tarwun-wuttaraya
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Original: οἰκονομία
Category: Church
Col 1:25. Paul’s assigned commission; avoid any ကုသိုလ်-based (merit) rendering.
Things Above
Approved rendering: အထက်အရာများ
Transliteration: a-htet-a-yar-myar
Doctrine: Union with Christ
Original: τὰ ἄνω
Category: Union with Christ
Col 3:1-2. Reordered ultimate loyalty flowing from union with the risen Christ, not world-denying escapism.
Understanding
Approved rendering: ဉာဏ်ပညာ
Transliteration: nyan-pyinnya
Doctrine: Wisdom and Knowledge Hidden in Christ
Original: σύνεσις
Category: Faith
Col 1:9, 2:2. Same collision profile as wisdom; God-given, not self-attained.
Vice List
Approved rendering: မတရားမေထုန် / မစင်ကြယ်ခြင်း / ကာမဂုဏ်စိတ် / မကောင်းသောတပ်မက်မှု / လောဘလွန်ကျူးမှု
Transliteration: ma-tayar-meidoun / ma-sinkyay-chin / kama-goun-sate / ma-kaung-thaw tat-mat-hmu / lawba-lwan-kyu-hmu
Doctrine: Putting Off the Old Self and Putting On the New
Original: πορνεία, ἀκαθαρσία, πάθος, ἐπιθυμία κακή, πλεονεξία
Category: Sin
Col 3:5. Markers of the old self requiring decisive rejection, not gradual moral refinement.
Walk In Wisdom
Approved rendering: ပညာနှင့်လျော်စွာ ကျင့်ကြံနေထိုင်ခြင်း
Transliteration: pyinnya-hnin-lyaw-swar kyint-kyan-nay-htaing-chin
Doctrine: Wisdom and Knowledge Hidden in Christ
Original: περιπατεῖτε ἐν σοφίᾳ
Category: Faith
Col 4:5. Believers’ conduct toward outsiders; same collision note as chapter 1’s wisdom entry.
Was Pleased
Approved rendering: နှစ်သက်တော်မူ၍ ဆုံးဖြတ်တော်မူ
Transliteration: hnit-thet-taw-mu-ywei soun-hpyat-taw-mu
Doctrine: Fullness of Deity in Christ Bodily
Original: εὐδοκέω
Category: God
Col 1:19. God’s glad, sovereign resolve; not an accident or an achievement Christ attained.
Wisdom
Approved rendering: ပညာ
Transliteration: pyinnya
Doctrine: Wisdom and Knowledge Hidden in Christ
Original: σοφία
Category: Faith
Col 1:9, 1:28, 2:3, 3:16, 4:5. Overlaps with Buddhist paññā; must be taught as God-given, Christ-centered, revealed wisdom, not self-cultivated insight into the nature of existence.
Low Risk Terms
Bear Fruit
Approved rendering: အသီးအပွင့်ဆောင်ခြင်း
Transliteration: a-thee-a-pwint-saung-chin
Doctrine: Gospel
Original: καρποφορέω
Category: Sanctification
Col 1:6, 1:10. The gospel’s genuine, observable growth.
Fellow Servant
Approved rendering: လုပ်ဖော်ကျွန်ဖော် / လုပ်ဖော်ဆောင်ဖက် / သစ္စာရှိသော အမှုတော်ဆောင်
Transliteration: lote-hpaw-kyun-hpaw / lote-hpaw-saung-bet / thissa-shi-thaw a-hmu-taw-saung
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Original: σύνδουλος / συνεργός / πιστὸς διάκονος
Category: Church
Col 4:7, 4:9, 4:11-12. Titles of honor for Paul’s co-laborers; reuses διάκονος (minister) from chapter 1.
Invisible
Approved rendering: မမြင်နိုင်သော
Transliteration: mamyin-naing-thaw
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Original: ἀόρατος
Category: God
Col 1:15. Standard descriptive adjective describing God’s transcendent nature, made visible in Christ.
Open Door
Approved rendering: တရားစကားအတွက် တံခါးဖွင့်ပေးခြင်း
Transliteration: tayar-sagar-atwet tagar-hpwint-pay-chin
Doctrine: Mission and Evangelism
Original: θύρα τοῦ λόγου
Category: Mission
Col 4:3. Opportunity for gospel proclamation; reuses the mystery-of-Christ vocabulary from 1:26-27, 2:2.
Prayer
Approved rendering: ဆုတောင်းခြင်း
Transliteration: hsutaung-chin
Doctrine: Prayer and Intercession
Original: προσευχή
Category: Faith
Col 1:3, 1:9, 4:2-4, 4:12. Consistent formation with the baseline intercession vocabulary pattern; direct access to God through Christ, distinguished from petitioning the 37 nats.
Psalms Hymns Songs
Approved rendering: ဆာလံသီချင်း၊ ချီးမွမ်းသီချင်း၊ ဝိညာဉ်ရေးရာသီချင်းများ
Transliteration: sarlan-thichin, chi-mwan-thichin, weinnyin-yeyar-thichin-myar
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Original: ψαλμοῖς, ὕμνοις, ᾠδαῖς πνευματικαῖς
Category: Church
Col 3:16. Standard corporate worship vocabulary.
Salt Speech
Approved rendering: ဆား
Transliteration: hsar
Doctrine: Mission and Evangelism
Original: ἅλας
Category: Faith
Col 4:6. Metaphor for speech that preserves and gives savor/wisdom.
Struggle
Approved rendering: ရုန်းကန်ဆွဲဆောင်မှု
Transliteration: yun-kan-swe-saung-hmu
Doctrine: Prayer and Intercession
Original: ἀγών
Category: Faith
Col 2:1, cf. 1:29. Paul’s athletic-imagery struggle for the churches.
Thanksgiving
Approved rendering: ကျေးဇူးတင်ခြင်း
Transliteration: kyayzu-tin-chin
Doctrine: Thanksgiving
Original: εὐχαριστία
Category: Faith
Inherited from Romans package. Repeated throughout Colossians (1:3, 1:12, 3:15, 3:17, 4:2).
Virtue List
Approved rendering: သနားကြင်နာသောစိတ်နှလုံး / ကြင်နာမှု / နှိမ့်ချမှု / နူးညံ့သိမ်မွေ့မှု / ခန္တီရဲခြင်း
Transliteration: thanar-kyinnar-thaw sate-hnalone / kyinnar-hmu / hnate-cha-hmu / nu-nyan-thein-mwe-hmu / khanti-yeh-chin
Doctrine: Putting Off the Old Self and Putting On the New
Original: σπλάγχνα οἰκτιρμοῦ, χρηστότης, ταπεινοφροσύνη, πραΰτης, μακροθυμία
Category: Sanctification
Col 3:12. Spirit-produced identity-expression, not merit-cultivated virtue, though vocabulary carries lower collision risk than chapter 2’s terms.
Watch
Approved rendering: စောင့်နိုးနေခြင်း
Transliteration: saung-no-nay-chin
Doctrine: Prayer and Intercession
Original: γρηγορέω
Category: Faith
Col 4:2. Staying alert in prayer with thanksgiving.
Referenced passages