Core Glossary
Core Glossary — 2 Peter
This glossary consolidates every load-bearing theological term identified in 07_semantic_analysis.md, drawn from every chapter of 2 Peter (1–3), with destination-language (English) rendering risk assessed on the same four-part framework used throughout this curriculum: (1) False-Friend Drift (a dominant secular/legal meaning silently displaces the biblical sense), (2) Denominational Contest (English-speaking Christian traditions disagree), (3) Obsolescence/Obscurity (a rare word requiring definition but unlikely to be actively misread), and (4) Cultural-Collision Drift (a specific contemporary movement, genre, or controversy reshapes the term’s felt meaning) — this fourth category is newly formalized for this curriculum, extending the baseline Romans package’s three-part framework.
Terms marked [BASELINE REUSE] carry forward the EXACT recorded rendering and risk tier from the baseline Romans translation_memory.json / bible_term_registry.json; only new contextual notes specific to 2 Peter are added. Terms marked [NEW] are introduced fresh by this curriculum and require new translation-memory entries.
| Term (English rendering) | Original / Transliteration | Ch. | Risk Tier | Risk Type(s) | Baseline Status | Key Passages | Rendering / Clarification Requirement |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lord | κύριος / kyrios | 1,2,3 | Critical | Post-Christian erosion | [BASELINE REUSE] | 1:2,8,11,14,16; 2:1,9,11,20; 3:2,8-10,15,18 | Reuse baseline lord. Restore total, exclusive, personal allegiance; note this letter’s unusually high concentration of “Lord” language. |
| God | θεός / theos | 1,2,3 | Critical | Post-Christian erosion | [BASELINE REUSE] | 1:1-2,17,21; 2:4; 3:5,12 | Reuse baseline god. |
| Jesus / Christ | Ἰησοῦς Χριστός / Iēsous Christos | 1,2,3 | Critical | Post-Christian erosion | [BASELINE REUSE] | throughout | Reuse baseline jesus. |
| Father | πατήρ / patēr | 1 | High | Denominational/pastoral | [BASELINE REUSE] | 1:17 | Reuse baseline father. |
| Holy Spirit | πνεῦμα ἅγιον / pneuma hagion | 1 | Critical/Medium | Cultural-collision (impersonal “energy” substitutes) | [BASELINE REUSE] | 1:21 | Reuse baseline holy_spirit. This is the clearest NT verse naming the Spirit as active Author of Scripture — personal agency must be stressed. |
| faith | πίστις / pistis | 1 | High | False-friend drift | [BASELINE REUSE] | 1:1,5 | Reuse baseline faith. New element: “equally precious” (isotimos) faith shared between apostles and later believers. |
| righteousness | δικαιοσύνη / dikaiosynē | 1,2,3 | Critical/High | False-friend + post-Christian erosion | [BASELINE REUSE] | 1:1; 2:5,7,8,21; 3:13 | Reuse baseline righteousness. |
| salvation | σωτηρία / sōtēria | 3 | Critical | Denominational contest | [BASELINE REUSE] | 3:15 | Reuse baseline salvation. Directly tied here to God’s makrothymia (patience) — link explicitly. |
| apostle | ἀπόστολος / apostolos | 1 | Medium | Obsolescence | [BASELINE REUSE] | 1:1 | Reuse baseline apostle. |
| called / calling | κλητός, κλῆσις / klētos, klēsis | 1 | High | Cultural-collision (self-actualization “calling”) | [BASELINE REUSE] | 1:10 | Reuse baseline called/calling. Paired directly with election — see below. |
| election | ἐκλογή / eklogē | 1 | Critical | False-friend drift (political voting) | [BASELINE REUSE] | 1:10 | Reuse baseline election. “Make your calling and election sure” = confirm, not create/earn, a prior sovereign act. |
| holy | ἅγιος / hagios | 1,2,3 | Medium/High | Post-Christian erosion | [BASELINE REUSE] | 1:18,21; 2:21; 3:11 | Reuse baseline holy. Applied to a mountain (1:18), the prophets (1:21), and a commandment (2:21) — holiness conferred by God’s action/word, not intrinsic. |
| grace | χάρις / charis | 1,3 | Critical | False-friend + denominational contest | [BASELINE REUSE] | 1:2; 3:18 | Reuse baseline grace. 3:18 is this curriculum’s own consistency-anchor verse (parallel to Romans 1:16-17). |
| peace | εἰρήνη / eirēnē | 1 | Medium | False-friend drift (political/therapeutic) | [BASELINE REUSE] | 1:2 | Reuse baseline peace. |
| glory | δόξα / doxa | 1,3 | Medium | False-friend drift | [BASELINE REUSE] | 1:3,17; 3:18 | Reuse baseline glory. New unique title “the Majestic Glory” (1:17) requires explicit explanation as a divine title. |
| prophecy / prophet | προφητεία, προφήτης / prophēteia, prophētēs | 1,2,3 | Low/Medium | False-friend drift (“self-fulfilling prophecy”) | [BASELINE REUSE] | 1:19-21; 2:1,16; 3:2 | Reuse baseline prophecy/prophet. |
| kingdom of God (eternal kingdom) | αἰώνιος βασιλεία / aiōnios basileia | 1 | Medium | Cultural-collision (fantasy-genre) | [BASELINE REUSE] | 1:11 | Reuse baseline kingdom_of_god; stress permanence (“eternal”) against fantasy-genre and merely-political associations. |
| sin | ἁμαρτία / hamartia | 2 | High | Post-Christian erosion, trivialization | [BASELINE REUSE] | 2:4,14 | Reuse baseline sin. |
| fellowship (root shared in koinōnos) | κοινωνός / koinōnos | 1 | Medium | False-friend drift (academic “fellowship”) | [BASELINE REUSE — related] | 1:4 | Root shared with baseline fellowship; here “partakers/sharers” of the divine nature — active participation, not passive membership. |
| servant / slave | δοῦλος / doulos | 1 | High | Denominational/scholarly contest | [NEW] | 1:1 | State plainly whether curriculum uses “servant” or “slave” and why; both carry real gains and losses in contemporary English. |
| knowledge (full/relational) | ἐπίγνωσις / epignōsis | 1 | High | False-friend drift (propositional-only “knowledge”) | [NEW] | 1:2,3,8; 2:20 | Distinguish from gnōsis below; stress relational, saving knowledge of a Person, not mere information. |
| knowledge (general/virtue) | γνῶσις / gnōsis | 1,3 | Medium | False-friend drift | [NEW] | 1:5-6; 3:18 | Distinguish from epignōsis above; a cultivated Christian understanding, part of the virtue chain. |
| divine power | θεία δύναμις / theia dynamis | 1 | Medium | False-friend drift (negative “power” discourse) | [NEW] (relates to baseline power_of_god) | 1:3 | God’s prior enabling power, not human self-improvement. |
| virtue | ἀρετή / aretē | 1 | High | Cultural-collision (“virtue signaling”) | [NEW] | 1:3,5 | Gloss as “moral excellence”/“goodness of character” to counter ironic/cynical contemporary connotation. |
| promise(s) | ἐπάγγελμα, ἐπαγγελία / epangelma, epangelia | 1,3 | Low | Minor softening | [NEW] | 1:4; 3:4,9,13 | Solemn, binding divine pledge, not a casual assurance. |
| partakers of the divine nature | θεῖας φύσεως κοινωνοί / theias physeōs koinōnoi | 1 | High | Denominational contest + cultural-collision (New Age “inner divinity”) | [NEW] | 1:4 | State this is a given, not inherent, participation received through escaping corruption — not a universal human birthright; note Orthodox theosis reading vs. more conservative Western readings. |
| corruption | φθορά / phthora | 1,2 | Medium | False-friend drift (political/financial “corruption”) | [NEW] | 1:4; 2:12,19 | Broaden beyond institutional misconduct to pervasive moral decay. |
| lust / (corrupt) desire | ἐπιθυμία / epithymia | 1,2,3 | High | False-friend drift (narrowed to sexual sense) | [NEW] | 1:4; 2:10,18; 3:3 | Broader than sexual desire alone — covers greed and self-indulgence generally; prefer “desires”/“corrupt desires” where precision matters. |
| self-control | ἐγκράτεια / egkrateia | 1 | Medium | Cultural-collision (secular willpower/productivity culture) | [NEW] | 1:6 | Spirit-enabled, not self-generated willpower achievement. |
| perseverance | ὑπομονή / hypomonē | 1 | Low/Medium | Denominational-adjacent (distinct from systematic “perseverance of the saints”) | [NEW] | 1:6 | Endurance under pressure; do not conflate with the distinct systematic-theology doctrine of the same name. |
| godliness | εὐσέβεια / eusebeia | 1,2,3 | Medium | Obsolescence | [NEW] | 1:3,6,7; 2:9; 3:11 | Rare/formal word; gloss as practical, worshipful reverence for God. |
| brotherly affection | φιλαδελφία / philadelphia | 1 | Low | Minor distraction (US city name) | [NEW] | 1:7 | Straightforward; note city-name distraction only if it arises. |
| love | ἀγάπη / agapē | 1 | Medium | False-friend drift (semantic overuse/dilution) | [NEW] | 1:7 | Distinguish willed, costly, self-giving love from romantic/casual senses of English “love.” |
| Savior | σωτήρ / sōtēr | 1,2,3 | Medium | Trivialization (sports/pop-culture “savior”) | [NEW] (relates to baseline salvation) | 1:1,11; 2:20; 3:2,18 | Restore the ancient imperial-rival exclusivity of the title against trivializing secular usage. |
| tent/tabernacle (body) | σκήνωμα / skēnōma | 1 | Low/Medium | Obsolescence + possible confusion with OT sanctuary | [NEW] | 1:13-14 | Body as temporary dwelling; disambiguate from the OT wilderness Tabernacle. |
| departure (death) | ἔξοδος / exodos | 1 | Low | Minor obscurity | [NEW] | 1:15 | Euphemism for death; OT Exodus echo is a bonus teaching point. |
| cleverly devised myths | σεσοφισμένοι μῦθοι / sesophismenoi mythoi | 1 | High | Cultural-collision (“Bible as myth” academic/popular framing) | [NEW] | 1:16 | Explicitly rebuts the very “myth” charge still made against Christianity today. |
| coming (Second Coming) | παρουσία / parousia | 1,3 | Critical | Cultural-collision (pop-apocalyptic date-setting scandals) + generic vagueness | [NEW] | 1:16; 3:4,12 | Anchor term for “Certainty of Christ’s Return”; requires deliberate, undiluted reframing as a real, certain, future, visible, personal event. |
| eyewitnesses | ἐπόπται / epoptai | 1 | Low | Stable / asset | [NEW] | 1:16 | Legal/evidentiary force retained well in English; use to reinforce historical reliability of Scripture. |
| majesty | μεγαλειότης / megaleiotēs | 1 | Medium | Trivialization (royal-title / nature-documentary usage) | [NEW] | 1:16 | Reconnect specifically to Christ’s own person, not generic grandeur. |
| more sure / confirmed | βεβαιότερον / bebaioteron | 1 | Medium/High | Under-translation risk (vague reassurance vs. legal guarantee) | [NEW] | 1:19 | Objective, guaranteed certainty, not a subjective feeling of increased confidence. |
| Morning Star | φωσφόρος / phōsphoros | 1 | Medium | Cultural-collision (Lucifer/“Day Star” association via Isaiah 14/Milton) | [NEW] | 1:19 | Explicitly disambiguate from any “Lucifer” association; this title belongs to Christ. |
| Scripture | γραφή / graphē | 1,3 | Medium/High | False-friend drift (comparative-religion “scriptures” leveling) | [NEW] | 1:20; 3:16 | Specific, exclusively authoritative body of writings, not a generic comparative-religion category. |
| private interpretation | ἰδίας ἐπιλύσεως / idias epilyseōs | 1 | High | Cultural-collision (reader-response individualism) | [NEW] | 1:20 | Directly collides with “everyone has their own interpretation” contemporary instinct; disambiguate explicitly regardless of which exegetical option (prophet’s origin vs. reader’s interpretation) is followed. |
| moved / carried along | φερόμενοι / pheromenoi | 1 | High | False-friend drift (“moved” = emotional reaction) | [NEW] | 1:21 | Prefer “carried along by” over bare “moved” to avoid emotional false-friend; note literary echo with 1:17’s “borne.” |
| false prophets / false teachers | ψευδοπροφῆται, ψευδοδιδάσκαλοι / pseudoprophētai, pseudodidaskaloi | 2 | Medium/High | Cultural-collision (“fake news” framing trivializes moral dimension) | [NEW] | 2:1 | Stress moral corruption, not merely factual inaccuracy. |
| destructive heresies | αἱρέσεις ἀπωλείας / haireseis apōleias | 2 | High | False-friend drift (“heresy” as admired contrarianism) | [NEW] | 2:1 | Restore soul-destroying seriousness against ironic/approving secular usage. |
| Master (denying the Master) | δεσπότης / despotēs | 2 | High | False-friend drift (“despot” = tyrant) | [NEW] (relates to baseline lord) | 2:1 | Total ownership/authority sense; avoid unintended negative “tyrant” connotation while not losing the absolute-authority force. |
| judgment / condemned | κρίσις / krisis | 2,3 | Critical | False-friend drift (English “crisis”) + post-Christian non-judgmentalism | [NEW] (relates to baseline universal_human_accountability) | 2:3-4,9; 3:7 | Orderly legal verdict, not chaotic emergency; state with the same explicitness baseline requires for accountability themes. |
| Tartarus / chains of gloomy darkness | ταρταρώσας, σειραῖς ζόφου / tartarōsas, seirais zophou | 2 | Medium | Cultural-collision (fantasy-fiction “Percy Jackson” association) | [NEW] | 2:4 | Name the pop-culture association explicitly; clarify a real place of judgment for real fallen spiritual beings. |
| the flood | κατακλυσμός / kataklysmos | 2 | Low | Stable / asset (“cataclysm”) | [NEW] | 2:5 | English derivative retains rather than dilutes force. |
| Sodom and Gomorrah / example | ὑπόδειγμα / hypodeigma; Σόδομα, Γόμορρα | 2 | High | Denominational + contemporary political contest | [NEW] | 2:6 | State interpretive basis with care given live contemporary sexual-ethics controversy attached to this proper name. |
| the way (of righteousness/truth) | ὁδός / hodos | 2 | Medium/High | Cultural-collision (spiritual pluralism, “many paths”) | [NEW] | 2:2,15,21 | Preserve the text’s singular-path exclusivity against “many equally valid paths” framing. |
| dominion / authority (angelic) | κυριότης / kyriotēs | 2 | Medium | Potential confusion with Romans 13 civil authority | [NEW] (relates to baseline lord) | 2:10 | Disambiguate from human civil-government material. |
| greed / covetousness | πλεονεξία / pleonexia | 2 | Medium | Obsolescence (“covetousness”) | [NEW] | 2:3,14 | Prefer contemporary “greed”; retain “covetousness” for continuity with Ten Commandments material where useful. |
| spots and blemishes / spotless and blameless | σπίλοι καὶ μῶμοι / ἄσπιλοι καὶ ἀμώμητοι | 2,3 | Low/Medium | Mild trivialization (skincare/cleaning marketing) | [NEW] | 2:13; 3:14 | Preserve the deliberate cross-letter structural echo between these two paired phrases. |
| Balaam | Βαλαάμ / Balaam | 2 | Low/Medium | Obscurity | [NEW] | 2:15-16 | Supply Numbers 22-24 background actively; do not assume familiarity. |
| commandment | ἐντολή / entolē | 2 | Medium | Narrowing to “Ten Commandments” association | [NEW] (relates to baseline law) | 2:21 | Clarify broader apostolic ethical instruction, not only the Decalogue. |
| scoffers | ἐμπαῖκται / empaiktai | 3 | High | Cultural-collision (positive prestige of “skepticism”) | [NEW] | 3:3 | Name the contemporary positive-skepticism prestige explicitly; the scoffers’ argument sounds reasonable to modern ears and must be answered, not dismissed. |
| fell asleep (death) | ἐκοιμήθησαν / ekoimēthēsan | 3 | Low | Stable / asset | [NEW] | 3:4 | English retains close idiomatic equivalents. |
| reserved (for fire/judgment) | τετηρημένοι / tetērēmenoi | 3 | Medium/High | False-friend drift (benign “reservation” sense) | [NEW] | 3:7 | Pair with “kept,” “held,” “guarded” to restore custodial, ominous force. |
| a thousand years | χίλια ἔτη / chilia etē | 3 | High | Denominational contest (millennial views) | [NEW] | 3:8 | Keep 2 Peter’s own limited point (God transcends human timescales) distinct from the broader millennial-systems debate. |
| patience / longsuffering | μακροθυμία, μακροθυμέω / makrothymia, makrothymeō | 3 | High | False-friend drift (passive “patience”) + cultural mismatch (instant-gratification culture) | [NEW] | 3:9,15 | Anchor term for “Patience of God’s Timing”; active, purposeful forbearance, not passive waiting; distinguish from hypomonē (1:6). |
| not willing that any should perish / all reach repentance | μὴ βουλόμενός … πάντας … μετάνοιαν / mē boulomenos … pantas … metanoian | 3 | Critical | Denominational contest (Reformed particularist vs. Arminian/Catholic universal reading) | [NEW] (parallel to baseline election/effectual_calling) | 3:9 | State the curriculum’s own reading plainly; note other traditions’ readings respectfully, per baseline Denominational Transparency Rule. |
| Day of the Lord | ἡμέρα κυρίου / hēmera kyriou | 3 | High | Obscurity (unfamiliar OT technical term) | [NEW] (relates to baseline lord) | 3:10,12 | Actively supply OT prophetic background; do not assume recognition as a technical term. |
| elements (dissolved) | στοιχεῖα / stoicheia | 3 | Medium | False-friend drift (periodic-table “elements”) | [NEW] | 3:10,12 | Gloss as “basic components of the created world,” not modern chemical elements. |
| new heavens and new earth | καινοὺς οὐρανοὺς καὶ γῆν καινήν / kainous ouranous kai gēn kainēn | 3 | Medium | Balance risk (destruction-only emphasis) | [NEW] | 3:13 | Ensure restorative/hopeful dimension is taught alongside judgment imagery. |
| hard to understand / distort | δυσνόητα, στρεβλοῦσιν / dysnoēta, streblousin | 3 | High | Cultural-collision (contemporary NT-canon skepticism) | [NEW] (relates to baseline inspiration_of_scripture) | 3:16 | Engage contemporary canon-formation skepticism directly; note this verse’s early recognition of Paul’s letters as “Scripture.” |
| steadfastness | στηριγμός / sterigmos | 3 | Low | Minor obsolescence | [NEW] | 3:17 | Straightforward once glossed. |
Anchor-Verse Consistency Requirement
Per this Language Package’s extension of the baseline’s cross-document consistency rules (which mandate identical rendering of Romans 1:16-17, 8:28, and 10:9-10 across all curriculum documents), 2 Peter 1:16-21 (the core passage) and 2 Peter 3:18 (the closing charge, echoing the letter’s central grace/knowledge themes) are designated this curriculum’s own anchor verses and must receive identical, consistently-clarified rendering across every Phase 2 document.
Risk Tier Summary
| Tier | Count | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | 8 | Lord, God, Jesus, election, grace, parousia (“coming”), krisis (“judgment”), 3:9’s “any/all” clause |
| High | 19 | faith, righteousness, called/calling, sin, servant/slave, epignosis, virtue, partakers of the divine nature, epithymia, cleverly devised myths, private interpretation, moved/carried along, false teachers, destructive heresies, despotēs, Sodom/Gomorrah, scoffers, makrothymia, Day of the Lord, streblousin/canon skepticism, a thousand years |
| Medium | 22 | apostleship, holy, peace, glory, prophecy/prophet, kingdom of God, fellowship-root, divine power, promise, corruption, self-control, godliness, love, Savior, tent/tabernacle, majesty, bebaioteron, phōsphoros, graphē, false prophets/teachers, Tartarus, hodos, kyriotēs, pleonexia, entolē, tetērēmenoi, stoicheia, new heavens/new earth |
| Low | 9 | perseverance, brotherly affection, departure, eyewitnesses, kataklysmos, Balaam, fell asleep, spots/blemishes, sterigmos |
This glossary must be loaded, alongside 07_semantic_analysis.md, before any Phase 2 translation-requirements or content-generation work on 2 Peter begins.
Critical Risk Terms
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
CRITICAL FALSE-FRIEND DRIFT: ‘grace’ in ordinary contemporary English overwhelmingly means physical elegance or poise, or, in contracts and billing, a ‘grace period’ (a delay before a penalty applies) — a completely secularized sense with no theological content. CRITICAL DENOMINATIONAL CONTEST: English-speaking Christian traditions themselves disagree sharply on grace’s relationship to works and human cooperation (Reformed ‘grace alone’ vs. Wesleyan/Arminian synergism vs. Catholic sacramental ‘means of grace’ theology); this curriculum must state its own reading explicitly rather than assume all English-speaking Christian readers already agree. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: ‘grace’ bookends this letter (1:2; 3:18); 2 Peter 3:18 (‘grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’) is this curriculum’s own designated closing anchor verse and must be rendered identically across every Phase 2 document.
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
Category: Salvation
CRITICAL DENOMINATIONAL CONTEST: English-speaking Christian traditions are themselves divided on ‘being saved’ — revivalist/altar-call traditions often treat it as a single, datable past-tense event, while Catholic, Orthodox, and many mainline Protestant traditions treat salvation as an ongoing, lifelong reality. Also guard against the fully secularized generic sense of ‘salvation’ as any rescue from a bad situation, which strips out the divine agent entirely. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: 2 Peter 3:15’s direct equation (‘regard the patience of our Lord as salvation’) is a distinctive textual link this curriculum must surface explicitly — the doctrines of Patience of God’s Timing and Salvation are not separate topics in 2 Peter but are directly identified with one another by Peter himself.
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
CRITICAL: ‘Lord’ has nearly disappeared from ordinary spoken English outside this specific religious usage; where it survives (British/Commonwealth aristocratic titles, fantasy fiction ‘dark lords’) it carries archaic or fictional-genre associations rather than lived, felt authority. This curriculum must actively restore its weight (total, exclusive, personal allegiance) rather than assume the English word still carries it. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: this letter has an unusually high-frequency concentration of ‘Lord’ language (1:2,8,11,14,16; 2:1,9,11,20; 3:2,8-10,15,18) — the baseline’s faded-word risk compounds across repeated occurrences, risking cumulative desensitization rather than a single-occurrence risk; re-weight actively at EACH occurrence, not passively repeat. Distinguish from the separate, starker title ‘Master’ (despotes, 2:1 — see master_despotes).
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
Category: Salvation
CRITICAL FALSE-FRIEND DRIFT: in essentially all contemporary English usage outside specifically theological contexts, ‘election’ means a political vote. Readers encountering election language without explicit signposting are highly likely to import a political-voting frame that has nothing to do with God’s sovereign, prior, unilateral choice. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: this letter’s specific occurrence (1:10, ‘make your calling and election sure’) is especially vulnerable to a self-effort/campaign misreading given the verb ‘make sure,’ which in English politics evokes securing votes or a result through effort; the actual logic — visible fruit CONFIRMS, not EARNS OR CREATES, a prior sovereign election — must be stated with the same explicitness the baseline requires for Romans 9.
Coming Parousia
Approved rendering: coming
Transliteration: coming (parousia)
Doctrine: The Certainty of Christ’s Return
Rejected alternatives: the Second Coming as a self-evidently weighty phrase needing no further explanation (heavily absorbed into pop-apocalyptic culture — failed date-setting movements, ‘Left Behind’-style fiction, doomsday-cult media coverage — which primes skepticism/amusement rather than sober expectation)
Original: παρουσία
Category: Eschatology
2 Peter 1:16; 3:4,12. The technical NT term for Christ’s future, visible, personal return in glory, anticipated in advance by the Transfiguration and the direct target of the scoffers’ mockery. English ‘coming’ is generically vague and carries no inherent weight on its own. Transliterate and gloss parousia on first substantive use per document; explicitly and directly address the contemporary track record of failed Christian date-setting predictions rather than avoid it.
Judgment Krisis
Approved rendering: judgment
Transliteration: judgment (krisis)
Doctrine: The Day of the Lord and Final Judgment
Rejected alternatives: crisis (the English etymological derivative, suggesting chaotic emergency rather than orderly legal verdict), a judgment-free zone framing (contemporary non-judgmental therapeutic culture’s active resistance to any authoritative moral verdict)
Original: κρίσις
Category: Eschatology
2 Peter 2:3-4,9; 3:7. God’s certain, decisive future legal verdict on false teachers and, ultimately, the whole created order. Two distinct and compounding risks: an etymological false friend and post-Christian cultural erosion (contemporary non-judgmental norms actively resist the entire concept). Compounds the baseline’s universal_human_accountability Critical-tier risk and should receive the same unusually explicit, undiminished treatment.
Not Willing That Any Should Perish
Approved rendering: not willing that any should perish
Transliteration: not willing that any should perish (me boulomenos tinas apolesthai)
Doctrine: Patience of God’s Timing
Rejected alternatives: a guaranteed, unconditional final salvation of all people regardless of response (a universalist/apokatastasis appropriation of this clause in isolation, rejected as inconsistent with the letter’s own repeated calls to repentance, holiness, and the reality of judgment)
Original: μὴ βουλόμενός τινας ἀπολέσθαι ἀλλὰ πάντας εἰς μετάνοιαν χωρῆσαι
Category: Salvation
2 Peter 3:9. God’s stated will that none perish but all reach repentance, given as the reason for his delay in judgment. One of the oldest and most consequential live disagreements among English-speaking Christian traditions: Reformed/Calvinist readers typically take ‘any’/‘all’ as referring to all the elect; Arminian, Wesleyan, Catholic, and much broader evangelical readership take it at face value as God’s universal salvific desire for every human being. This curriculum must state its own reading plainly and note, respectfully, that other English-speaking Christian traditions read this clause differently, per the baseline’s Denominational Transparency Rule.
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 / ἰσότιμος πίστις
Category: Faith
Contemporary English has largely detached ‘faith’ from any specific object: ‘keeping the faith,’ ‘faith in humanity,’ and ‘a leap of faith’ all use the word for generic hopefulness or an ungrounded gamble. Romans’ sense of specific, personal trust in Christ (not generalized optimism) must be made explicit in context every time. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: 1:1 adds a new element — ‘a faith of equal standing’ (isotimos pistis) — claiming parity of STANDING before God, not shared quality of experience, between the apostles and later readers; this subtlety is easily missed if read as mere devotional encouragement and is relevant to the Reliability of Scripture doctrine’s claim that later generations are not second-class recipients of the apostolic message.
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
In contemporary usage, ‘righteous’ and especially ‘self-righteous’ carry a strongly negative, sanctimonious connotation — nearly the opposite of Paul’s sense of a right standing before God received as a gift. Readers must be told explicitly that biblical righteousness is not moral smugness but a status given, not achieved or performed. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: this curriculum’s usage spans both the forensic sense (1:1, of Christ’s own righteousness) and an ethical-conduct sense (‘the way of righteousness,’ 2:21; Noah and Lot as righteous, 2:5,7,8; the coming righteous new creation, 3:13) — a genuine range within the same English word requiring context-sensitive handling not needed in Romans’ more uniformly forensic usage. Risk tier is Critical in this curriculum’s bible_term_registry.json given this compounded range.
Called
Approved rendering: called
Transliteration: called
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Original: κλητός
Category: Salvation
Context-sensitive across senses ranging from a specific ministry calling to effectual calling to salvation. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: directly paired with ‘election’ in 1:10’s charge to ‘make your calling and election sure,’ making the compounded false-friend/self-actualization risk especially acute in this single verse — see election below.
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
Category: Salvation
Modern self-actualization culture has repurposed ‘calling’ as career vocation discovered through introspection, which risks reducing God’s initiative in Romans’ calling language to an individualist project of finding one’s own purpose. The direction of agency (God calls; the person does not self-select) must be stated explicitly. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: in 1:10 this is the specific object believers are to ‘confirm’ through visible growth in virtue — not create or self-select.
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
Contemporary marketing and casual speech have trivialized ‘sin’ into a jokey synonym for a harmless indulgence, and broader therapeutic and non-judgmental cultural norms are often actively resistant to guilt-based moral language generally. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: associated in this letter with the fallen angels’ rebellion and false teachers’ conduct (2:4,14); no new risk beyond the baseline’s noted trivialization and therapeutic-culture resistance.
Servant Slave
Approved rendering: servant
Transliteration: servant
Doctrine: Apostolic Authority and Servanthood
Rejected alternatives: slave (a more literal rendering of doulos, favored by some contemporary scholars and popular teachers such as John MacArthur, but rejected as this curriculum’s primary rendering because of the disproportionate, historically-loaded weight ‘slave’ carries in English-speaking cultures shaped by chattel slavery), employee / hired hand (falsely implies a voluntary, contractual, paid relationship absent from doulos’s actual first-century legal meaning)
Original: δοῦλος
Category: Church
2 Peter 1:1: Peter’s self-designation, prior to and grounding his apostolic authority. Genuine, live disagreement among English-speaking Bible translators and popular teachers over ‘servant’ vs. ‘slave’ as the better rendering of doulos (total ownership, no independent legal standing in Greco-Roman society). This curriculum adopts ‘servant,’ consistent with most mainstream English translations (KJV, NIV, ESV, NLT), while explicitly naming in Phase 2 content what is lost by not using ‘slave’ — the starker, more historically accurate total-ownership sense. State this choice plainly; do not pass over it in silence.
Knowledge Epignosis
Approved rendering: knowledge
Transliteration: knowledge (epignosis)
Doctrine: Growing in Christian Virtue
Rejected alternatives: information/facts known (the dominant contemporary secular sense of ‘knowledge’ as propositional data, which flattens Peter’s relational sense)
Original: ἐπίγνωσις
Category: Salvation
2 Peter 1:2,3,8; 2:20. Full, precise, relational, saving knowledge of God/Christ, functioning as a near-summary term for genuine faith itself. English collapses this and the distinct term gnosis (see knowledge_gnosis) into the single word ‘knowledge,’ erasing Peter’s own distinction. Must be explicitly glossed as knowing Christ personally, as one knows a person, not merely knowing facts about him, especially wherever both Greek terms occur near each other (1:2-8; 3:18).
Virtue
Approved rendering: virtue
Transliteration: virtue (arete)
Doctrine: Growing in Christian Virtue
Rejected alternatives: virtue signaling (a pejorative contemporary compound for performative, insincere public moral posturing — the opposite of Peter’s sincere call)
Original: ἀρετή
Category: Sanctification
2 Peter 1:3,5. Moral excellence of character, the first quality added to faith in the virtue chain. Contemporary English usage has been significantly reshaped by the pejorative ‘virtue signaling’ discourse, common in political and social-media contexts, which risks priming readers to hear ‘virtue’ with an ironic or cynical undertone. Should be paired with a plain gloss such as ‘moral excellence’ or ‘goodness of character’ on first substantive use in every document.
Partakers Of The Divine Nature
Approved rendering: partakers of the divine nature
Transliteration: partakers of the divine nature (theias physeos koinonoi)
Doctrine: Divine Nature and Escaping Corruption
Rejected alternatives: an inherent/innate divine nature possessed by all people simply by being human (the popular New Age / ‘spiritual but not religious’ claim, explicitly rejected), eternal progression toward becoming a god (the Latter-day Saint exaltation-theology proof-text reading, explicitly rejected)
Original: θείας φύσεως κοινωνοί
Category: Salvation
2 Peter 1:4. Active participation/sharing in God’s own nature, given through knowledge of Christ and escape from worldly corruption — a GIVEN, not inherent, participation. Genuine denominational contest: Eastern Orthodox theology reads this as the central biblical warrant for theosis (participation in God’s energies, never his essence); Western Protestant and Catholic traditions read it more conservatively as moral/spiritual transformation. Must be stated explicitly as conditioned on ‘having escaped the corruption in the world caused by human desires’ (1:4b), not a universal human birthright, and distinguished from LDS eternal-progression proof-texting and New Age ‘inner divine spark’ claims.
Lust Desire
Approved rendering: corrupt desire
Transliteration: corrupt desire (epithymia)
Doctrine: Divine Nature and Escaping Corruption
Rejected alternatives: lust (narrows almost exclusively to sexual desire in contemporary English, obscuring the broader pattern of greed and self-indulgence 2 Peter actually targets)
Original: ἐπιθυμία
Category: Sanctification
2 Peter 1:4; 2:10,18; 3:3. Disordered, sinful craving — the root cause of the world’s corruption and of false teachers’ behavior. Prefer ‘desires’/‘corrupt desires’ over bare ‘lust’ wherever precision matters, following the modern-translation shift away from the narrowed sexual-only sense.
Cleverly Devised Myths
Approved rendering: cleverly devised myths
Transliteration: cleverly devised myths (sesophismenois mythois)
Doctrine: The Reliability and Inspiration of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: a merely quaint, low-stakes disclaimer (misses that Peter is rebutting a live, still-current charge, not offering a generic pious aside)
Original: σεσοφισμένοις μύθοις
Category: Scripture
2 Peter 1:16. Peter’s explicit denial that the apostolic gospel is invented folklore or fabricated deception, contrasted with eyewitness testimony. Contemporary secular academic and popular culture treats Gospel narratives as culturally-conditioned myth by default; readers may assume Peter’s denial is itself a pious claim rather than register that Peter is rebutting the exact charge still leveled against Christianity today. State this as a direct, named rebuttal.
More Sure Confirmed
Approved rendering: confirmed
Transliteration: confirmed (bebaioteron)
Doctrine: The Reliability and Inspiration of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: we feel more sure now (a vague, subjective-reassurance gloss that flattens the Greek’s legal-guarantee force)
Original: βεβαιότερον
Category: Scripture
2 Peter 1:19. A legal/commercial term for an irrevocable guarantee, describing the prophetic word’s objective certainty, strengthened (not merely felt more strongly) by the eyewitness Transfiguration experience. ‘Sure’/‘confirmed’ have no false-friend problem in English but risk under-translation into vague reassurance; pair with ‘guaranteed’/‘certified’ language.
Scripture Graphe
Approved rendering: Scripture
Transliteration: Scripture (graphe)
Doctrine: The Reliability and Inspiration of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: a generic comparative-religion ‘scriptures’ category (treats all traditions’ sacred writings as functionally equivalent literary/cultural artifacts, flattening 2 Peter’s exclusive claim)
Original: γραφή
Category: Scripture
2 Peter 1:20; 3:16. The specific, divinely authoritative body of writings — the OT prophetic Scriptures and, remarkably, Paul’s letters as well (3:16). ‘Scripture’ is stable in English but risks being heard as a generic religious-literature category rather than the specific, exclusively authoritative body of writings 2 Peter has in view; must be made explicit.
Private Interpretation
Approved rendering: one’s own interpretation
Transliteration: one’s own interpretation (idias epilyseos)
Doctrine: The Reliability and Inspiration of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: everyone has their own interpretation (the pervasive contemporary reader-response-individualism instinct, which reads the verse as PERMITTING private interpretive freedom rather than RESTRICTING the prophecy’s origin or authoritative reading)
Original: ἰδίας ἐπιλύσεως
Category: Scripture
2 Peter 1:20. The claim that biblical prophecy does not originate from (or, on the alternate standard exegetical reading, may not be resolved by) a self-generated, private human interpretation. Regardless of which of the two standard exegetical options is followed, the phrase collides head-on with contemporary reader-response individualism; requires explicit disambiguation on every substantive use, stating this curriculum’s chosen reading.
Moved Carried Along
Approved rendering: carried along
Transliteration: carried along (pheromenoi)
Doctrine: The Reliability and Inspiration of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: moved (the dominant contemporary sense: an emotional reaction, e.g. ‘the movie moved me to tears’ — not an agency-transferring event)
Original: φερόμενοι
Category: Scripture
2 Peter 1:21. The prophets were ‘carried along’ by the Holy Spirit as a ship is carried by wind — the single most important verb for the doctrine of Scripture’s inspiration. ‘Carried along by’ should be the preferred standing rendering rather than bare ‘moved.’ Note the deliberate literary echo with the same Greek root (phero) describing the Father’s voice ‘borne’ from heaven in 1:17 — a structural bracket around the whole core passage worth surfacing in teaching material.
False Prophets And False Teachers
Approved rendering: false teachers
Transliteration: false teachers (pseudodidaskaloi)
Doctrine: False Teachers and Their Judgment
Rejected alternatives: fake news / misinformation (trivializes into a merely factual-accuracy problem rather than 2 Peter’s category of spiritually destructive, morally corrupt teaching bound up with greed and immorality)
Original: ψευδοπροφῆται … ψευδοδιδάσκαλοι
Category: False Teachers
2 Peter 2:1. Those who arise within the covenant community teaching destructive error, set up by direct historical analogy with Israel’s false prophets. Contemporary ‘fake news’ discourse gives English speakers a ready category for organized deception (a partial asset) but risks trivializing the term; the specifically moral, not merely factual, dimension of false teaching must be made explicit.
Destructive Heresies
Approved rendering: destructive heresies
Transliteration: destructive heresies (haireseis apoleias)
Doctrine: False Teachers and Their Judgment
Rejected alternatives: heresy as bold contrarian thinking (a common contemporary secular usage, sometimes even admiring, in science, economics, or corporate strategy — directly inverting 2 Peter’s soul-destroying seriousness)
Original: αἱρέσεις ἀπωλείας
Category: False Teachers
2 Peter 2:1. Soul-destroying doctrinal error introduced by false teachers. Contemporary English usage of ‘heresy’ has substantially softened and broadened into a loose, often ironic or approving metaphor for unconventional thinking; needs explicit restoration of the term’s deadly-serious weight.
Master Despotes
Approved rendering: Master
Transliteration: Master (despotes)
Doctrine: False Teachers and Their Judgment
Rejected alternatives: despot (the direct English cognate, but carries an exclusively negative modern connotation — a cruel tyrant — an unwanted association), Lord (loses the distinct, starker total-ownership/slave-master background of despotes, distinct from the more common kyrios)
Original: δεσπότης
Category: Christology
2 Peter 2:1. A title of absolute, total ownership and authority applied to Christ, distinct from the more common kyrios (‘Lord’); false teachers’ sin is ‘denying’ this total authority in practice, not necessarily verbal denial of Christ’s existence. Requires careful, explicit handling.
Sodom And Gomorrah
Approved rendering: Sodom and Gomorrah
Transliteration: Sodom and Gomorrah (Sodoma kai Gomorra)
Doctrine: False Teachers and Their Judgment
Original: Σόδομα καὶ Γόμορρα / ὑπόδειγμα
Category: False Teachers
2 Peter 2:6. A historical example (hypodeigma) of God’s judgment of the wicked and rescue of the righteous (Lot), proving God both judges and delivers. ‘Sodom’ is one of the most contested terms in contemporary English-language religious and political discourse. This curriculum must state its own interpretive basis with care and precision rather than assume a single settled reading is shared by all readers.
The Way
Approved rendering: the way
Transliteration: the way (hodos)
Doctrine: False Teachers and Their Judgment
Rejected alternatives: find your own path / many paths up the same mountain (contemporary spiritual-pluralism idioms that soften 2 Peter’s singular-path exclusivity claim into merely a preferred option among many equally legitimate ones)
Original: ὁδός
Category: False Teachers
2 Peter 2:2,15,21. The single path of true doctrine and conduct, from which false teachers and their followers defect. Contemporary Western spiritual pluralism strongly favors a multiplicity-of-valid-paths framework; this is the mirror image of the baseline’s universal_scope_of_gospel pluralism note, running in the opposite (relativizing) direction.
Scoffers
Approved rendering: scoffers
Transliteration: scoffers (empaiktai)
Doctrine: The Certainty of Christ’s Return
Rejected alternatives: skeptics (contemporary intellectual and media culture places extremely high positive value on ‘skepticism’ as an intellectual virtue, and popular usage often treats ‘skeptic’ and ‘scoffer’ as near-synonyms, risking sympathy for rather than warning against this posture)
Original: ἐμπαῖκται
Category: Eschatology
2 Peter 3:3. Mockers who deride the promise of Christ’s return, predicted to appear in the last days. The scoffers’ own argument (‘all things continue as they were,’ 3:4) closely resembles a legitimately reasonable-sounding uniformitarian objection modern readers may find intuitively persuasive rather than obviously foolish. Needs the same order of explicit reframing the baseline requires for election or justification.
Reserved Kept
Approved rendering: reserved
Transliteration: reserved (teteremenoi)
Doctrine: The Day of the Lord and Final Judgment
Rejected alternatives: a reserved table/seat (the dominant contemporary benign administrative sense, which softens the ominous, custodial force required)
Original: τετηρημένοι
Category: Eschatology
2 Peter 3:7. The present heavens and earth are being actively held in guarded readiness for a future judgment by fire. Should be paired with active verbs like ‘kept,’ ‘held,’ or ‘guarded’ in explanatory material to restore the custodial, ominous force.
A Thousand Years
Approved rendering: a thousand years
Transliteration: a thousand years (chilia ete)
Doctrine: Patience of God’s Timing
Rejected alternatives: a direct teaching on the millennium of Revelation 20 (this curriculum keeps 2 Peter 3:8’s own narrower point — God transcends human timescales — explicitly distinct from that separate denominational debate)
Original: χίλια ἔτη
Category: Eschatology
2 Peter 3:8, echoing Psalm 90:4. Illustrates God’s transcendence of ordinary human time-measurement. Inevitably intersects the genuine, longstanding denominational contest over the millennium’s nature and timing (premillennial, postmillennial, amillennial); keep 2 Peter’s own limited point distinct from that broader debate while acknowledging readers will likely arrive with strong existing assumptions.
Patience Makrothymia
Approved rendering: patience
Transliteration: patience (makrothymia)
Doctrine: Patience of God’s Timing
Rejected alternatives: passive/resigned waiting (the dominant contemporary connotation of English ‘patience,’ which understates the Greek’s active, purposeful forbearance)
Original: μακροθυμία / μακροθυμεῖ
Category: Eschatology
2 Peter 3:9,15. God’s active, purposeful forbearance in delaying judgment, giving opportunity for repentance; explicitly identified with salvation itself at 3:15. Contemporary English ‘patient/patience’ skews passive; this must be actively supplemented as active forbearance, and distinguished from hypomone (‘perseverance,’ 1:6).
Day Of The Lord
Approved rendering: the Day of the Lord
Transliteration: the Day of the Lord (hemera kyriou)
Doctrine: The Day of the Lord and Final Judgment
Rejected alternatives: a generic vague phrase for ‘someday’ (misses that this is a specific, recurring OT prophetic technical term)
Original: ἡμέρα κυρίου
Category: Eschatology
2 Peter 3:10,12 (cf. also ‘the day of God,’ 3:12). A major OT prophetic technical term (Joel 2, Amos 5, Zephaniah 1) for God’s decisive future intervention in judgment and salvation, taken up by Peter and applied to Christ’s return. This specific technical phrase is largely unfamiliar to readers without substantial OT background; its prophetic background should be actively supplied, not assumed known.
Medium Risk Terms
God
Approved rendering: God
Transliteration: God
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
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
Contemporary spiritual-but-not-religious culture often substitutes deliberately vague or impersonal alternatives (‘a higher power,’ ‘the universe’) for a personal, specific, self-revealing God; Romans’ God is not a placeholder concept but the specific God who raised Jesus from the dead (1:4) and is personally engaged with creation (1:19-20). [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: bible_term_registry.json for this curriculum elevates this term’s own risk tier to Critical given 2 Peter 1:1’s Granville Sharp construction (‘our God and Savior Jesus Christ’), an unusually explicit grammatical deity-of-Christ claim that popular ‘historical Jesus’ framings can flatten into merely reverent titles rather than an identity claim.
Apostle
Approved rendering: apostle
Transliteration: apostle
Doctrine: Apostleship
Original: ἀπόστολος
Category: Church
Fairly stable technical term with limited competing everyday usage; main risk is treating ‘apostle’ as simply a job title rather than a specific, foundational, non-repeatable New Testament office. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: Peter’s second self-designation in 1:1, alongside ‘servant’ (see servant_slave, new term); no new risk beyond the baseline’s caution.
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
‘Holy’ survives mainly in negative idiom (‘holier-than-thou’) or as a content-free exclamation (‘holy cow!’), both of which drain the word of its ‘set apart for God’ meaning; must be actively re-taught rather than assumed familiar. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: applied to a mountain (1:18), the prophets (1:21), and a commandment (2:21) — a useful teaching point that holiness is conferred by God’s presence/action, not an intrinsic property of the place, person, or text. Risk tier is High in this curriculum’s bible_term_registry.json given the density and variety of applications.
Son Of God
Approved rendering: Son of God
Transliteration: Son of God
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
Original: ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός
Category: Christology
Comparatively stable phrase, but contemporary secular ‘historical Jesus’ popular narratives can quietly strip the theological content from the phrase even when the words themselves are retained; the eternal, unique, divine sense must be actively taught. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: at 1:17 the Father’s declaration (‘This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy’) uses Isaac-echoing ‘beloved Son’ language (cf. Genesis 22:2 LXX) at the Transfiguration, mirroring the declaration at Christ’s baptism — reinforcement, not a one-time statement.
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: Faith
‘Peace’ is heavily used in political and therapeutic/wellness senses in contemporary English; the specific, relational, judicial peace secured through justification must be distinguished from both. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: part of the letter’s opening greeting (1:2); no new risk beyond the baseline.
Fellowship
Approved rendering: fellowship
Transliteration: fellowship
Doctrine: Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: a fellowship (the dominant contemporary secular sense: an academic, research, or professional grant/appointment, e.g. ‘a postdoctoral fellowship’)
Original: κοινωνία / κοινωνός
Category: Church
In contemporary English, ‘a fellowship’ is more likely to be encountered as an academic or professional grant/appointment than as shared Christian communal life, which can flatten Romans’ relational, participatory sense into something closer to institutional membership or a funded program. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: the cognate koinonos (‘partaker, sharer’) is used at 1:4 of active participation in the divine nature, not passive institutional membership — see the separate partakers_of_the_divine_nature entry for the elevated risk attached to that specific phrase.
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: αἰώνιος βασιλεία
Category: Church
For readers, especially younger ones, whose primary cultural exposure to ‘kingdoms’ is fantasy fiction, film, and games, ‘kingdom’ may evoke an imagined fictional realm rather than God’s actual present-and-coming sovereign reign. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: 1:11’s ‘eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’ specifically stresses permanence (‘eternal’); balance the fantasy-genre risk against this emphasis, and also distinguish from a merely temporary or political realm.
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
‘Glory’ survives mainly in nostalgic (‘glory days’) or explicitly self-seeking, even pejorative (‘glory hound’) secular usage — nearly inverted from God’s self-existent, radiant, worship-worthy glory, which must be actively distinguished from these connotations. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: risk tier elevated to High in this curriculum’s bible_term_registry.json. At 1:17, paired uniquely with ‘majesty’ in the phrase ‘the Majestic Glory’ (tes megaloprepous doxas) — an unparalleled NT reverential circumlocution for God the Father himself, similar to Jewish avoidance of the divine Name. This unfamiliar stand-alone divine title needs explicit explanation as a reverent way of naming God, not an abstract quality.
Power Of God
Approved rendering: power of God
Transliteration: power of God
Doctrine: Power of God for Salvation
Contemporary secular discourse about ‘power’ is dominated by political, corporate, and interpersonal power struggles and abuse-of-power narratives, generally negative in connotation; the saving, life-giving divine power should be actively distinguished from this largely negative secular power discourse. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: at 1:16, Christ’s power displayed at the Transfiguration anticipates his power at the Second Coming (parousia) — power and coming are paired, not separate ideas; see the related new term divine_power (1:3, theia dynamis) for the letter’s own distinct enabling-power phrase.
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: προφήτης
Category: Scripture
Secular usage applies ‘prophet’ loosely to any confident public forecaster, diluting the specific sense of one who speaks God’s own revealed word rather than making an educated guess about the future. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: risk tier Low in this curriculum’s bible_term_registry.json. God’s spokesperson, carried along by the Holy Spirit to speak from God (1:21); also the compound ‘false prophets’ (2:1, see false_prophets_and_false_teachers).
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: Scripture
‘A self-fulfilling prophecy’ is a well-known secular psychological idiom describing a belief that causes its own fulfillment through behavior, unrelated to and potentially confusing alongside God-inspired predictive prophecy. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: risk tier Low in this curriculum’s bible_term_registry.json. Contemporary readers may not intuitively grasp why an eyewitness experience (the Transfiguration, 1:16-18) would be cited to strengthen confidence in written prophecy (1:19-21) rather than replace it; this logical structure should be made explicit.
Jesus
Approved rendering: Jesus
Transliteration: Jesus
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: Jesus (as a casual interjection/expletive, entirely secularized and disrespectful usage)
Original: Ἰησοῦς Χριστός
Category: Christology
Widely used as a casual interjection or mild expletive in secular speech; otherwise the name itself is stable, though popular ‘historical Jesus’ framings often quietly strip out the divine claims Scripture makes about him. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: risk tier elevated to Critical in this curriculum’s bible_term_registry.json. 1:1’s Granville Sharp construction (‘our God and Savior Jesus Christ’) is a stronger explicit deity claim than most Romans occurrences; use the target register’s established Christian Bible-translation form, never a form associated with a different religious tradition’s account of this figure.
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
Contemporary ‘spiritual but not religious’ and wellness-culture language offers vague, impersonal substitutes for a specific, personal divine Person who intercedes, indwells, and gives life; this must be actively taught, not assumed retained by loose cultural familiarity with ‘spirit’ language. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: risk tier elevated to Critical in this curriculum’s bible_term_registry.json. 2 Peter 1:21 (‘those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God’) is the single clearest NT verse naming the Spirit as the active Author of Scripture; the baseline’s noted risk (vague ‘good vibes’ substitutes for a personal Person) applies with special force here, since the doctrine of inspiration specifically requires a personal Agent actively DIRECTING human authors, not a vague inspirational energy.
Father
Approved rendering: Father
Transliteration: Father
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Original: πατήρ
Category: God
Minor denominational note: in Catholic usage ‘Father’ is also the standard form of address for a priest, which could create ambiguity in mixed-denomination reading groups; also worth noting that for readers with painful or absent human father figures, ‘Father’ as a name for God may carry unintended negative emotional weight requiring pastoral sensitivity, not just doctrinal explanation. [Inherited from Romans package.] 2 Peter note: risk tier elevated to High in this curriculum’s bible_term_registry.json. At 1:17, this is the Father’s direct act of bestowing honor and glory on the Son at the Transfiguration, not merely a title of address — worth noting for the Deity-of-Christ doctrine.
Knowledge Gnosis
Approved rendering: knowledge
Transliteration: knowledge (gnosis)
Doctrine: Growing in Christian Virtue
Rejected alternatives: the same secular informational default noted under knowledge_epignosis
Original: γνῶσις
Category: Salvation
2 Peter 1:5-6; 3:18. A cultivated Christian understanding/discernment, a growing virtue added to faith in the virtue chain, distinct from epignosis’s foundational relational knowing. English uses the same word ‘knowledge’ for both; the distinction should not be silently merged when both appear near each other in the same passage.
Divine Power
Approved rendering: divine power
Transliteration: divine power
Doctrine: Growing in Christian Virtue
Rejected alternatives: divine used merely as a casual intensifier (e.g. ‘divine chocolate cake’ — drains the phrase’s seriousness)
Original: θεία δύναμις
Category: God
2 Peter 1:3. God’s own prior enabling power granting everything needed for life and godliness, grounding the entire virtue-and-promise section (1:3-11) in God’s initiative, not human self-improvement effort. Related to the baseline’s power_of_god; contemporary secular power-discourse skews negative, and casual ‘divine’ as an intensifier can undercut formal register if not handled deliberately.
Corruption
Approved rendering: corruption
Transliteration: corruption (phthora)
Doctrine: Divine Nature and Escaping Corruption
Rejected alternatives: government/corporate corruption (the dominant contemporary political/financial sense — bribery, embezzlement)
Original: φθορά
Category: Sanctification
2 Peter 1:4; 2:12,19. Pervasive moral decay and eventual destruction, from which believers escape through participation in the divine nature; false teachers, by contrast, remain ‘slaves of corruption’ (2:19) — a deliberate positive/negative structural pairing with 1:4 that should be taught together. Dominant contemporary usage is narrower (institutional misconduct); needs explicit broadening.
Self Control
Approved rendering: self-control
Transliteration: self-control (egkrateia)
Doctrine: Growing in Christian Virtue
Rejected alternatives: a self-generated willpower/productivity-culture achievement (the dominant contemporary secular self-help framing)
Original: ἐγκράτεια
Category: Sanctification
2 Peter 1:6. Disciplined restraint of desire, part of the virtue chain. Contemporary wellness/productivity culture risks reframing this as a self-generated personal-development project rather than a Spirit-enabled fruit built on the divine power and promises already given (1:3-4); the effort/grace relationship should be stated explicitly.
Perseverance
Approved rendering: perseverance
Transliteration: perseverance (hypomone)
Doctrine: Growing in Christian Virtue
Rejected alternatives: ‘perseverance of the saints’ as a synonym (a distinct Reformed systematic-theology doctrine of final salvation, not this passage’s growing virtue in a character chain)
Original: ὑπομονή
Category: Sanctification
2 Peter 1:6. Steadfast endurance under pressure. Fairly stable in English religious usage, but should not be conflated with the distinct systematic-theology category ‘perseverance of the saints’; distinguish from makrothymia (‘patience,’ 3:9,15), which is forbearance toward people rather than endurance under circumstance.
Godliness
Approved rendering: godliness
Transliteration: godliness (eusebeia)
Doctrine: Growing in Christian Virtue
Original: εὐσέβεια
Category: Sanctification
2 Peter 1:3,6,7; 2:9; 3:11. Reverence and piety expressed in conduct, a repeated term in this letter. Obsolescence risk rather than false-friend risk: rare, formal, almost archaic in ordinary contemporary speech, requiring definition (a life of practical, worshipful reverence for God) but unlikely to be actively misread.
Love Agape
Approved rendering: love
Transliteration: love (agape)
Doctrine: Growing in Christian Virtue
Rejected alternatives: romantic attraction / casual preference (the dominant, semantically diluted senses of English ‘love,’ e.g. ‘I love pizza’)
Original: ἀγάπη
Category: Sanctification
2 Peter 1:7. Selfless, committed, self-giving love, the capstone of the virtue chain. English ‘love’ is probably the single most overused and semantically diluted word in the language; contemporary culture frequently collapses agape into sentimental emotion or undemanding niceness/tolerance. Must be actively distinguished as willed, costly, others-directed love on first substantive use.
Savior
Approved rendering: Savior
Transliteration: Savior (soter)
Doctrine: Salvation and Assurance
Rejected alternatives: the team’s savior / he saved the franchise (trivializing contemporary sports/pop-culture usage — admiring exaggeration, not an exclusive divine title)
Original: σωτήρ
Category: Christology
2 Peter 1:1,11; 2:20; 3:2,18 — a title used unusually often in this short letter. In the Greco-Roman world, ‘savior’ was a common honorific for deified emperors and benefactors; applying it exclusively to Christ was originally a politically loaded counter-claim. Contemporary casual usage trivializes the title into admiring exaggeration, losing both its exclusivity and its ancient imperial-rivalry edge; restore both dimensions explicitly.
Majesty
Approved rendering: majesty
Transliteration: majesty (megaleiotes)
Doctrine: Deity and Sonship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: Your Majesty (the British/Commonwealth royal-address sense, distant for most readers), the mountain’s majesty (a secularized nature-documentary aesthetic descriptor, divorced from a specific divine referent)
Original: μεγαλειότης
Category: God
2 Peter 1:16. The visible splendor and grandeur of Christ displayed at the Transfiguration, proof of his true divine identity and coming royal glory. Contemporary English drains the specific, personal, divine referent from this word; must be actively reconnected to Christ’s own person.
Morning Star
Approved rendering: Morning Star
Transliteration: Morning Star (phosphoros)
Doctrine: Deity and Sonship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: Day Star, son of Dawn (the Isaiah 14:12 phrase historically applied to Lucifer/Satan, popularized by Milton’s Paradise Lost — this title belongs to Christ here, not the adversary)
Original: φωσφόρος
Category: Christology
2 Peter 1:19. A messianic title for Christ as the herald of the dawn of his own return, paralleling Revelation 22:16. Readers with any exposure to the Lucifer/‘Day Star’ association risk momentarily and wrongly associating the title with the adversary rather than Christ; must be explicitly disambiguated every time it names Christ.
Tartarus
Approved rendering: Tartarus
Transliteration: Tartarus (tartarosas)
Doctrine: False Teachers and Their Judgment
Rejected alternatives: hell (a loose equivalence used by some translations that can blur this specific term with the broader English ‘hell’ debate)
Original: ταρταρώσας
Category: False Teachers
2 Peter 2:4. The imprisonment of rebellious fallen angels in Tartarus, the deepest abyss reserved for judgment — Peter directly borrows a Greek-mythological term for a real biblical place of judgment. Contemporary readers, especially younger ones, are increasingly likely to recognize ‘Tartarus’ from popular fantasy/mythology-based media (notably the Percy Jackson novel and film series); name this association explicitly, then redirect to a real place of judgment for real fallen spiritual beings.
Dominion And Authority
Approved rendering: authority
Transliteration: authority (kyriotes)
Doctrine: False Teachers and Their Judgment
Rejected alternatives: civil/human government authority (risks confusing this angelic-powers reference with Romans 13’s distinct civil-authority teaching)
Original: κυριότης
Category: False Teachers
2 Peter 2:10. Angelic authorities/powers, despised and reviled by false teachers, most likely referring to angelic dignitaries (paired with ‘glorious ones’ in the same verse) rather than human civil government. Disambiguate explicitly from Romans 13 civil-government material.
Greed Covetousness
Approved rendering: greed
Transliteration: greed (pleonexia)
Doctrine: False Teachers and Their Judgment
Original: πλεονεξία
Category: Sin
2 Peter 2:3,14. A grasping desire for more, avarice — repeatedly named as false teachers’ primary vice. ‘Covetousness’ (the more traditional gloss) is archaic/rare in ordinary contemporary speech; ‘greed’ is the more natural contemporary equivalent and should generally be preferred, with ‘covetousness’ retained where continuity with older translations is pedagogically useful.
Commandment
Approved rendering: commandment
Transliteration: commandment (entole)
Doctrine: Holiness and Moral Purity
Rejected alternatives: the Ten Commandments specifically (the dominant contemporary association, narrower than 2 Peter’s broader apostolic ethical instruction)
Original: ἐντολή
Category: Sanctification
2 Peter 2:21 (‘the holy commandment’). Apostolic ethical instruction handed down to believers. In contemporary English, ‘commandment’ is most readily associated with the specific, numbered Ten Commandments, which could narrow readers’ understanding; worth a brief clarifying note.
Elements Stoicheia
Approved rendering: elements
Transliteration: elements (stoicheia)
Doctrine: The Day of the Lord and Final Judgment
Rejected alternatives: the periodic table of chemical elements (the dominant modern-science sense, an anachronistic frame that either over-literalizes or invites dismissal of the passage as pre-scientific)
Original: στοιχεῖα
Category: Eschatology
2 Peter 3:10,12. The basic constituent components of the created cosmos, dissolved in the final judgment. Should be glossed as ‘the basic components of the created world,’ not modern chemical elements.
New Heavens And New Earth
Approved rendering: new heavens and a new earth
Transliteration: new heavens and a new earth (kainous ouranous kai gen kainen)
Doctrine: The Day of the Lord and Final Judgment
Original: καινοὺς οὐρανοὺς καὶ γῆν καινήν
Category: Eschatology
2 Peter 3:13, echoing Isaiah 65:17; 66:22 and anticipating Revelation 21:1. The renewed creation in which righteousness dwells, the positive counterpart to the preceding judgment imagery. This hopeful, restorative dimension is easily lost if teaching material dwells only on the preceding fire/dissolution imagery; must be taught alongside it.
Low Risk Terms
Promise
Approved rendering: promise
Transliteration: promise
Doctrine: The Certainty of Christ’s Return
Rejected alternatives: a casual assurance (softens Peter’s solemn, binding sense)
Original: ἐπάγγελμα / ἐπαγγελία
Category: Salvation
2 Peter 1:4 (‘precious and magnificent promises’); 3:4,9,13 (‘the promise of his coming’). Stable in English; minor risk of generic softening into a casual assurance rather than a solemn, binding divine pledge — worth a light gloss, especially given how central ‘the promise of his coming’ is to the scoffers’ objection in 3:4.
Brotherly Affection
Approved rendering: brotherly affection
Transliteration: brotherly affection (philadelphia)
Doctrine: Growing in Christian Virtue
Original: φιλαδελφία
Category: Sanctification
2 Peter 1:7. Warm familial love among believers, part of the virtue chain. Fairly transparent compound; minor note that the American city name ‘Philadelphia’ (named for this very word) could occasionally distract younger or literalist readers — a mild curiosity rather than a substantive risk.
Tent Tabernacle Body
Approved rendering: body
Transliteration: body (skenoma)
Doctrine: Apostolic Authority and Servanthood
Rejected alternatives: tabernacle (archaic-sounding; risks confusion with the OT wilderness sanctuary rather than the body-as-tent metaphor)
Original: σκήνωμα
Category: Eschatology
2 Peter 1:13-14. A metaphor for the physical body as a temporary dwelling for the soul, used of Peter’s approaching death. Modern translations’ shift to plain ‘body’ resolves the tabernacle-confusion risk but loses the poetic/typological resonance — worth a brief note either way.
Departure Exodos
Approved rendering: departure
Transliteration: departure (exodos)
Doctrine: Apostolic Authority and Servanthood
Original: ἔξοδος
Category: Eschatology
2 Peter 1:15. Peter’s own approaching death, deliberately echoing the OT book of Exodus and the Transfiguration’s discussion of Christ’s own coming ‘departure’ (Luke 9:31). ‘Exodus’ as a euphemism for death is uncommon today, but the underlying concept is intuitively graspable; the OT typological echo is a bonus teaching point.
Eyewitnesses
Approved rendering: eyewitnesses
Transliteration: eyewitnesses (epoptai)
Doctrine: The Reliability and Inspiration of Scripture
Original: ἐπόπται
Category: Scripture
2 Peter 1:16. Firsthand personal observers of Christ’s majesty at the Transfiguration, grounding apostolic testimony in verifiable historical experience. A rare positive case: English ‘eyewitness’ is a stable, well-understood legal/courtroom term retaining strong evidentiary connotations; use to actively reinforce the historical reliability of Scripture.
The Flood
Approved rendering: the flood
Transliteration: the flood (kataklysmos)
Doctrine: False Teachers and Their Judgment
Original: κατακλυσμός
Category: False Teachers
2 Peter 2:5. The Noahic flood, cited as a historical precedent for God’s judgment. A rare positive case: ‘cataclysm,’ the English derivative, survives with a strong sense of overwhelming, catastrophic destruction — a genuine linguistic asset, unlike most derived-loanword cases in this registry.
Spots And Blemishes
Approved rendering: spots and blemishes
Transliteration: spots and blemishes (spiloi kai momoi)
Doctrine: Holiness and Moral Purity
Original: σπίλοι καὶ μῶμοι / ἄσπιλοι καὶ ἀμώμητοι
Category: Sin
2 Peter 2:13 (‘blemishes and spots,’ of false teachers); deliberately inverted at 3:14 (‘spotless and blameless,’ of believers). Reasonably intelligible in English, though ‘spotless’ in contemporary commercial usage (skincare and cleaning-product marketing) could mildly trivialize the moral seriousness. Preserve and highlight the deliberate cross-letter structural echo between 2:13 and 3:14.
Balaam
Approved rendering: Balaam
Transliteration: Balaam
Doctrine: False Teachers and Their Judgment
Original: Βαλαάμ
Category: False Teachers
2 Peter 2:15-16. An OT false prophet motivated by greed, cited as a warning example, including the narrative of the speaking donkey. Most contemporary readers are far less likely to recognize the Balaam narrative (Numbers 22-24) than more famous OT stories; background should be actively supplied, not assumed known.
Fell Asleep
Approved rendering: fell asleep
Transliteration: fell asleep (ekoimethesan)
Doctrine: The Certainty of Christ’s Return
Original: ἐκοιμήθησαν
Category: Eschatology
2 Peter 3:4, of ‘the fathers.’ A common NT euphemism for death, cited by the scoffers as evidence against Christ’s promised return. The English idiom ‘fell asleep’/‘passed away’ for death remains fully intelligible and is, if anything, a linguistic asset.
Steadfastness
Approved rendering: steadfastness
Transliteration: steadfastness (sterigmos)
Doctrine: Growing in Christian Virtue
Original: στηριγμός
Category: Eschatology
2 Peter 3:17. Firm stability in doctrine and conduct, the letter’s closing exhortation to guard against being carried away by error. Straightforward and stable in English; minor obsolescence note but no significant competing meaning once briefly glossed.
Honor
Approved rendering: honor
Transliteration: honor (time)
Doctrine: Deity and Sonship of Christ
Original: τιμή
Category: God
2 Peter 1:17. Worth and esteem formally bestowed on the Son by the Father at the Transfiguration, paired with ‘glory.’ Fairly stable in English; chief risk is flattening into merely social respect rather than the Father’s own act of exaltation, which should be made explicit alongside ‘glory’ in the same verse.
Referenced passages