Core Glossary
Core Glossary — 1 Peter, English Language Package
This glossary consolidates every load-bearing term identified in 07_semantic_analysis.md, spanning 1 Peter 1-5. Terms already recorded in the baseline Romans translation_memory.json are marked [BASELINE REUSE] and carry the identical rendering and risk tier; only 1 Peter-specific contextual notes are added here. New terms receive full entries. Risk tiers and category definitions follow doctrine_risk_registry.json exactly: Critical (human theologian review mandatory), High (human theologian review), Medium (native speaker review), Low (automated review).
Reused Baseline Terms (Apply Exactly as Recorded)
| Term | Original | Risk | Chapters | 1 Peter-Specific Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| God | θεός | Critical | 1-5 | No change from baseline. |
| Father | πατήρ | Medium | 1:2, 1:17 | No change from baseline. |
| Jesus | Ἰησοῦς | Critical | 1-5 | No change from baseline. |
| Lord | κύριος | Critical | 1:3, 1:25, 2:3, 2:13, 3:6, 3:15 | 1 Peter also uses lowercase honorific “lord” (3:6, Sarah/Abraham) in a non-theological sense; must be explicitly distinguished from the Critical theological title. |
| Holy Spirit / Spirit | πνεῦμα ἅγιον | Critical | 1:2, 1:11, 1:12, 4:14 | No change from baseline. |
| gospel | εὐαγγέλιον | Medium | 1:12, 1:25, 4:6, 4:17 | Reused for “the gospel preached to the dead” (4:6), which intersects the Critical spirits-in-prison cluster — flag accordingly. |
| grace | χάρις | Critical | 1:2, 1:10, 1:13, 2:19-20, 3:7, 4:10, 5:5, 5:10, 5:12 | Very high frequency in this letter; note the ordinary/non-technical sense at 2:19-20 (“this is a gracious thing”) vs. the technical sense elsewhere — flag both. |
| faith | πίστις | High | 1:5, 1:7, 1:9, 1:21, 5:9 | No change from baseline. |
| salvation / saved | σωτηρία / σῴζω | Critical | 1:5, 1:9, 1:10, 3:20-21, 4:18 | 1 Peter uses σῴζω also of Noah’s physical rescue (3:20) as deliberate typology for baptism — must not be read as generic secular rescue. |
| righteousness | δικαιοσύνη | Critical | 2:24, 3:14 | No change from baseline. |
| holy | ἅγιος | High | 1:15-16, 2:5, 2:9, 3:5 | No change from baseline; 1:16 is a direct Leviticus quotation. |
| sanctification | ἁγιασμός | Medium | 1:2 | No change from baseline. |
| calling / called | κλῆσις / καλέω | High | 1:15, 2:9, 2:21, 3:9, 5:10 | Occurs across nearly every doctrinal cluster in the letter (holiness, priesthood, suffering, blessing, glory) — reinforce God’s initiative each time. |
| election / elect | ἐκλογή / ἐκλεκτός | Critical | 1:1, 2:4, 2:6, 2:9, 5:13 | Applied corporately to the whole scattered church, not an individual-predestination proof-text primarily — still carries the identical political-vote false-friend risk. |
| apostle | ἀπόστολος | Medium | 1:1 | No change from baseline. |
| resurrection | ἀνάστασις | High | 1:3, 3:21 | No change from baseline. |
| Gentiles | ἔθνη | Medium (baseline) / High in 1 Peter | 2:12, 4:3 | RISK ESCALATION NOTE: in 1 Peter, ἔθνη denotes “pagan society/outsiders generally,” NOT the Jew/Gentile covenant category central to Romans 9-11. This intra-corpus divergence is itself a false-friend risk and must be flagged explicitly — escalated to High for this curriculum. |
| glory | δόξα | High | 1:7-8, 1:11, 1:21, 1:24, 2:12, 4:11, 4:13-14, 5:1, 5:4, 5:10 | Extremely high frequency; every occurrence should be checked against the baseline’s nostalgic/self-seeking secular drift note. |
| peace | εἰρήνη | Medium | 1:2, 3:11, 5:14 | No change from baseline. |
| spiritual gifts | χάρισμα | Medium | 4:10 | No change from baseline; paired here with “stewards,” see new-term entry below. |
| covenant (background) | διαθήκη (implicit background to 1:2, 1:18-19) | High | 1:2, 1:18-19 | Not a lexical occurrence but essential OT covenant background (sprinkling of blood, ransom) — supply explicitly per baseline note on covenant’s legal-document drift. |
| providence (conceptual) | πρόγνωσις (conceptual parallel) | Critical | 1:2, 1:20 | See new term “foreknowledge” below; functions as this doctrine’s 1 Peter anchor term. |
New Terms Introduced in 1 Peter
| Term | Original | Transliteration | Category | Risk | Chapters | English Rendering | Risk Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| living hope | ζῶσα ἐλπίς | zōsa elpis | Living Hope of the Resurrection | High | 1:3 | living hope | Contemporary “hope” is detached from any specific guaranteed object (generic optimism, “fingers crossed”); “living” must be shown to rescue the word by grounding it in the literally-alive risen Christ. |
| born again | ἀναγεννάω | anagennaō | Living Hope of the Resurrection | Critical | 1:3, 1:23 | born again, caused to be born anew | Heavily politically/culturally coded in American English (evangelical political-identity marker); risk of being misheard as a repeatable/reincarnation-like cycle. Must restore plain sense: a one-time, God-initiated regeneration. |
| inheritance | κληρονομία | klēronomia | Living Hope of the Resurrection | Medium | 1:4 | inheritance | Contemporary secular usage (estate/inheritance tax) reduces this to a financial-legal transaction; tie to the baseline’s adoption doctrine (full inheritance rights, relational not merely legal). |
| foreknowledge | πρόγνωσις | prognōsis | Living Hope of the Resurrection / Providence | Critical | 1:2, 1:20 | foreknowledge | Continuous with the baseline’s providence/election Critical cluster; Calvinist/Arminian readers construe its causal weight differently — state this curriculum’s reading and acknowledge the range. |
| various trials | ποικίλοι πειρασμοί | poikiloi peirasmoi | Suffering for Righteousness’ Sake | Medium-High | 1:6, 4:12 | various trials, fiery trial (4:12) | Dual Greek sense (trial/temptation) plus English “trial’s” legal-courtroom connotation risks a judicial rather than providential-testing reading. |
| tested genuineness | δοκίμιον | dokimion | Suffering for Righteousness’ Sake | Medium | 1:7 | tested genuineness, proven character | Contemporary academic-testing association can flatten the metallurgical refining image; retain the gold/fire metaphor explicitly. |
| exiles / sojourners / dispersion | παρεπίδημος / πάροικος / διασπορά | parepidēmos / paroikos / diaspora | (Identity/Ecclesiology) | High | 1:1, 2:11 | exiles, sojourners, strangers, the Dispersion | Contemporary immigration-debate charge around “aliens/resident aliens” risks import of partisan political framing foreign to Peter’s spiritual-identity point. |
| sprinkling with his blood | ῥαντισμὸς αἵματος | rhantismos haimatos | Christ’s Substitutionary Suffering | High | 1:2 | sprinkling with his blood | Requires OT covenant-ratification background (Exodus 24) almost entirely unfamiliar to contemporary readers; risk of horror-genre misreading absent that background. |
| ransomed | λυτρόω | lytroō | Christ’s Substitutionary Suffering | High | 1:18 | ransomed, redeemed | Contemporary “ransom” is dominated by kidnapping/hostage-crisis news association; must distinguish from a criminal-extortion transaction — God is the gracious purchaser, not a captor. |
| lamb without blemish or spot | ἀμνὸς ἄμωμος καὶ ἄσπιλος | amnos amōmos kai aspilos | Christ’s Substitutionary Suffering | Medium-High | 1:19 | a lamb without blemish or spot | Requires OT sacrificial background; contemporary cute-animal/Easter-marketing associations risk trivialization. |
| pure spiritual milk | λογικὸν ἄδολον γάλα | logikon adolon gala | Holiness in Conduct | Medium | 2:2 | pure spiritual milk, the pure milk of the word | Genuine Greek ambiguity (rational/word-related); published English translations diverge — flag range per ambiguity-handling rule. |
| living stone / cornerstone | λίθος ζῶν / ἀκρογωνιαῖος | lithos zōn / akrogōniaios | Church as Holy and Royal Priesthood | Medium | 2:4-8 | living stone, cornerstone | Requires OT quarry/temple-building background (Isaiah 28:16; Psalm 118:22) to avoid a merely decorative poetic reading. |
| holy priesthood / royal priesthood | ἱεράτευμα ἅγιον / βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα | hierateuma hagion / basileion hierateuma | Church as Holy and Royal Priesthood | Critical | 2:5, 2:9 | holy priesthood, royal priesthood | Foundational Reformation “priesthood of all believers” proof-text vs. Catholic/Orthodox/Anglican retained ordained priesthood — state this curriculum’s reading and acknowledge the other, per baseline’s transparency rule. |
| holy nation | ἔθνος ἅγιον | ethnos hagion | Church as Holy and Royal Priesthood | High | 2:9 | holy nation | Risk of assimilation to the contested contemporary political label “Christian nationalism”; must clarify transnational, spiritual sense. |
| a people for his own possession | λαὸς εἰς περιποίησιν | laos eis peripoiēsin | Church as Holy and Royal Priesthood | Medium | 2:9 | a people for his own possession, God’s treasured possession | ”Possession” carries uncomfortable ownership-of-persons overtones; frame relationally, note sensitivity given proximity to the servants/slaves risk below. |
| submit / submission | ὑποτάσσω | hypotassō | Submission to Authority and Christlike Endurance | Critical | 2:13, 2:18, 3:1, 3:5, 3:22, 5:5 | submit, be subject to | The single most contemporarily loaded term in the letter (BDSM, coercive-control, and anti-hierarchy associations); voluntary, Christ-patterned, non-coercive sense and its limits (never sanctioning abuse) must be stated explicitly every time it recurs; complementarian/egalitarian debate (3:1) must be transparently acknowledged. |
| servants (household slaves) | οἰκέται | oiketai | Submission to Authority and Christlike Endurance | Critical | 2:18-20 | servants, household slaves | Historically used by pro-slavery apologists to justify American chattel slavery; MANDATORY theologian review; must explicitly distinguish ancient household slavery from trans-Atlantic chattel slavery and avoid presenting the text as unqualified endorsement of submission to unjust power. |
| endure | ὑπομένω | hypomenō | Submission to Authority and Christlike Endurance | Medium | 2:20 | endure | Athletic-endurance associations are a mild positive framing asset but risk detaching endurance from grace-dependence. |
| example / pattern | ὑπογραμμός | hypogrammon | Christ’s Substitutionary Suffering / Christlike Endurance | Medium | 2:21 | example, model to follow | Weak generic English “example” loses the vivid ancient tracing-copy image; gloss to restore force. |
| bore our sins … on the tree | ἀναφέρω … ξύλον | anapherō … xylon | Christ’s Substitutionary Suffering | Critical | 2:24 | bore, carried … the tree, the cross | Contemporary risk of flattening into mere “solidarity/empathy” language rather than vicarious substitution; state explicitly as substitution. |
| by his wounds you have been healed | μώλωψ … ἰάομαι | mōlōps … iaomai | Christ’s Substitutionary Suffering | Critical | 2:24 | by his wounds you have been healed | Foundational Word of Faith/prosperity-gospel proof-text for guaranteed physical healing, in tension with the passage’s own context (spiritual restoration from sin) and 1 Peter’s broader treatment of unrelieved suffering; state this curriculum’s reading and the range of views. MANDATORY theologian review. |
| Shepherd and Overseer | ποιμήν καὶ ἐπίσκοπος | poimēn kai episkopos | Christ’s Substitutionary Suffering / Elders and Humility | High | 2:25, 5:2-4 | Shepherd and Overseer, chief Shepherd | ἐπίσκοπος’s later “bishop” development is a live church-polity flashpoint; clarify Christ’s own headship here distinct from the human-elder-office question. |
| gentle and quiet spirit | πραΰς καὶ ἡσύχιος | praus kai hēsychios | Submission to Authority | High | 3:4 | a gentle and quiet spirit | Contemporary gender-role discourse often hears “quiet” as silencing/suppression; distinguish inner tranquility from imposed silence — text calls it a positive, active virtue. |
| weaker vessel | ἀσθενέστερον σκεῦος | asthenesteron skeuos | Submission to Authority | High | 3:7 | weaker vessel, weaker partner | Feminist-critique sensitivity; likely refers to relative physical strength/social vulnerability, not intellectual/moral/spiritual inferiority; note the parallel “co-heirs” equal-standing clause. |
| give an answer / defense | ἀπολογία | apologia | Suffering for Righteousness’ Sake | Medium | 3:15 | answer, reason, defense | False friend: modern “apology” means expressing regret, nearly opposite sense; this is the root of “apologetics,” a reasoned defense. |
| good conscience | συνείδησις ἀγαθή | syneidēsis agathē | Suffering for Righteousness’ Sake / Christ’s Proclamation to the Spirits | Low-Medium | 2:19, 3:16, 3:21 | good conscience | Heavily secularized as personal ethical comfort without reference to God; tie explicitly to standing before God. |
| spirits in prison / proclaimed | πνεύματα ἐν φυλακῇ / κηρύσσω | pneumata en phylakē / kēryssō | Christ’s Proclamation to the Spirits | Critical | 3:19, 4:6 | spirits in prison, proclaimed | The letter’s single most contested passage: fallen-angel, Noah’s-generation-dead, and descent-to-hades readings all live among English-speaking traditions; must present the range explicitly. MANDATORY theologian review. |
| baptism / appeal for a good conscience | βάπτισμα / συνειδήσεως ἀγαθῆς ἐπερώτημα | baptisma / syneidēseōs agathēs eperōtēma | Christ’s Proclamation to the Spirits | Critical | 3:21 | baptism, an appeal to God for a good conscience | Major baptismal-regeneration proof-text; sacramental vs. non-sacramental readings sharply divide English-speaking traditions — state this curriculum’s reading and acknowledge the other. MANDATORY theologian review. |
| suffer as a Christian | πάσχει ὡς Χριστιανός | paschei hōs Christianos | Suffering for Righteousness’ Sake | High | 4:16 | suffer as a Christian | Contemporary “Christian” is a broad, often politically coded cultural-identity label; restore the sense of a name one may suffer real social cost for bearing. |
| fiery trial | πύρωσις | pyrōsis | Suffering for Righteousness’ Sake | Medium-High | 4:12 | fiery trial, fiery ordeal | Contemporary figurative-only idiom (“a fiery trial by media”) risks obscuring both the real historical severity and the deliberate cross-reference to 1:7’s refining-fire image. |
| household of God | οἶκος τοῦ θεοῦ | oikos tou theou | Church as Holy and Royal Priesthood | Medium | 4:17 | household of God | Cross-reference baseline church doctrine (Critical); ties 2:5’s “spiritual house.” |
| stewards of God’s grace | οἰκονόμοι χάριτος θεοῦ | oikonomoi charitos theou | Elders and Humility | Medium | 4:10 | stewards of God’s grace | Contemporary “stewardship” is now dominated by financial/estate-planning usage; must clarify this includes gifts, not only money, held in trust for others. |
| love covers a multitude of sins | ἀγάπη καλύπτει πλῆθος ἁμαρτιῶν | agapē kalyptei plēthos hamartiōn | Holiness in Conduct | Medium | 4:8 | love covers a multitude of sins | Secular idiom “love is blind” (romantic self-delusion, viewed with irony today) risks wrongly displacing the proverb’s point about deliberate, forgiving church-community love. |
| elders | πρεσβύτεροι | presbyteroi | Elders and Humility | High | 5:1, 5:5 | elders | Competing episcopal/presbyterian/congregational polity associations plus generic secular usage (“community elder,” Mormon “Elder”); clarify the specific pastoral-oversight sense without adjudicating every tradition’s polity question. |
| crown of glory | στέφανος τῆς δόξης | stephanos tēs doxēs | Elders and Humility | Medium | 5:4 | crown of glory | Contemporary “crown” evokes royal monarchy or beauty-pageant imagery rather than the ancient athletic victor’s-wreath image; gloss accordingly. |
| clothe yourselves with humility | ταπεινοφροσύνην ἐγκομβώσασθε | tapeinophrosynēn enkombōsasthe | Elders and Humility | Medium | 5:5 | clothe yourselves with humility | Vivid apron/servant-garment image needs unpacking; contemporary self-branding culture can code “humility” negatively as low self-worth. |
| adversary the devil | ἀντίδικος / διάβολος | antidikos / diabolos | (General warning) | Medium-High | 5:8 | adversary, the devil, the accuser | Secular idiom (“devil’s advocate”) and entertainment imagery dilute seriousness; some charismatic subcultures over-literalize beyond the text’s own restraint. State the real, personal, hostile reality plainly without overreach. |
| kiss of love | φίλημα ἀγάπης | philēma agapēs | (Closing greeting) | Medium | 5:14 | kiss of love, holy kiss | Ancient greeting custom, not romantic; requires cultural-distance context. |
Risk Summary (1 Peter Additions)
| Risk Tier | Count of New Terms | Count of Escalated/Reused Baseline Terms |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | 9 (born again, foreknowledge, holy priesthood/royal priesthood, submission, servants/slaves, bore our sins/tree, by his wounds healed, spirits in prison/proclaimed, baptism/appeal) | 4 (God, Jesus, Lord, Holy Spirit, grace, salvation, election — see baseline reuse table) |
| High | 12 (living hope, various trials/fiery trial, exiles/sojourners, sprinkling of blood, ransomed, lamb without blemish, holy nation, weaker vessel, gentle and quiet spirit, Shepherd and Overseer, suffer as Christian, elders) | 1 (Gentiles — escalated from baseline Medium to High for this curriculum) |
| Medium | 16 | — |
| Low-Medium | 3 | — |
Terms requiring mandatory human theologian review (per doctrine_risk_registry.json routing conventions): born again, foreknowledge, holy priesthood/royal priesthood, submission (all occurrences), servants/slaves (2:18-20), Christ’s substitutionary suffering cluster (2:24), spirits in prison/proclamation to the dead (3:19, 4:6), baptism and good conscience (3:21), elders/overseer polity language (5:1-4), and every reused baseline Critical term (grace, salvation, election, Lord, Gentiles-escalated) wherever it recurs in 1 Peter.
Cross-reference: 07_semantic_analysis.md for full verse-by-verse and chapter-by-chapter treatment; translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json (Romans baseline) for all reused-term source definitions.
Critical Risk Terms
God
Approved rendering: God
Transliteration: God
Doctrine: God
Rejected alternatives: a higher power (a common, deliberately vague contemporary substitute, e.g. in recovery-program language), the universe (a New-Age-influenced impersonal substitute, e.g. ‘the universe has a plan for you’)
Original: θεός
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. 1 Peter’s opening doxology (‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ 1:3) requires the same guard against vague ‘higher power’/‘the universe’ substitution documented in the baseline; God here is specifically the one who caused the new birth and raised Jesus from the dead.
Jesus
Approved rendering: Jesus
Transliteration: Jesus
Doctrine: Christology
Rejected alternatives: Jesus (as a casual interjection/expletive, entirely secularized and disrespectful usage)
Original: Ἰησοῦς
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged throughout 1 Peter.
Lord
Approved rendering: Lord
Transliteration: Lord
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: boss / master (attempts at modernization that lose the term’s exclusivity and worship-worthiness), a British Lord (the aristocratic title sense, especially salient for British/Commonwealth readers)
Original: κύριος
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. 1 Peter 3:15’s ‘honor Christ the Lord as holy in your hearts’ requires the identical restoration of exclusive, total allegiance documented in the baseline. 1 Peter 3:6 also uses lowercase ‘lord’ as Sarah’s everyday honorific address to Abraham; this ordinary usage must be explicitly distinguished from the Critical theological title to avoid implying Sarah worshiped Abraham.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: Holy Spirit
Transliteration: Holy Spirit
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: good vibes / positive energy (vague contemporary spiritual substitutes for a specific, personal, divine Person)
Original: πνεῦμα ἅγιον
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. Active in sanctifying believers (1:2), inspiring the prophets (1:11-12, implying Christ’s pre-existence as ‘the Spirit of Christ’), and resting on believers under reproach (4:14).
Grace
Approved rendering: grace
Transliteration: grace
Doctrine: Grace
Rejected alternatives: elegance/poise (the dominant secular sense, e.g. ‘she moved with such grace’), a grace period (the dominant legal/financial sense, an extension of time, not unmerited favor)
Original: χάρις
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. Extremely high frequency in 1 Peter (1:2, 1:10, 1:13, 2:19-20, 3:7, 4:10, 5:5, 5:10, 5:12). Note the ordinary, non-technical sense at 2:19-20 (‘this is a gracious thing,’ commendable/creditable) distinct from the technical unmerited-favor sense elsewhere; flag both explicitly so readers do not over-theologize every occurrence as identical to Romans’ forensic argument.
Salvation
Approved rendering: salvation
Transliteration: salvation
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: being saved (contested denominational shorthand — see notes), rescue (too generic a gloss on its own)
Original: σωτηρία / σῴζω
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. 1 Peter spans the same event/process spectrum as Romans: a future-eschatological sense (‘ready to be revealed,’ 1:5) and a more realized sense (1:9). Also used typologically of Noah’s household’s physical rescue ‘through water’ (3:20-21) as a deliberate figure for baptism — must not be flattened into a merely generic disaster-survival story.
Righteousness
Approved rendering: righteousness
Transliteration: righteousness
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: self-righteous / holier-than-thou (the dominant connotation ‘righteous’ now carries in casual usage — smug, judgmental superiority)
Original: δικαιοσύνη
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. In 1 Peter, the standard for which believers may suffer unjustly (3:14) and the state Christ’s sin-bearing death produces (2:24) — a status given, not a smug personal quality.
Election
Approved rendering: election
Transliteration: election
Doctrine: Effectual Calling
Rejected alternatives: an election (the near-total dominant contemporary sense: a political vote, e.g. ‘the presidential election’)
Original: ἐκλογή / ἐκλεκτός
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. Applied corporately to the whole scattered church (1:1) and to Christ himself as God’s ‘elect’ cornerstone (2:4, 2:6); the corporate application does not reduce the political-voting false-friend risk — readers will still default to a campaign/majority-vote frame absent explicit correction.
Messiah
Approved rendering: Messiah
Transliteration: Messiah
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
Rejected alternatives: a messiah complex (a pop-psychology pejorative term for grandiose self-importance)
Original: Χριστός
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. 1 Peter uses ‘Christ’ as Jesus’ near-constant title, especially within the letter’s recurring suffering-and-glory pattern (1:11, 4:13, 5:1).
Church
Approved rendering: church
Transliteration: church
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Original: ἐκκλησία (conceptual; realized in ‘household of God,’ ‘spiritual house,’ ‘holy priesthood’)
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. 1 Peter never uses the English-source word ‘church’ directly but builds the identical doctrine through ‘living stones,’ ‘spiritual house,’ ‘household of God,’ and ‘royal priesthood’ — the baseline’s cautions about post-Christian institutional-decline associations apply with full force to all of these images, not only to the word ‘church’ itself.
Providence
Approved rendering: providence
Transliteration: providence
Doctrine: Providence
Rejected alternatives: everything happens for a reason (a common contemporary secular folk-spiritual idiom expressing impersonal fate rather than a personal, purposive God), Providence (the proper noun — the capital city of Rhode Island, USA)
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged as the conceptual anchor for 1 Peter’s ‘foreknowledge’ language (1:2, 1:20) — see the new term ‘foreknowledge’ below, which is this curriculum’s primary lexical carrier of the providence doctrine in 1 Peter.
Born Again
Approved rendering: born again
Transliteration: anagennaō
Doctrine: The Living Hope of the Resurrection
Rejected alternatives: made new / given new birth (acceptable modern-register alternatives, but should not silently replace the traditional phrase given its embeddedness in English hymnody and Bible-translation tradition), born again (as a demographic/political-identity label — the explicitly rejected contemporary sense)
Original: ἀναγεννάω
Category: Living Hope of the Resurrection
1 Peter 1:3, 1:23. Heavily politically/culturally coded in American English as an evangelical political-and-cultural identity marker, entirely absent from Peter’s own use of the phrase; can also be misheard as endorsing a reincarnation-like repeatable-birth idea. Must restore the plain sense: a one-time, God-initiated, monergistic new birth, explicitly distinguishing this from its contemporary partisan coding before using the phrase in any lesson content.
Foreknowledge
Approved rendering: foreknowledge
Transliteration: prognōsis
Doctrine: Divine Election and Foreknowledge
Rejected alternatives: advance information / a prediction (the secular sense — mere passive foresight, as in medical ‘prognosis’ or insider-trading usage — with no active purposive agency)
Original: πρόγνωσις
Category: God
1 Peter 1:2, 1:20. God’s sovereign, active prior purpose in choosing a people and in appointing Christ for his redemptive role ‘before the foundation of the world.’ Directly continuous with the baseline’s providence/election Critical-risk cluster. Calvinist and Arminian readers construe its causal weight differently; state this curriculum’s reading and acknowledge the range, per the baseline’s denominational-transparency rule.
Holy Priesthood
Approved rendering: royal priesthood
Transliteration: hierateuma hagion / basileion hierateuma
Doctrine: The Church as a Holy and Royal Priesthood
Rejected alternatives: a kingdom of priests (an acceptable alternate rendering echoing Exodus 19:6, but should not replace ‘royal priesthood’ given the latter’s stability across major published English translations)
Original: ἱεράτευμα ἅγιον / βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα
Category: Church
1 Peter 2:5, 2:9. DENOMINATIONAL CONTEST: foundational Protestant Reformation proof-text for ‘the priesthood of all believers,’ while Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican traditions retain a distinct sacramentally-ordained priesthood and read this text as describing the laity’s spiritual priesthood alongside, not instead of, ordained priests. State this curriculum’s reading explicitly (every believer shares priestly, mediating access to God) and transparently acknowledge the other reading. Always pair ‘priesthood’ with a corporate modifier (‘the whole church, together, as a…’) to block a professional-clergy misreading.
Submission
Approved rendering: submit
Transliteration: hypotassō
Doctrine: Submission to Authority and Christlike Endurance
Rejected alternatives: obey / defer to (weaker synonyms that lose the term’s specific voluntary, self-ordering sense), surrender (imports connotations of defeat/coercion foreign to the term’s voluntary sense)
Original: ὑποτάσσω
Category: Household Ethics
1 Peter 2:13, 2:18, 3:1, 3:5, 3:22, 5:5. The single most contemporarily loaded term in the letter: contemporary English ‘submit/submission’ carries strong, largely negative associations wholly absent for ancient readers — BDSM ‘submissive’-partner terminology, domestic-abuse-awareness/coercive-control discourse, and broad cultural suspicion of hierarchical relationships generally. Its voluntary, Christ-patterned, non-coercive sense — and its firm limits (it never sanctions abuse) — must be stated plainly EVERY time it recurs across all four relational spheres (civic, household-slavery, marital, generational), not covered by a single upfront disclaimer. The complementarian/egalitarian denominational debate over its marital application (3:1) must be transparently acknowledged. Note also 3:22’s distinct, positive use describing hostile cosmic powers’ defeated submission to Christ’s triumphant reign — a different stakes-register from the ethical-submission passages, worth explicitly contrasting.
Servants Slaves
Approved rendering: servants
Transliteration: oiketai
Doctrine: Submission to Authority and Christlike Endurance
Rejected alternatives: household slaves (retained as an explanatory gloss alongside ‘servants,’ not a replacement — see notes), slaves (used carefully, only with immediate historical-distinction framing, never left unqualified)
Original: οἰκέται
Category: Household Ethics
1 Peter 2:18-20. MANDATORY HUMAN THEOLOGIAN REVIEW. This passage (with its Ephesians/Colossians parallels) was extensively used by pro-slavery apologists in 18th-19th century America to justify chattel slavery and to counsel enslaved Christians toward submission to slaveholders. Must explicitly distinguish the ancient Greco-Roman household-slavery context from trans-Atlantic chattel slavery at every occurrence, and must never present this passage as an unqualified endorsement of submission to any unjust power.
Bore Our Sins
Approved rendering: bore our sins
Transliteration: anapherō … xylon
Doctrine: Christ’s Substitutionary Suffering
Rejected alternatives: identified with our suffering / stood in solidarity with us (a popular but doctrinally thin contemporary reading that must be explicitly rejected as insufficient on its own)
Original: ἀναφέρω … ξύλον
Category: Christ’s Substitutionary Suffering
1 Peter 2:24, echoing Isaiah 53:4, 12. Christ’s vicarious, substitutionary sin-bearing on the cross (‘on the tree’). Contemporary readers may flatten this into vague ‘solidarity’ or ‘empathetic sharing’ language rather than the specific vicarious, substitutionary, sacrificial-offering sense the Greek verb and Isaiah 53 background require. Must be stated explicitly as substitution — he bore what was ours to bear — not mere solidarity, though Christ’s real solidarity in suffering may be noted as a pastoral both/and, not a replacement for substitution.
Wounds Healed
Approved rendering: by his wounds you have been healed
Transliteration: tō mōlōpi iathēte
Doctrine: Christ’s Substitutionary Suffering
Rejected alternatives: a guarantee of physical healing (the Word of Faith/prosperity-gospel reading — explicitly not this curriculum’s primary reading; may be named as a widely circulated but disputed popular teaching, never presented as equally valid without qualification)
Original: τῷ μώλωπι ἰάθητε
Category: Christ’s Substitutionary Suffering
1 Peter 2:24. MANDATORY HUMAN THEOLOGIAN REVIEW. Primarily spiritual healing/restoration from sin’s ruin — the surrounding context is entirely about sin, straying, and return to the Shepherd, not physical illness. This is a foundational Word of Faith/prosperity-gospel proof-text for guaranteed physical healing, a reading in real tension with this passage’s own context and with 1 Peter’s extensive treatment of unrelieved physical suffering elsewhere (4:12-19). State this curriculum’s reading explicitly and transparently note the range of views.
Spirits In Prison
Approved rendering: spirits in prison
Transliteration: pneumata en phylakē
Doctrine: Christ’s Proclamation to the Spirits
Rejected alternatives: the fallen angels (a single interpretive option — must not be presented as the sole or default reading), the disobedient dead of Noah’s generation (a second interpretive option — must not be presented as the sole or default reading), the descent into hell (a third interpretive option, tied to the Apostles’ Creed — must not be presented as the sole or default reading)
Original: πνεύματα ἐν φυλακῇ
Category: Christ’s Proclamation to the Spirits
1 Peter 3:19 (cf. 4:6). MANDATORY HUMAN THEOLOGIAN REVIEW. Very likely the single most exegetically and denominationally contested passage in the entire letter, disputed among (a) fallen angelic ‘Watchers’ (Genesis 6/1 Enoch background), (b) the disobedient human dead of Noah’s generation, and (c) Christ’s post-crucifixion ‘descent to the dead.’ Present the range of major interpretive options explicitly rather than silently adopting one, while stating what all major readings affirm: Christ’s triumphant, sovereign authority over every spiritual power (v.22).
Baptism Appeal
Approved rendering: baptism
Transliteration: baptisma … syneidēseōs agathēs eperōtēma eis theon
Doctrine: Baptism as an Appeal to God
Rejected alternatives: a pledge to God (an acceptable partial gloss for the ‘appeal’ clause, but must not be substituted for the fuller traditional phrase ‘an appeal to God for a good conscience,’ which carries the conscience-before-God dimension a shorter paraphrase would lose)
Original: βάπτισμα … συνειδήσεως ἀγαθῆς ἐπερώτημα εἰς θεόν
Category: Christ’s Proclamation to the Spirits
1 Peter 3:20-21. MANDATORY HUMAN THEOLOGIAN REVIEW — DENOMINATIONAL CONTEST. A major biblical proof-text in the baptismal-regeneration debate. Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, and much Anglican tradition read ‘baptism…saves you’ as baptism itself being an instrumental means of salvation; many Baptist/Reformed-Baptist/free-church traditions read Peter’s own immediately qualifying clause (‘not as a removal of dirt…but as an appeal to God’) as explicitly denying merely ritual efficacy. State this curriculum’s reading plainly and transparently acknowledge the other.
High Risk Terms
Faith
Approved rendering: faith
Transliteration: faith
Doctrine: Faith
Rejected alternatives: faith in humanity / a leap of faith (secularized idioms meaning generic optimism or an unsupported gamble, not trust in a specific person)
Original: πίστις
Category: Faith
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. Guards believers ‘through faith’ for salvation (1:5) and produces ‘tested genuineness’ under trial (1:7); the object (Christ) must remain explicit against contemporary English’s detachment of ‘faith’ from any specific object.
Holy
Approved rendering: holy
Transliteration: holy
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: holier-than-thou (negative idiom for sanctimonious superiority), holy cow / holy moly (mere exclamations, entirely secularized)
Original: ἅγιος
Category: Sanctification
Inherited from Romans package (risk tier reused at High per this curriculum’s doctrine registry). Grounded in the direct citation of Leviticus 11:44/19:2 at 1 Peter 1:16 (‘Be holy, for I am holy’); must be actively re-taught from that covenantal citation rather than assumed familiar.
Called
Approved rendering: called
Transliteration: called
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. Occurs across nearly every doctrinal cluster in 1 Peter: to holiness (1:15), to priestly identity (2:9), to follow Christ’s suffering pattern (2:21), to bless rather than retaliate (3:9), and to eternal glory (5:10).
Calling
Approved rendering: calling
Transliteration: calling
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Rejected alternatives: finding your calling (the dominant contemporary secular sense: career vocation or personal passion, discovered through self-reflection rather than received from God)
Original: κλῆσις / καλέω
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. This unusually high concentration of calling-language across distinct 1 Peter clusters means the agency-direction correction (God calls; the person does not self-select) must be reinforced repeatedly across the letter, not assumed retained after one statement.
Resurrection
Approved rendering: resurrection
Transliteration: resurrection
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ
Rejected alternatives: Easter (the commercialized cultural holiday sense — chocolate eggs, an Easter bunny — increasingly detached from the historical claim)
Original: ἀνάστασις
Category: Eschatology
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. In 1 Peter 1:3 the resurrection is the explicit historical ground of ‘living hope,’ and in 3:21 the reality baptism corresponds to; the causal chain ‘resurrection → living hope → inheritance’ must be kept visibly intact and affirmed as historical fact, not metaphor.
Gentiles
Approved rendering: Gentiles
Transliteration: Gentiles
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Rejected alternatives: non-believers (a common but incorrect modern gloss — Gentiles are non-Jews, not necessarily non-Christians), pagans / outsiders / the nations (preferred glosses for 1 Peter’s specific usage — see notes)
Original: ἔθνη
Category: Church
RISK ESCALATED from the Romans baseline’s Medium rating to High for this curriculum. In 1 Peter (2:12, 4:3), ethnē denotes unbelieving/pagan society generally, NOT the Jew/Gentile covenant category central to Romans 9-11. This is an intra-corpus false-friend risk unique to readers who have studied the Romans package: they will have ‘Gentiles’ firmly anchored to the covenantal Jew/Gentile unity argument and must be actively redirected. Recommend ‘pagans,’ ‘outsiders,’ or ‘the nations’ with an explicit clarifying note distinguishing this usage from Romans.
Glory
Approved rendering: glory
Transliteration: glory
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: glory days (nostalgic secular usage for past success), a glory hound (a pejorative term for self-seeking attention)
Original: δόξα
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. Extremely high frequency in 1 Peter (1:7-8, 1:11, 1:21, 1:24, 2:12, 4:11, 4:13-14, 5:1, 5:4, 5:10), functioning as a structural refrain tying suffering to future hope; each occurrence should be individually checked against the baseline’s nostalgic/self-seeking drift note rather than assumed covered by one blanket clarification.
Covenant
Approved rendering: covenant
Transliteration: covenant
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Rejected alternatives: a restrictive covenant (the dominant contemporary legal sense: a binding clause in a property deed, employment contract, or loan agreement)
Original: διαθήκη (implicit background)
Category: Covenant
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. Not a lexical occurrence in 1 Peter but essential unstated background to ‘sprinkling with his blood’ (1:2, echoing Exodus 24) and the Exodus 19 priesthood/nation language reapplied to the church (2:9); must be supplied explicitly, not assumed known.
Obedience Of Faith
Approved rendering: obedience of faith
Transliteration: obedience of faith
Doctrine: Obedience of Faith
Rejected alternatives: blind obedience / just following orders (negative idioms reflecting contemporary Western suspicion of obedience as servility or complicity)
Original: ὑπακοή
Category: Faith
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. 1 Peter 1:14’s ‘as obedient children’ and the letter’s larger submission instructions compound this risk; keep this term distinct from, though related to, the separate ‘submission’ cluster (see submission entry below), since 1 Peter uses hypakoē and hypotassō as related but not identical concepts.
Sin
Approved rendering: sin
Transliteration: sin
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability
Rejected alternatives: sinfully delicious / my one sin (trivialized marketing and joking usage, e.g. dessert advertising)
Original: ἁμαρτία
Category: Sin
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. Vicariously borne by Christ (2:24) and covered by patient church love (4:8).
Living Hope
Approved rendering: living hope
Transliteration: zōsa elpis
Doctrine: The Living Hope of the Resurrection
Rejected alternatives: hope (unmodified — too easily read as generic wishful optimism, ‘fingers crossed,’ detached from any guaranteed object), confident expectation (accurate but flat, loses the letter’s own fixed traditional phrase)
Original: ζῶσα ἐλπίς
Category: Living Hope of the Resurrection
1 Peter 1:3, the core passage’s central term. Contemporary English ‘hope’ is secularized into wishful thinking detached from any specific guaranteed object; ‘living’ must be actively shown to rescue the noun by anchoring it to the literally-alive risen Christ, not treated as decorative intensifier. Retain as a fixed compound term across all documents per the cross-document consistency principle for high-use core-passage language.
Various Trials
Approved rendering: various trials
Transliteration: poikiloi peirasmoi
Doctrine: Suffering for Righteousness’ Sake
Rejected alternatives: temptations (captures only one leg of the Greek’s genuine dual sense — testing vs. enticement to sin — and risks a moralizing rather than providential reading)
Original: ποικίλοι πειρασμοί
Category: Suffering
1 Peter 1:6, echoed as the ‘fiery trial’ of persecution at 4:12. The underlying Greek word is genuinely ambiguous between ‘trial’ (external testing) and ‘temptation’ (enticement to sin), and English ‘trial’ compounds the risk with its strong legal-courtroom connotation, suggesting a judicial ordeal rather than a providential refining process. Must specify ‘testing that proves genuineness’ (cf. 1:7) on first use.
Exiles Sojourners
Approved rendering: exiles
Transliteration: parepidēmos / paroikos / diaspora
Doctrine: Exile and Sojourner Identity
Rejected alternatives: resident aliens / immigrants (accurate to the underlying legal-status metaphor but risks direct importation of contemporary, highly partisan immigration-policy framing)
Original: παρεπίδημος / πάροικος / διασπορά
Category: Identity
1 Peter 1:1, 1:17, 2:11. Believers’ identity as temporary residents of this present world, addressed to ‘the elect exiles of the Dispersion’ and urged to conduct themselves as ‘sojourners and exiles.’ Contemporary political discourse around immigration is highly charged; must be explicitly framed as a spiritual status — temporary citizenship awaiting a heavenly homeland — not commentary on any contemporary national immigration policy.
Sprinkling Of Blood
Approved rendering: sprinkling with his blood
Transliteration: rhantismos haimatos
Doctrine: Ransom and Redemption
Rejected alternatives: cleansed by his sacrificial death (a paraphrase that loses the specific Exodus 24 covenant-ratification ceremony image the traditional phrase preserves)
Original: ῥαντισμὸς αἵματος
Category: Covenant
1 Peter 1:2. New-covenant ratification and cleansing through Christ’s blood, echoing the Sinai covenant ceremony (Exodus 24). Requires Old Testament covenant-ratification background almost entirely absent for contemporary readers; absent that background, ‘blood sprinkling’ may read as horror-genre-coded rather than covenantal. Retain the traditional phrase with the Exodus 24 background explicitly supplied.
Ransomed
Approved rendering: ransomed
Transliteration: lytroō
Doctrine: Ransom and Redemption
Rejected alternatives: bought back / purchased (acceptable modern-register alternatives, but ‘ransomed’ should be retained as the primary term given its strong English Bible-translation-tradition standing)
Original: λυτρόω
Category: Salvation
1 Peter 1:18. Christ’s substitutionary purchase, rescuing believers from their former, futile inherited way of life. Contemporary ‘ransom’ is dominated by kidnapping/hostage-crisis news associations, risking a picture of God as captor demanding payment; needs explicit reframing distinguishing this from a criminal-ransom transaction — God is the gracious purchaser, not a captor.
Lamb Without Blemish
Approved rendering: a lamb without blemish or spot
Transliteration: amnos amōmos kai aspilos
Doctrine: Ransom and Redemption
Rejected alternatives: a perfect sacrifice (a paraphrase that loses the deliberate Passover/Isaiah 53 lamb imagery)
Original: ἀμνὸς ἄμωμος καὶ ἄσπιλος
Category: Christology
1 Peter 1:19. Christ as the perfect, sin-bearing sacrificial substitute. Requires Old Testament Passover/sacrificial background (Exodus 12, Isaiah 53) most contemporary readers lack; contemporary ‘lamb’ imagery (Easter marketing, cute-animal children’s imagery) risks trivializing a specific sacrificial-atonement claim into gentle springtime décor. Supply the OT background explicitly.
Holy Nation
Approved rendering: holy nation
Transliteration: ethnos hagion
Doctrine: The Church as a Holy and Royal Priesthood
Rejected alternatives: a holy people / a set-apart people (acceptable alternate glosses, useful specifically to defuse the political-nationalism risk noted below)
Original: ἔθνος ἅγιον
Category: Church
1 Peter 2:9, echoing Exodus 19:6. The church as a transnational, spiritual people set apart for God, not a political nation-state. Contemporary American discourse has a live, contested political label — ‘Christian nationalism’ — that this phrase risks being wrongly assimilated to; must clarify explicitly that this is the church as a spiritual, transnational people, not endorsement of any political nation-building program.
Shepherd Overseer
Approved rendering: Shepherd and Overseer
Transliteration: poimēn kai episkopos
Doctrine: Christ’s Substitutionary Suffering
Rejected alternatives: Shepherd and Guardian (an acceptable alternate gloss for ‘Overseer’)
Original: ποιμήν καὶ ἐπίσκοπος
Category: Christology
1 Peter 2:25, echoed as ‘chief Shepherd’ at 5:4. Christ himself as the ultimate Shepherd and Overseer of souls. Episkopos’s later technical development into ‘bishop’ makes this an unavoidable flashpoint for church-polity debate (episcopal vs. presbyterian vs. congregational); clarify this describes Christ’s own headship here, distinct from the human-elder-office question addressed in chapter 5.
Gentle Quiet Spirit
Approved rendering: a gentle and quiet spirit
Transliteration: prau kai hēsychion pneuma
Doctrine: Marital Relationships and Mutual Honor
Rejected alternatives: a submissive personality (an incorrect gloss that collapses this inner-disposition term into the separate, distinct ‘submit’ term)
Original: πραΰ καὶ ἡσύχιον πνεῦμα
Category: Household Ethics
1 Peter 3:4, called ‘precious in God’s sight’ — a positive, active virtue, not a command to literal silence. Contemporary ‘quiet’/‘a quiet woman’ carries strongly negative connotations in current gender-role discourse (silencing, suppression of voice, lack of agency); needs explicit clarification distinguishing inner tranquility and trust in God from externally imposed silencing.
Weaker Vessel
Approved rendering: weaker vessel
Transliteration: hōs asthenesterō skeuei
Doctrine: Marital Relationships and Mutual Honor
Rejected alternatives: weaker partner (an established alternate rendering found in some published English Bible translations; present alongside, not instead of, ‘weaker vessel’), inferior / lesser (explicitly rejected — the phrase most likely refers to relative physical strength or social vulnerability, not intellectual, moral, or spiritual inferiority)
Original: ὡς ἀσθενεστέρῳ σκεύει
Category: Household Ethics
1 Peter 3:7, paired immediately with ‘co-heirs of the grace of life’ — equal standing before God. Contemporary readers, sensitized by feminist critique, often hear this as a demeaning, essentializing claim about women’s inferior worth or capability generally; must be actively reframed, keeping the adjoining ‘co-heirs’ equal-standing clause visibly attached.
Suffer As Christian
Approved rendering: suffer as a Christian
Transliteration: paschei hōs Christianos
Doctrine: Suffering for the Name of Christ
Rejected alternatives: suffer for your beliefs (too generic — loses the specific, costly, name-bearing social reproach the term intends)
Original: πάσχει ὡς Χριστιανός
Category: Suffering
1 Peter 4:16. Real, costly social identity borne for the name of Christ, not a broad cultural/political demographic label. Contemporary ‘Christian’ has become an extremely broad, often politically or culturally coded self-identifier (voting blocs, ‘Christian nationalism,’ culture-war positions, celebrity branding), largely disconnected from the specific, costly, reproach-bearing identity Peter describes — note the word itself originated as a somewhat mocking outsider label (Acts 11:26, 26:28).
Fiery Trial
Approved rendering: fiery trial
Transliteration: pyrōsis
Doctrine: Suffering for Righteousness’ Sake
Rejected alternatives: a fiery trial by media/public scrutiny (an unrelated modern idiom that must not be allowed to displace the real historical severity of the persecution in view)
Original: πύρωσις
Category: Suffering
1 Peter 4:12. Intense persecution understood as a purifying, refining process, deliberately echoing 1:7’s gold-refining image. Contemporary readers may take this merely figuratively (via the unrelated modern idiom) without registering either the real historical severity of Roman-era persecution or the deliberate authorial cross-reference back to 1:7; consistency of rendering across both passages is required.
Elders
Approved rendering: elders
Transliteration: presbyteroi
Doctrine: Elders and Humility
Rejected alternatives: pastors / church leaders (acceptable functional glosses, but should not replace ‘elders’ given the term’s direct textual and historical continuity)
Original: πρεσβύτεροι
Category: Eldership
1 Peter 5:1, 5:5. Recognized local church leaders exercising pastoral oversight. The word’s later technical development creates competing associations across episcopal, presbyterian, congregational, and non-denominational polities, all claiming continuity with this term differently, compounded by generic secular usage (‘community elder’) and other traditions’ technical usage (Mormon ‘Elder,’ Jehovah’s Witness ‘elders’). Clarify the specific pastoral-oversight sense here without adjudicating any particular tradition’s polity structure.
Adversary Devil
Approved rendering: adversary the devil
Transliteration: ho antidikos … ho diabolos
Doctrine: Spiritual Warfare and the Devil
Rejected alternatives: devil’s advocate / speak of the devil (diluted secular idiom — explicitly rejected as it drains genuine seriousness from a real, personal, hostile spiritual agent)
Original: ὁ ἀντίδικος … ὁ διάβολος
Category: Suffering
1 Peter 5:8. A real, personal, hostile spiritual agent requiring sober watchfulness, not elaborate ritual. Contemporary secularized usage survives mainly in diluted idiom or Halloween-costume entertainment imagery; conversely, some charismatic/deliverance-ministry subcultures over-literalize demonic activity beyond this text’s own restrained warning to ‘be watchful.’ State the real, personal, hostile reality plainly without overreaching the text’s own restraint.
Medium Risk Terms
Father
Approved rendering: Father
Transliteration: Father
Doctrine: God
Original: πατήρ
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. 1 Peter 1:17 pairs filial intimacy (‘Father’) with impartial judgment (‘who judges each one’s deeds impartially’); both sides should be held together, not softened toward either warmth alone or severity alone.
Gospel
Approved rendering: gospel
Transliteration: gospel
Doctrine: Gospel
Rejected alternatives: good news (acceptable as an explanatory gloss, but should not fully replace ‘gospel’ since it loses the term’s proclamatory weight)
Original: εὐαγγέλιον
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. 1 Peter 4:6’s ‘the gospel was preached even to those who are dead’ intersects the Critical ‘spirits in prison’ interpretive cluster (3:19) and should be flagged for the same mandatory theologian review whenever it recurs, not treated as an ordinary occurrence of this otherwise Medium-risk term.
Sanctification
Approved rendering: sanctification
Transliteration: sanctification
Doctrine: Sanctification
Original: ἁγιασμός
Category: Sanctification
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. 1 Peter 1:2: the Spirit’s work setting believers apart for obedience, part of the letter’s opening Trinitarian formula (foreknowledge/sanctification/sprinkling with blood).
Apostle
Approved rendering: apostle
Transliteration: apostle
Doctrine: Apostleship
Original: ἀπόστολος
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. Peter’s own self-designation (1:1), a foundational, non-repeatable New Testament office.
Peace
Approved rendering: peace
Transliteration: peace
Doctrine: Peace with God
Rejected alternatives: world peace / inner peace (the dominant secular senses: political non-conflict or psychological calm)
Original: εἰρήνη
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. Appears in 1 Peter’s closing benediction (5:14) and the instruction to ‘seek peace and pursue it’ (3:11, quoting Psalm 34).
Spiritual Gifts
Approved rendering: spiritual gifts
Transliteration: spiritual gifts
Doctrine: Spiritual Gifts
Rejected alternatives: gifted (the dominant secular sense: innate talent or high academic ability, as in ‘the gifted program’)
Original: χάρισμα
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. 1 Peter 4:10 pairs this term with ‘stewards’ (see stewards_of_grace below) — gifts held in trust for others’ benefit, not personal possession or innate aptitude.
Prophet
Approved rendering: prophet
Transliteration: prophet
Doctrine: Inspiration of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: a tech prophet / prophet of doom (secular usage for a confident forecaster or a pessimistic commentator)
Original: προφῆται
Category: Covenant
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. 1 Peter 1:10-11’s claim that ‘the Spirit of Christ’ himself indwelt and moved the Old Testament prophets additionally implies Christ’s personal pre-existence, a doctrinally weighty claim worth stating plainly alongside the term’s ordinary risk notes.
Prophecy
Approved rendering: prophecy
Transliteration: prophecy
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
Rejected alternatives: a self-fulfilling prophecy (a common secular psychological/sociological idiom unrelated to divine revelation)
Original: προφητεία
Category: Covenant
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. 1 Peter 1:12: God-inspired declaration of what was to come, now announced through gospel preachers ‘by the Holy Spirit.‘
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: kingdom of God
Transliteration: kingdom of God
Doctrine: Kingdom Mission
Rejected alternatives: a fantasy kingdom (contemporary media associations from fantasy fiction, film, and games — Tolkien-esque realms, ‘Game of Thrones’-style politics)
Original: βασίλειον (root of ‘royal’)
Category: Kingdom
Inherited from Romans package, applied unchanged. Echoed in 1 Peter 2:9’s ‘royal priesthood’ (‘royal’ shares the basileia root); tie explicitly to God’s real, historical, ongoing reign, not a fictional-genre kingdom.
Inheritance
Approved rendering: inheritance
Transliteration: klēronomia
Doctrine: The Living Hope of the Resurrection
Rejected alternatives: estate / legacy (dominant contemporary financial-legal senses that flatten the relational, familial dimension)
Original: κληρονομία
Category: Living Hope of the Resurrection
1 Peter 1:4: the believer’s guaranteed future possession, kept in heaven, described as imperishable, unstained, and unfading. Contemporary secular usage (inheritance tax, a deceased relative’s estate) reduces the word to a cold financial-legal transaction; tie explicitly back to the relational, familial framework (cf. the baseline Romans ‘adoption’ doctrine’s full-inheritance-rights dimension).
Tested Genuineness
Approved rendering: tested genuineness
Transliteration: dokimion
Doctrine: Suffering for Righteousness’ Sake
Rejected alternatives: proof / test result (flattens the specific metallurgical refining image into a generic pass/fail school-exam sense)
Original: δοκίμιον
Category: Suffering
1 Peter 1:7: the proven, refined authenticity of faith, more precious than gold refined by fire. Contemporary ‘testing’ is dominated by academic/standardized-exam associations; retain the refining-fire and gold imagery explicitly rather than relying on ‘tested’ alone.
Pure Spiritual Milk
Approved rendering: pure spiritual milk
Transliteration: to logikon adolon gala
Doctrine: Holiness in Conduct
Rejected alternatives: the pure milk of the word (an equally defensible alternate rendering — see notes; present both rather than silently choosing one)
Original: τὸ λογικὸν ἄδολον γάλα
Category: Sanctification
1 Peter 2:2. AMBIGUITY FLAG: the underlying Greek adjective (logikon) can mean either ‘rational/reasonable’ or ‘belonging to the word (logos),’ and published English Bible translations genuinely diverge; note the range and its doctrinal implication (growth through Scripture specifically vs. more generic ‘spiritual’ nourishment) rather than silently choosing one, per the baseline’s ambiguity-handling rule.
Living Stone
Approved rendering: living stone
Transliteration: lithos zōn / akrogōniaios
Doctrine: The Church as a Holy and Royal Priesthood
Rejected alternatives: cornerstone (used as a paired, not competing, rendering — see notes)
Original: λίθος ζῶν / ἀκρογωνιαῖος
Category: Church
1 Peter 2:4-8. Christ as the paradoxical living, chosen cornerstone, rejected by men but precious to God, on whom believers are built as living stones (Isaiah 28:16, Psalm 118:22). Requires the Old Testament quarry/temple-building background to be unpacked explicitly; without it, ‘living stone’ reads as merely decorative poetic language.
Peoples Possession
Approved rendering: a people for his own possession
Transliteration: laos eis peripoiēsin
Doctrine: The Church as a Holy and Royal Priesthood
Rejected alternatives: God’s treasured possession (preferred softer gloss to accompany the traditional phrase — see notes)
Original: λαὸς εἰς περιποίησιν
Category: Church
1 Peter 2:9, echoing Exodus 19:5. Believers as God’s own treasured, beloved people. ‘Possession’ carries contemporary property/ownership overtones that could sound transactional or, given the letter’s own nearby household-slavery discussion (2:18-20), uncomfortably close to ownership-of-persons language; frame relationally (treasured, beloved) with explicit sensitivity to that proximity.
Endure
Approved rendering: endure
Transliteration: hypomenō
Doctrine: Submission to Authority and Christlike Endurance
Rejected alternatives: put up with / tolerate (weaker synonyms lacking the term’s patient, Christ-modeled dimension)
Original: ὑπομένω
Category: Suffering
1 Peter 2:20. Christlike patient endurance of unjust suffering. Contemporary ‘endurance’ is mostly athletic (endurance training, marathons) — a mild positive framing asset — but risks reducing spiritual endurance to a self-help achievement mindset detached from grace-dependence; keep explicitly tied to Christ’s own pattern (2:21) and Spirit-enablement.
Example Pattern
Approved rendering: example
Transliteration: hypogrammon
Doctrine: Christ’s Substitutionary Suffering
Rejected alternatives: role model (a weak, generic contemporary term that loses the vivid ancient tracing-copy image entirely)
Original: ὑπογραμμός
Category: Suffering
1 Peter 2:21. Christ’s suffering as the literal pattern believers are to trace in their own unjust suffering — the underlying Greek image is a writing-copy literally traced over, as children traced letters. Contemporary ‘example’ is a weak, generic word; supply the tracing-copy image explicitly to restore the doctrine’s force.
Apologia Defense
Approved rendering: give an answer
Transliteration: apologia
Doctrine: Suffering for Righteousness’ Sake
Rejected alternatives: apology (the false-friend everyday English sense — expressing regret — nearly the opposite of the intended meaning; explicitly rejected)
Original: ἀπολογία
Category: Suffering
1 Peter 3:15. A reasoned defense of Christian hope, offered with gentleness and respect — the root of ‘apologetics.’ FALSE FRIEND: modern English ‘apology/apologize’ overwhelmingly means expressing regret; readers must be told this is nearly the opposite sense on every occurrence.
Good Conscience
Approved rendering: good conscience
Transliteration: syneidēsis agathē
Doctrine: Suffering for Righteousness’ Sake
Rejected alternatives: a clear moral compass (a secularized gloss that loses the specifically before-God dimension)
Original: συνείδησις ἀγαθή
Category: Suffering
1 Peter 2:19, 3:16, 3:21. Inwardly clear moral standing before God amid unjust external accusation. Fairly stable but heavily secularized in contemporary usage (personal ethical comfort without necessarily any reference to God); tie explicitly to standing before God, not merely a subjective feeling of ethical comfort.
Household Of God
Approved rendering: household of God
Transliteration: oikos tou theou
Doctrine: The Church as a Holy and Royal Priesthood
Rejected alternatives: God’s family (an acceptable warm gloss, though should not replace the structural ‘household’ image, which ties to 2:5’s ‘spiritual house’)
Original: οἶκος τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Church
1 Peter 4:17, echoing 2:5’s ‘spiritual house.’ The church, undergoing God’s own refining judgment first. Carries the full weight of the baseline ‘church’ doctrine’s Critical post-Christian institutional-decline risk even though the English word ‘church’ itself never appears in 1 Peter’s text.
Stewards Of Grace
Approved rendering: stewards of God’s grace
Transliteration: oikonomoi … poikilēs charitos theou
Doctrine: Elders and Humility
Rejected alternatives: managers of God’s resources (too financial/administrative — flattens the personal-gifting dimension of charisma)
Original: οἰκονόμοι … ποικίλης χάριτος θεοῦ
Category: Church
1 Peter 4:10. Spiritual gifts held in trust for others’ benefit, not personal possession. Contemporary ‘steward/stewardship’ is dominated by financial/estate-planning usage; must clarify this includes gifts, not only money, held in trust for others.
Love Covers Sins
Approved rendering: love covers a multitude of sins
Transliteration: agapē kalyptei plēthos hamartiōn
Doctrine: Mutual Love and Church Community
Rejected alternatives: love is blind (the secular romantic idiom — explicitly rejected, as it displaces the proverb’s point about deliberate, forgiving church-community love with a comment about romantic self-delusion)
Original: ἀγάπη καλύπτει πλῆθος ἁμαρτιῶν
Category: Sanctification
1 Peter 4:8, quoting Proverbs 10:12. Patient, forgiving love that overlooks others’ faults within the church community. The secular idiom risk above must be explicitly distinguished at every occurrence.
Crown Of Glory
Approved rendering: crown of glory
Transliteration: ho tēs doxēs stephanos
Doctrine: Elders and Humility
Rejected alternatives: a royal crown / a king’s crown (explicitly rejected — the image is an athletic victor’s wreath, not a monarch’s diadem)
Original: ὁ τῆς δόξης στέφανος
Category: Eldership
1 Peter 5:4. The eschatological reward for faithful pastoral ministry, an athletic victor’s wreath, not a royal diadem or beauty-pageant crown. Gloss explicitly as ‘like a winner’s wreath, not a king’s crown.‘
Clothe With Humility
Approved rendering: clothe yourselves with humility
Transliteration: tēn tapeinophrosynēn enkombōsasthe
Doctrine: Elders and Humility
Rejected alternatives: be humble (a flat imperative that loses the vivid deliberate clothing-metaphor image entirely)
Original: τὴν ταπεινοφροσύνην ἐγκομβώσασθε
Category: Eldership
1 Peter 5:5, possibly echoing Christ’s towel in John 13. Deliberately ‘putting on’ a servant’s posture toward one another. The vivid apron/servant-garment image needs unpacking; contemporary self-branding culture can code ‘humility’ negatively as low self-worth rather than a deliberately chosen posture of active service and strength.
Kiss Of Love
Approved rendering: kiss of love
Transliteration: philēma agapēs
Doctrine: Mutual Love and Church Community
Rejected alternatives: a warm greeting (a paraphrase that loses the historically specific ancient practice — better to retain and explain than to modernize away)
Original: φίλημα ἀγάπης
Category: Church
1 Peter 5:14. A warm, family-affectionate greeting among believers, an ancient Mediterranean greeting custom, not a romantic gesture. Requires the ancient greeting-custom context briefly supplied to avoid an odd or uncomfortable contemporary misreading.
Mercy
Approved rendering: mercy
Transliteration: eleos
Doctrine: The Living Hope of the Resurrection
Rejected alternatives: mercy killing / at the mercy of (secular idioms reframing mercy as arbitrary power exercised over a victim rather than a compassionate, relational disposition)
1 Peter 1:3, 2:10. God’s compassionate initiative, the ground of the new birth. Stable religiously, but secular idioms can reframe mercy as arbitrary power exercised over a victim rather than a compassionate, relational disposition of God’s character; keep the initiative and compassion explicit.
Conduct
Approved rendering: conduct
Transliteration: anastrophē
Doctrine: Holiness in Conduct
Rejected alternatives: behavior / lifestyle (acceptable modern-register glosses, though ‘conduct’ should be retained as this curriculum’s primary rendering given its recurrence across the letter)
1 Peter 1:15, 1:18, 2:12, 3:1-2, 3:16 — the letter’s recurring word for the whole shape of a transformed life. Contemporary ‘conduct’ sounds formal/legalistic (a workplace ‘code of conduct’), risking a flattening of holistic inner transformation into mere external rule-compliance; tie explicitly to inward change, not a checklist.
Reverent Fear
Approved rendering: fear
Transliteration: phobos
Doctrine: Holiness in Conduct
Rejected alternatives: anxiety / dread (explicitly rejected as the dominant contemporary sense — this is reverent awe, not psychological distress)
1 Peter 1:17, 2:17, 3:2, 3:14-15. Reverent awe before God as impartial Judge, not psychological anxiety. Contemporary English ‘fear’ skews toward anxiety/dread, and mental-health-conscious culture is often wary of fear-based religious language; must distinguish reverent awe from clinical anxiety explicitly.
Word Of God
Approved rendering: word of God
Transliteration: logos theou / rhēma kyriou
Doctrine: Inspiration of Scripture and Fulfillment of Prophecy
Rejected alternatives: the Bible / Scripture (the physical-book sense — explicitly not the primary point here, which is living, active, permanently enduring divine speech, contrasted with withering grass, quoting Isaiah 40)
1 Peter 1:23-25. Contemporary readers may equate ‘the word of God’ with the physical book alone, losing the point that this is living, active, permanently enduring divine speech, not merely a printed text.
Brotherly Love
Approved rendering: brotherly love
Transliteration: philadelphia
Doctrine: Mutual Love and Church Community
Rejected alternatives: family affection / sibling love (acceptable gender-inclusive-conscious glosses — ‘brotherly’ here is inclusive of the whole church family, not males only)
1 Peter 1:22, 3:8. Genuine, family-level affection within the church, inclusive of the whole church family. Sounds quaint/archaic to contemporary ears, or in gender-inclusive-conscious usage may sound under-inclusive despite intending ‘siblings,’ not ‘males only’; a brief inclusive clarifying note helps.
Blessed
Approved rendering: blessed
Transliteration: eulogētos
Doctrine: The Living Hope of the Resurrection
Rejected alternatives: #blessed (the secular social-media humility-flex sense for good fortune — explicitly rejected as trivializing the word into casual self-congratulation rather than worship directed at God)
1 Peter 1:3, opening the core passage’s doxological formula (‘Blessed be the God and Father…’). Stable devotional usage, but secular social-media ‘#blessed’ usage risks trivializing the word into casual self-congratulation; keep the worship-directed-at-God sense explicit.
Outcome End
Approved rendering: outcome
Transliteration: telos
Doctrine: Final Judgment and Christ’s Return
Rejected alternatives: the end (a flat chronological sense that loses the teleological, purposeful-goal dimension the Greek intends)
1 Peter 1:9 (‘the outcome of your faith’) and 4:7 (‘the end of all things’). Contemporary ‘outcome/end’ often carries a merely sequential sense (whatever happens last) rather than a teleological goal; must clarify this is faith’s intended fulfillment and history’s purposeful culmination in Christ, not simply a chronological stopping point. Consistency of rendering required across both occurrences.
Honor
Approved rendering: honor
Transliteration: timē
Doctrine: Submission to Authority and Christlike Endurance
Rejected alternatives: an honor killing (a negative contemporary news association — explicitly rejected; requires a positive-sense clarification here)
1 Peter 2:17 (‘honor everyone… honor the emperor’), 1:7, 3:7. Contemporary ‘honor’ carries negative news associations that require an explicit positive-sense clarification here: commendation, worth bestowed, respect given — distinct from the reverence owed to God alone (contrasted with ‘fear God’ in the same verse).
Referenced passages