Core Glossary
Core Glossary — 2 Timothy
This glossary lists every load-bearing theological term identified in 07_semantic_analysis.md, covering all four chapters of 2 Timothy. Terms already recorded in the baseline Romans translation_memory.json are marked (baseline reuse) and carry their baseline risk tier and rendering forward unchanged, per the hard rule that established term renderings must be reused exactly. New terms specific to 2 Timothy are assessed fresh using the same false-friend/denominational-contest/obsolescence framework.
Risk tier legend: Critical = human theologian review mandatory, explicit clarification required every occurrence. High = human theologian review required. Medium = native speaker (general audience) review recommended. Low = automated review sufficient.
A. Baseline Terms Reused Exactly (English Language Package)
| Term | Original | Transliteration | Doctrine | Risk | Key 2 Timothy occurrences | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| grace | χάρις | charis | Grace | Critical | 1:2, 1:9, 2:1, 4:22 | Apply baseline clarification (not poise/elegance, not a “grace period”) every occurrence; 1:9’s “grace given before the ages” reinforces the baseline’s apart-from-works note. |
| faith | πίστις | pistis | Faith | High | 1:5, 1:13, 2:18, 2:22, 3:8, 3:10, 3:15, 4:7 | Object must remain explicit (faith in Christ Jesus, 3:15); note the letter’s added nuance of faith as a “deposit” to be kept (4:7), not just believed. |
| righteousness | δικαιοσύνη | dikaiosynē | Salvation | Critical | 2:22, 3:16, 4:8 | 4:8’s “crown of righteousness” combines this baseline term with new athletic-reward imagery — see Part B. |
| salvation | σωτηρία | sōtēria | Salvation | Critical | 2:10, 3:15, 4:18 | State clearly whether a given occurrence leans toward the decisive-event or lifelong-process sense, per baseline guidance; 4:18 leans toward final, climactic salvation. |
| apostle | ἀπόστολος | apostolos | Apostleship | Medium | 1:1, 1:11 | Grounds Paul’s authority behind the entire letter’s charge to Timothy. |
| calling / called | κλῆσις / κλητός | klēsis / klētos | Divine Calling | High | 1:9 (“holy calling”) | Apply baseline’s “God calls; the person does not self-select” clarification directly against career-vocation drift. |
| holy | ἅγιος | hagios | Sanctification | Medium | 1:9, 3:15 (implicitly, via “sacred writings”) | See also “sanctified,” Part B, 2:21. |
| sanctification | ἁγιασμός (concept) | hagiasmos (concept) | Sanctification | Medium | 2:21 (ἡγιασμένον, “sanctified”) | Vessel-for-honor metaphor; obsolescence risk as in baseline. |
| resurrection | ἀνάστασις | anastasis | Resurrection of Christ | Critical | 2:8, 2:18 | 2:18’s false teaching (“the resurrection has already happened”) is a direct historical attack on this doctrine — flag for theologian review every occurrence. |
| Lord | κύριος | kyrios | Lordship of Christ | Critical | throughout (1:2, 1:8, 1:16, 1:18, 2:7, 2:19, 2:22, 2:24, 4:8, 4:14, 4:17, 4:18, 4:22) | Apply baseline’s “restore total, exclusive, personal allegiance” clarification; especially weighty at 4:17-18 (“the Lord stood by me… the Lord will rescue me”). |
| peace | εἰρήνη | eirēnē | Peace with God | Medium | 1:2, 2:22 | Standard greeting and “pursue… peace” list; distinguish from psychological/political senses per baseline. |
| exhort | παρακαλέω | parakaleō | Mutual Edification | Low | 4:2 | Reuse baseline gloss (“encourage, urge strongly”); part of the reprove/rebuke/exhort triad. |
| election | ἐκλογή (concept, ἐκλεκτός) | eklogē (concept, eklektos) | Effectual Calling | Critical | 2:10 (“the elect”) | Apply baseline’s anti-political-voting clarification; Paul’s suffering is explicitly for the elect’s sake. |
| glory | δόξα | doxa | Deity of Christ (doxological use) | High | 2:10, 4:18 | 4:18’s closing doxology; apply baseline’s anti-nostalgia/anti-self-seeking clarification. |
| seed of David | σπέρμα Δαυίδ (cf. 2:8, “descended from David”) | sperma Dauid | Davidic Covenant | Medium | 2:8 | ”Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descended from David” — directly pairs with baseline resurrection term. |
| power of God | δύναμις θεοῦ | dynamis theou | Power of God for Salvation | Medium | 1:7-8 (“power” contrasted with cowardice), 4:17 (ἐνδυναμόω) | Apply baseline’s anti-abuse-of-power-discourse clarification; here reframed positively as courage-giving strength for suffering ministry. |
| kingdom of God | βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ | basileia tou theou | Kingdom Mission | Medium | 4:1 (“his kingdom”), 4:18 (“his heavenly kingdom”) | Apply baseline’s anti-fantasy-fiction clarification. |
| gentiles | ἔθνη | ethnē | Unity of Jews and Gentiles | Medium | 4:17 (“all the Gentiles might hear”) | Standard baseline usage; do not gloss as “non-believers.” |
| Father | πατήρ | patēr | Adoption into God’s Family | Medium | 1:2 | Standard greeting formula; baseline pastoral-sensitivity note applies. |
| Holy Spirit | πνεῦμα ἅγιον | pneuma hagion | Sanctification | Critical | 1:14 | ”The Holy Spirit who dwells within us” guards the deposit — apply baseline’s anti-impersonal-”vibes” clarification. |
| Jesus / God / Christ | Ἰησοῦς / θεός / Χριστός | Iēsous / theos / Christos | Christology / God | Critical | throughout | Standard baseline usage throughout the letter’s greetings and doxologies. |
B. New Terms Specific to 2 Timothy
| Term | Original | Transliteration | Doctrine | Risk | Key occurrence(s) | Translation notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| God-breathed | θεόπνευστος | theopneustos | Inspiration and Sufficiency of Scripture | Critical | 3:16 | FALSE-FRIEND DRIFT with contemporary “inspired/inspiring” (subjectively moving, motivating). Must render “God-breathed” and explicitly deny the aesthetic/emotional sense; this is a claim about divine origin, not emotional impact. |
| Scripture / sacred writings | γραφή / ἱερὰ γράμματα | graphē / hiera grammata | Inspiration and Sufficiency of Scripture | High | 3:15-16 | Contemporary comparative-religion pluralism treats “sacred writings” as a neutral generic category; must state the specific, unique sufficiency claim (“able to make you wise for salvation”) explicitly, not merely generic reverence for old religious literature. |
| complete, thoroughly equipped | ἄρτιος, ἐξηρτισμένος | artios, exērtismenos | Inspiration and Sufficiency of Scripture | Medium | 3:17 | Grounds the sufficiency claim (no supplementary revelation required); note denominational contest (Scripture alone vs. Scripture-plus-tradition models) per baseline transparency convention. |
| man of God | ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ ἄνθρωπος | ho tou theou anthrōpos | Inspiration and Sufficiency of Scripture | Medium | 3:17 | Gender-language sensitivity: an OT covenantal-office idiom, not a claim restricting Scripture’s equipping work to men; clarify or note gender-inclusive alternatives. |
| deposit / entrusted | παραθήκη / παρατίθημι | parathēkē / paratithēmi | Guarding Sound Doctrine; Faithful Transmission of the Gospel | High | 1:12, 1:14, 2:2 | FALSE-FRIEND DRIFT with contemporary banking/security-deposit sense (money set aside). Clarify explicitly: a trust of content (true doctrine) to be preserved intact and transmitted, not a financial transaction. |
| pattern of sound words | ὑποτύπωσις ὑγιαινόντων λόγων | hypotypōsis hygiainontōn logōn | Guarding Sound Doctrine | Medium | 1:13 | Shares the “sound = healthy” root with 4:3; “pattern” (template to be followed exactly) is a workable modern analogy. |
| sound teaching / sound doctrine | ὑγιαίνουσα διδασκαλία | hygiainousa didaskalia | Guarding Sound Doctrine | High | 4:3; cf. 1:13 | FALSE-FRIEND RISK (moderate-strong): contemporary “sound” defaults to financial/acoustic senses, obscuring Paul’s medical health/disease metaphor (healthy teaching vs. “gangrenous,” 2:17). Must surface the health-metaphor explicitly. |
| rightly handling the word of truth | ὀρθοτομέω | orthotomeō | Guarding Sound Doctrine | High | 2:15 | Rare compound with no exact single-word English equivalent; KJV’s “rightly dividing” is now frequently (mis)read as endorsing a specific later theological system (dispensational age-division) rather than “handling Scripture truthfully and accurately.” Clarify plainly. |
| gangrene | γάγγραινα | gangraina | Guarding Sound Doctrine | Low | 2:17 | Vivid, medically-literal, low misreading risk; reinforces the sound/healthy-teaching metaphor family. |
| profane, empty chatter | βέβηλος κενοφωνία | bebēlos kenophōnia | Guarding Sound Doctrine | Medium | 2:16 | Keep paired with “gangrene” (v.17) so the seriousness (not mere annoyance) of empty doctrinal talk is retained. |
| the resurrection has already happened | τὴν ἀνάστασιν ἤδη γεγονέναι | tēn anastasin ēdē gegonenai | Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days | High | 2:18 | A concrete ancient case study of doctrinal apostasy targeting baseline “resurrection”; note structural resemblance to some contemporary purely-symbolic resurrection readings. |
| disqualified / counterfeit (regarding the faith) | ἀδόκιμος | adokimos | Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days | Medium | 3:8 | Obsolescence: metallurgical assay-testing background (failing a purity test) is unfamiliar; must be explained, not assumed. |
| form of godliness, denying its power | μόρφωσις εὐσεβείας… δύναμιν ἀρνέομαι | morphōsis eusebeias… dynamin arneomai | Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days | High | 3:5 | Precise outward/inward, appearance/substance contrast must be made explicit; “godliness” (εὐσέβεια) is an obsolescing English word requiring active definition. |
| last days | ἔσχαται ἡμέραι | eschatai hēmerai | Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days | High | 3:1 | Popular “end-times” media culture risks narrowing this to an imminent-future-only category; NT’s “already inaugurated, ongoing since Christ” sense must be stated so the vice list is read as perennially, not merely futuristically, relevant. |
| vice list (self-love, lovers of pleasure, etc.) | φίλαυτοι, φιλήδονοι, κ.τ.λ. | philautoi, philēdonoi, etc. | Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days | Medium | 3:2-4 | ”Lovers of self” and “lovers of pleasure” collide directly with contemporary positive self-love/self-care discourse; distinguish disordered self-idolatry from healthy self-regard explicitly. |
| impostors / charlatans | γόητες | goētes | Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days | Medium | 3:13 | False-friend note: modern “impostor” (as in “impostor syndrome”) has drifted toward a psychological self-doubt concept; the biblical sense is an active, deceptive religious con-artist. |
| turn away / turn aside to myths | ἀποστρέφω, ἐκτρέπω, μῦθος | apostrephō, ektrepō, mythos | Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days | Medium | 4:4 | Modern “myth” (= debunked popular misconception) is a partial asset; guard against a sympathetic comparative-religion sense of “myth” that would soften Paul’s pejorative use. |
| itching ears | κνήθω | knēthō | Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days | Low | 4:3 | Already a stable, vivid, well-known English idiom. |
| appearing | ἐπιφάνεια | epiphaneia | The Charge to Preach the Word; Assurance of Reward | High | 1:10 (first coming), 4:1, 4:8 (second coming) | FALSE-FRIEND DRIFT: contemporary “an epiphany” = a sudden personal insight, entirely unlike Paul’s objective, public, cosmic event. Distinguish the letter’s two distinct senses (past incarnation vs. future return) explicitly. |
| I solemnly charge | διαμαρτύρομαι | diamartyromai | The Charge to Preach the Word | Medium | 4:1 | Contemporary “charge” carries a criminal-legal false-friend risk (being accused of a crime); clarify as a solemn commissioning, not an accusation. |
| preach | κηρύσσω | kēryssō | The Charge to Preach the Word | High | 4:2 | Negative cultural coding (“preachy,” “don’t preach at me”) parallels the Romans baseline’s “evangelism” risk; restore the positive sense of authorized, faithful public proclamation. |
| herald | κῆρυξ | kēryx | The Charge to Preach the Word | Medium | 1:11 | Mildly archaic English word; underlying sense (publicly authorized proclamation, not personal opinion) should be made explicit. |
| evangelist | εὐαγγελιστής | euangelistēs | The Charge to Preach the Word; Faithful Transmission of the Gospel | Medium | 4:5 | Same negative cultural coding as “preach” and the Romans baseline’s “evangelism” entry; restore positive, costly, faithful-proclamation sense. |
| be sober-minded / watchful | νήφω | nēphō | Perseverance under Suffering | Medium | 4:5 | Contemporary “sober” is now almost exclusively about alcohol/substance recovery; the metaphorical extension to mental clarity/vigilance must be made explicit. |
| endure suffering / suffer hardship | κακοπαθέω, πάσχω, παθήματα, διωγμός | kakopatheō, paschō, pathēmata, diōgmos | Perseverance under Suffering | High | 1:8, 2:3, 2:9, 3:11-12, 4:5 | Domestication risk: comfortable Western contexts may minimize “suffering/persecution” to mean generic inconvenience; anchor to Paul’s concrete examples (imprisonment, abandonment, city-to-city persecution). |
| poured out as a drink offering | σπένδομαι | spendomai | Perseverance under Suffering | High | 4:6 | OBSOLESCENCE: the libation/drink-offering ritual has no modern equivalent and requires active explanation of ancient sacrificial practice, not correction of a wrong assumption. |
| my departure | ἀνάλυσις | analysis | Perseverance under Suffering | Medium | 4:6 | Notable but low-risk etymological curiosity: the direct root of modern English “analysis” (an unrelated meaning); all major English versions correctly render “departure,” not “analysis.” |
| soldier, athlete, farmer | στρατιώτης, ἀθλητής, γεωργός | stratiōtēs, athlētēs, geōrgos | Perseverance under Suffering; Assurance of Reward | Low-Medium | 2:3-6 | The athlete’s qualifier “according to the rules” (νομίμως) is worth surfacing for Assurance of Reward: the crown depends on faithful, rule-following endurance, not mere participation. |
| fought the good fight / finished the race / kept the faith | ἠγώνισμαι, τετέλεκα, τετήρηκα | ēgōnismai, teteleka, tetērēka | Assurance of Reward; Guarding Sound Doctrine | Low (idioms) / High (“kept the faith,” baseline “faith” reuse) | 4:7 | ”Kept the faith” should be cross-referenced explicitly with ch.1’s “guard the good deposit” — same underlying task, two images (a trust received; a trust kept). |
| the crown of righteousness | στέφανος τῆς δικαιοσύνης | stephanos tēs dikaiosynēs | Assurance of Reward | High | 4:8 | FALSE-FRIEND RISK: contemporary “crown” defaults to monarchical/ruling-authority imagery; the classical athletic-victory-wreath sense (a reward for a race run well) must be made explicit. Denominational-transparency note: state the range of views on whether this implies unconditional, conditional, or reward-distinct-from-salvation assurance. |
| the righteous Judge | δίκαιος κριτής | dikaios kritēs | Assurance of Reward | Medium | 4:8 | Foreground the positive, reward-granting dimension of Christ’s righteous judgment as good news for the faithful, countering contemporary “don’t judge” resistance to judgment language generally. |
| entrust / faithful men | παρατίθημι / πιστοὶ ἄνθρωποι | paratithēmi / pistoi anthrōpoi | Faithful Transmission of the Gospel | High | 2:2 | Same false-friend risk as “deposit” (financial-transaction drift); models the letter’s four-generation transmission chain (Paul → Timothy → faithful men → others). |
| knowledge of the truth | ἐπίγνωσις ἀληθείας | epignōsis alētheias | Guarding Sound Doctrine; Apostasy and False Teachers | Medium | 2:25, 3:7 | Contemporary “knowledge” defaults to propositional/informational sense; ἐπίγνωσις carries a fuller, more relational and settled recognition. |
| gentleness | πραότης | praotēs | Guarding Sound Doctrine | Low-Medium | 2:25 | Distinguish explicitly from weakness/timidity; this is disciplined strength aimed at winning back an opponent, not surrender of doctrinal conviction. |
| vessels of honor / dishonor | σκεύη εἰς τιμήν / ἀτιμίαν | skeuē eis timēn / atimian | Guarding Sound Doctrine; Sanctification | Medium | 2:20-21 | Household-vessel metaphor for varying roles within the church; pairs with baseline “sanctification” (ἡγιασμένον, v.21). |
| snare of the devil | παγὶς τοῦ διαβόλου | pagis tou diabolou | Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days | Low | 2:26 | Straightforward hunting-trap metaphor; low risk once glossed. |
| the trustworthy saying | πιστὸς ὁ λόγος | pistos ho logos | Assurance of Reward; Perseverance under Suffering | Medium | 2:11-13 | Introduces a compact confessional statement touching Christ’s own faithfulness despite human faithlessness — flag for denominationally-transparent handling per the baseline’s “Assurance of Salvation” convention. |
C. Names and Non-Theological Proper Nouns (Reviewed, No New Terms)
The following proper names and everyday items occur across the letter and were reviewed for theological load per the PRD’s full-coverage mandate; none introduce new doctrinal vocabulary requiring a glossary entry: David (2:8, baseline reuse — see Section A “seed of David”), Jannes and Jambres (3:8, historical-background note only), Lois and Eunice (1:5), Onesiphorus and his household (1:16-18), Hymenaeus and Philetus (2:17), Crescens, Titus, Dalmatia, Luke, Mark, Tychicus, Carpus, Troas, Demas, Alexander the coppersmith, Prisca and Aquila (4:9-21), and everyday items cloak, books, parchments (4:13). These are noted explicitly per the full-book-coverage requirement rather than silently omitted.
Risk Summary
| Risk Tier | Count (new terms, Section B) | Count (baseline reused, Section A) | Review routing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Critical | 1 (God-breathed) | 8 (grace, righteousness, salvation, election, Lord, Holy Spirit, Jesus/God/Christ, resurrection) | Human theologian |
| High | 10 (Scripture/sacred writings, deposit/entrusted, sound teaching, rightly handling the word of truth, resurrection-already-happened, form of godliness, last days, appearing, preach, crown of righteousness) | 3 (faith, calling, glory) | Human theologian |
| Medium | ~18 | 5 (holy, sanctification, peace, power of God, kingdom of God, seed of David, gentiles, Father) | Native speaker review |
| Low | ~6 | 1 (exhort) | Automated review |
This glossary extends, and never contradicts, the baseline Romans translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json. All baseline-recorded renderings above are reused verbatim; only terms genuinely new to 2 Timothy’s vocabulary receive fresh risk assessment.
Critical Risk Terms
Grace
Approved rendering: grace
Transliteration: grace
Doctrine: Grace
Rejected alternatives: elegance/poise (dominant secular sense), a grace period (dominant legal/financial sense)
Original: χάρις
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package exactly (translation, transliteration, doctrine_risk, doctrine, alternatives_rejected unchanged). 2 Timothy occurrences: 1:2, 1:9, 2:1, 4:22. 1:9’s ‘grace…given us in Christ Jesus before the ages began’ sharpens the baseline’s apart-from-works note by grounding grace entirely outside human merit or even historical circumstance; state this explicitly every occurrence.
Righteousness
Approved rendering: righteousness
Transliteration: righteousness
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: self-righteous / holier-than-thou (dominant negative connotation in casual usage)
Original: δικαιοσύνη
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package exactly. 2 Timothy occurrences: 2:22, 3:16, 4:8. 3:16’s ‘training in righteousness’ and 4:8’s ‘crown of righteousness’ both build on the forensic baseline sense without replacing it: Scripture’s training produces righteous living as fruit, not as the means of earning the standing itself.
Salvation
Approved rendering: salvation
Transliteration: salvation
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: being saved (contested denominational shorthand), rescue (too generic a gloss on its own)
Original: σωτηρία
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package exactly. 2 Timothy occurrences: 2:10, 3:15, 4:18. State which sense a given passage intends: 3:15 (Scripture’s ongoing role making one wise ‘for’ salvation) leans toward the lifelong-process sense; 4:18 (‘save me for his heavenly kingdom’) leans toward the final, climactic sense. Guard against the fully secularized generic ‘any rescue’ sense in both.
Resurrection
Approved rendering: resurrection
Transliteration: resurrection
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ
Rejected alternatives: Easter (commercialized cultural holiday sense)
Original: ἀνάστασις
Category: Eschatology
Inherited from Romans package exactly (baseline entry doctrine_risk was High there; this curriculum’s doctrine registry documents Resurrection of Christ at High for 2 Timothy specifically — see doctrine_risk_registry.json; the term-level entry itself, per bible_term_registry.json baseline, remains Critical and that tier is preserved here as the binding term-level enforcement value). 2 Timothy occurrences: 1:10, 2:8, 2:18. 2:18’s heresy that ‘the resurrection has already happened’ is a direct, narrated attack on this doctrine within the letter’s own storyline and must be flagged as a live doctrinal danger, not a historical curiosity, on every occurrence.
Lord
Approved rendering: Lord
Transliteration: Lord
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: boss / master (loses exclusivity and worship-worthiness), a British Lord (aristocratic title sense)
Original: κύριος
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package exactly. 2 Timothy occurrences (unusually dense): 1:2, 1:8, 1:16, 1:18, 2:19, 2:22, 2:24, 4:8, 4:14, 4:17, 4:18, 4:22. Its especially personal, present-tense use in 4:17 (‘the Lord stood by me and strengthened me’) requires the baseline’s restored sense of living, felt, exclusive allegiance, not an archaic or literary-sounding title.
Messiah
Approved rendering: Christ
Transliteration: Christos
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
Rejected alternatives: a messiah complex (pop-psychology pejorative for grandiosity)
Original: Χριστός
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package’s ‘messiah’ entry, rendered here as ‘Christ’ consistent with this letter’s dense, repeated use of the compound title ‘Christ Jesus’/‘Jesus Christ’ (nearly every chapter). Retain the title’s full positive, fulfillment-specific sense on each occurrence, not merely as part of a proper name; be aware of the messiah-complex pejorative association per baseline.
Election
Approved rendering: elect / election
Transliteration: eklogē / eklektoi
Doctrine: Effectual Calling
Rejected alternatives: an election (near-total dominant contemporary sense: a political vote)
Original: ἐκλεκτοί
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package exactly. 2 Timothy occurrence: 2:10 (‘for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation’). Apply baseline’s anti-political-voting clarification with full force: God’s sovereign, prior, unilateral choice, not a majority vote or campaign outcome — the very group for whose sake Paul willingly endures suffering.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: Holy Spirit
Transliteration: Holy Spirit
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: good vibes / positive energy (vague contemporary spiritual substitutes)
Original: πνεῦμα ἅγιον
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package exactly. 2 Timothy occurrence: 1:14, ‘the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.’ Grounds the guarding of the entrusted deposit in the Spirit’s power, not Timothy’s own willpower; apply baseline’s anti-impersonal-‘vibes’ clarification.
Jesus
Approved rendering: Jesus
Transliteration: Jesus
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: Jesus (as a casual interjection/expletive)
Original: Ἰησοῦς
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package exactly. Occurs throughout 2 Timothy’s greetings, charges, and doxologies. Guard against ‘historical Jesus’ framings that quietly strip out the divine claims made about him elsewhere in the letter (e.g., 4:1’s judge of the living and the dead).
God
Approved rendering: God
Transliteration: God
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: a higher power (deliberately vague contemporary substitute), the universe (New-Age-influenced impersonal substitute)
Original: θεός
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package exactly. Occurs throughout 2 Timothy’s greetings, charges, and doxologies. Use the established, doctrinally precise term throughout; avoid vague ‘higher power’ substitutes.
God Breathed
Approved rendering: God-breathed
Transliteration: theopneustos
Doctrine: Inspiration and Sufficiency of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: inspired by God / divinely inspired (reintroduces the very false-friend risk this term exists to avoid), given by inspiration of God (KJV; ancestor of the modern false-friend problem)
Original: θεόπνευστος
Category: Scripture
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 3:16. CRITICAL FALSE-FRIEND DRIFT: contemporary English ‘inspired/inspiring’ overwhelmingly means subjectively moving, motivating, or creatively stimulating (‘an inspiring speech,’ ‘inspired by a true story’) — a human-centered aesthetic/emotional category carrying no claim about divine origin or truthfulness. A reader supplying this default sense will hear ‘Scripture is inspired’ as ‘Scripture is emotionally moving,’ entirely missing Paul’s claim of divine authorship and consequent authority. Render ‘God-breathed’ (retaining the image of God’s own breath/Spirit as Scripture’s direct origin) and explicitly deny the aesthetic/emotional sense on every first substantive use per document.
High Risk Terms
Gospel
Approved rendering: gospel
Transliteration: gospel
Doctrine: Faithful Transmission of the 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 (baseline risk tier there was Medium; this curriculum’s registry documents it at High given its load in the Faithful Transmission doctrine — see doctrine_risk_registry.json, which supersedes tier for this curriculum’s usage without contradicting the underlying baseline term entry). 2 Timothy 2:8’s ‘that is my gospel’ and 4:5’s ‘evangelist’ (same root) show the term functioning as a fixed body of content to be guarded and handed on, not freshly invented — this reinforces, rather than alters, the baseline’s authoritative-proclamation sense.
Faith
Approved rendering: faith
Transliteration: faith
Doctrine: Faith
Rejected alternatives: faith in humanity / a leap of faith (secularized idioms for generic optimism or an unsupported gamble)
Original: πίστις
Category: Faith
Inherited from Romans package exactly. 2 Timothy occurrences: 1:5, 1:13, 2:18, 2:22, 3:8, 3:10, 3:15, 4:7. New nuance added by this letter: faith as something actively ‘kept’ (4:7, ‘I have kept the faith’), pairing the trust-sense with a guarding/custodial sense — cross-reference with ‘deposit’ below, which describes the same underlying task from a different angle.
Called
Approved rendering: called
Transliteration: called
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Original: κλητός / ἐκάλεσεν
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package exactly. 2 Timothy occurrence: 1:9, ‘who saved us and called us to a holy calling.’ Directly pairs with ‘not because of our works,’ reinforcing the baseline’s God-initiates-not-self-selects clarification.
Calling
Approved rendering: calling
Transliteration: calling
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Rejected alternatives: finding your calling (dominant contemporary secular sense: career vocation discovered through introspection)
Original: κλῆσις ἁγία
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package exactly. 2 Timothy occurrence: 1:9 (‘holy calling’). Contemporary self-actualization culture’s repurposing of ‘calling’ as career vocation discovered through introspection risks reversing 1:9’s explicit direction of agency: God calls and purposes; Timothy does not self-select his ministry through personal reflection.
Glory
Approved rendering: glory
Transliteration: glory
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: glory days (nostalgic secular usage), a glory hound (pejorative self-seeking usage)
Original: δόξα
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package exactly (baseline term-level risk Medium; this curriculum’s core glossary documents it at High for 2 Timothy given its doxological load — see 08_core_glossary.md Section A). 2 Timothy occurrences: 2:10 (goal of the elect’s salvation, ‘with eternal glory’), 4:18 (closing doxology, ‘to him be the glory forever and ever’). Distinguish from nostalgic and self-seeking secular senses per baseline on both occurrences.
Scripture Sacred Writings
Approved rendering: Scripture / the sacred writings / the holy Scriptures
Transliteration: graphē / hiera grammata
Doctrine: Inspiration and Sufficiency of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: one of the world’s sacred texts (flattens the specific sufficiency claim into generic comparative-religion neutrality)
Original: γραφή (v.16) / ἱερὰ γράμματα (v.15)
Category: Scripture
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 3:15 (‘sacred writings,’ hiera grammata, Timothy’s Jewish upbringing) and 3:16 (‘Scripture,’ graphē, Paul’s standard technical term). Contemporary academic and popular-media framing routinely treats the Bible as one human literary artifact among many world religions’ comparable ‘sacred writings,’ a neutral comparative-religion category that flattens Paul’s specific claim of unique sufficiency (‘able to make you wise for salvation,’ 3:15). This uniqueness claim must be stated directly, not assumed to survive contact with pluralistic default assumptions.
Deposit
Approved rendering: deposit / what has been entrusted
Transliteration: parathēkē / paratithēmi
Doctrine: Guarding Sound Doctrine
Rejected alternatives: the trust / the treasure entrusted to you (acceptable descriptive expansion, but should not fully replace ‘deposit’ given its established English Bible tradition)
Original: παραθήκη / παρατίθημι
Category: Ministry
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 1:12, 1:14. FALSE-FRIEND DRIFT: contemporary English ‘deposit’ is dominated by banking (a bank deposit) and rental/security-deposit senses — money set aside, often refundable, in a transactional financial context. Clarify explicitly on every first substantive use: this is a sacred trust of truth to be preserved intact and passed on, not a financial transaction. Cross-reference with 4:7’s ‘I have kept the faith’ and 2:2’s ‘entrust,’ which describe the same underlying task from different angles.
Entrust Faithful Men
Approved rendering: entrust… to faithful people
Transliteration: parathou… pistois anthrōpois
Doctrine: Faithful Transmission of the Gospel
Rejected alternatives: hand over to reliable people (acceptable descriptive gloss)
Original: παράθου… πιστοῖς ἀνθρώποις
Category: Ministry
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 2:2. Same banking/financial false-friend risk as ‘deposit’ applies to this verb form. ‘Faithful’ carries the baseline ‘faith’ family’s risk of being read as generic loyalty or optimism rather than the specific sense of proven doctrinal and moral reliability required for safe transmission. Models the letter’s four-generation transmission chain: Paul, Timothy, faithful people, others also.
Sound Doctrine
Approved rendering: sound teaching / sound doctrine
Transliteration: hygiainousa didaskalia
Doctrine: Guarding Sound Doctrine
Rejected alternatives: reliable teaching / correct teaching (loses the medical health/disease metaphor entirely), wholesome teaching (NLT; a genuine partial asset that does surface the health metaphor, worth citing in commentary)
Original: ὑγιαίνουσα διδασκαλία
Category: Doctrine
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 4:3; cf. 1:13. FALSE-FRIEND RISK: contemporary English ‘sound’ defaults to financial (‘a sound investment’) or acoustic (‘surround sound’) senses, obscuring the underlying medical health/disease metaphor running through the Pastoral Epistles. Must surface the ‘healthy’ root meaning explicitly (sound = healthy, life-giving doctrine, opposed to diseased/gangrenous teaching, 2:17) every occurrence, not simply gloss as ‘reliable’ or ‘correct.‘
Rightly Handling Word
Approved rendering: rightly handling the word of truth
Transliteration: orthotomounta ton logon tēs alētheias
Doctrine: Guarding Sound Doctrine
Rejected alternatives: rightly dividing the word of truth (KJV; rejected as primary rendering — now frequently misheard as endorsing a specific later dispensational system of Bible interpretation rather than Paul’s general sense of truthful handling)
Original: ὀρθοτομοῦντα τὸν λόγον τῆς ἀληθείας
Category: Doctrine
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 2:15. Rare compound with no exact single-word English equivalent. Render as a descriptive paraphrase: ‘handling the word of truth accurately and honestly, without cutting corners or twisting the text.’ Note the KJV phrase’s history of being repurposed for a different, later theological framework without adjudicating that wider debate.
Resurrection Already Happened
Approved rendering: the resurrection has already happened
Transliteration: tēn anastasin ēdē gegonenai
Doctrine: Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days
Original: τὴν ἀνάστασιν ἤδη γεγονέναι
Category: Apostasy
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 2:18. Hymenaeus and Philetus’s specific heresy: an over-spiritualized, fully-realized eschatology denying any future bodily resurrection. A concrete ancient case study of doctrinal apostasy targeting the baseline ‘resurrection’ doctrine directly; note structural resemblance to some contemporary purely-symbolic resurrection readings, making the ancient error a live, present temptation.
Form Of Godliness
Approved rendering: a form of godliness, denying its power
Transliteration: morphōsin eusebeias… tēn de dynamin autēs ērnēmenoi
Doctrine: Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days
Rejected alternatives: acting religious (NLT; risks softening ‘godliness’ into generic religious behavior and losing the appearance/substance contrast)
Original: μόρφωσιν εὐσεβείας… τὴν δὲ δύναμιν αὐτῆς ἠρνημένοι
Category: Apostasy
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 3:5. ‘Godliness’ (eusebeia) is an obsolescing, archaic-sounding English word outside religious contexts and needs active definition. More significantly, ‘form’ (morphōsis) risks being read merely as ‘a type/kind of godliness’ rather than ‘an empty outward shell of’ godliness — the outward/inward, appearance/substance contrast is the entire point and must be made explicit, not left to the word ‘form’ alone.
Last Days
Approved rendering: last days
Transliteration: eschatai hēmerai
Doctrine: Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days
Rejected alternatives: the end times (risks reinforcing the imminent-future-only misreading rather than correcting it)
Original: ἔσχαται ἡμέραι
Category: Eschatology
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 3:1. The NT’s inaugurated eschatology — the period between Christ’s first and second comings, already underway in Timothy’s own time. Contemporary popular ‘end-times’/prophecy media culture risks narrowing this into a narrow, imminent-future-only category; the ‘already inaugurated, ongoing’ sense must be stated explicitly so the vice list of 3:2-4 is read as perennially, not merely futuristically, relevant.
Appearing
Approved rendering: appearing
Transliteration: epiphaneia
Doctrine: The Charge to Preach the Word
Rejected alternatives: an epiphany (dominant contemporary sense: a sudden personal flash of insight)
Original: ἐπιφάνεια
Category: Christology
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 1:10 (past incarnation sense), 4:1 and 4:8 (future return sense). FALSE-FRIEND DRIFT: contemporary English ‘an epiphany’ almost exclusively means a sudden personal insight, a subjective, individual, psychological event utterly unlike Paul’s objective, public, cosmic event. Distinguish the letter’s two distinct uses explicitly so readers do not conflate the past incarnation with the future return, or reduce either to a private realization.
Preach
Approved rendering: preach
Transliteration: kēryxon
Doctrine: The Charge to Preach the Word
Rejected alternatives: announce / proclaim (acceptable synonyms, but ‘preach’ should be retained and restored rather than avoided, given its established English Bible tradition)
Original: κήρυξον (κηρύσσω)
Category: Ministry
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 4:2. Contemporary secular and even some Christian usage codes ‘preach’/‘preachy’ negatively (moralizing, being lectured at, ‘don’t preach at me’), paralleling the Romans baseline’s negative-coding note for ‘evangelism.’ Must be restored to its positive sense of authorized, faithful public proclamation of a given message, not personal moralizing.
Endure Suffering
Approved rendering: endure suffering / hardship
Transliteration: kakopathēson / paschō / pathēmata / diōgmos
Doctrine: Perseverance under Suffering
Rejected alternatives: a hard day / stress (domesticating trivializations)
Original: κακοπάθησον / πάσχω / παθήματα / διωγμός
Category: Perseverance
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 1:8, 2:3, 2:9, 3:11-12, 4:5. Comfortable, low-persecution Western reading contexts risk domesticating ‘suffering/hardship’ into generic inconvenience or minor stress. Anchor to Paul’s concrete named examples (imprisonment, abandonment, persecution city to city, expected execution) rather than allowing it to soften.
Drink Offering
Approved rendering: poured out like a drink offering
Transliteration: spendomai
Doctrine: Perseverance under Suffering
Rejected alternatives: my life is being given up like a sacrifice (flattens the specific wine-libation image into generic sacrifice language)
Original: σπένδομαι
Category: Perseverance
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 4:6. OBSOLESCENCE RISK: the libation/drink-offering ritual (ceremonially pouring out wine as an act of worship) has no living cultural equivalent for contemporary readers and requires active explanation of the ancient sacrificial practice, not correction of a wrong assumption, given how central and moving this image is to Paul’s framing of his approaching death as worship rather than tragedy.
Crown Of Righteousness
Approved rendering: crown of righteousness
Transliteration: ho tēs dikaiosynēs stephanos
Doctrine: Assurance of Reward
Rejected alternatives: victor’s wreath of righteousness (more etymologically precise but would break consistency with other NT crown-of-life/crown-of-glory passages), the medal of righteousness (MSG; instructive for illustrating the imagery in commentary, never as primary published text)
Original: ὁ τῆς δικαιοσύνης στέφανος
Category: Reward
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 4:8. FALSE-FRIEND RISK: contemporary English ‘crown’ is dominated by monarchical imagery (royal crowns, coronations, ‘the Crown’ as a name for British state authority) and unrelated everyday senses (a dental crown). The distinct classical athletic-victory-wreath sense (stephanos, not diadēma) — a reward for a race run well, not a token of ruling authority — must be made explicit. Also touches the baseline’s documented denominational contest over assurance of salvation: whether this reward implies unconditional, conditional, or reward-distinct-from-salvation assurance should be stated transparently.
Medium Risk Terms
Apostle
Approved rendering: apostle
Transliteration: apostle
Doctrine: Apostleship
Original: ἀπόστολος
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package exactly. 2 Timothy occurrences: 1:1, 1:11. Paul’s apostolic identity grounds the letter’s entire charge to Timothy — the deposit being guarded originates from apostolic, not self-generated, authority.
Holy
Approved rendering: holy
Transliteration: holy
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: holier-than-thou (negative idiom), holy cow / holy moly (content-free exclamations)
Original: ἅγιος / ἅγιοι γράμματα (adj.)
Category: Sanctification
Inherited from Romans package exactly. 2 Timothy occurrences: 1:9 (‘holy calling’), 3:15 (implicitly, via ‘sacred writings,’ hiera, a related but distinct Greek term from hagios — see scripture_sacred_writings entry). Must be actively re-taught, not assumed familiar.
Sanctification
Approved rendering: sanctification
Transliteration: sanctification
Doctrine: Sanctification
Original: ἡγιασμένον (ἁγιάζω)
Category: Sanctification
Inherited from Romans package exactly. 2 Timothy occurrence: 2:21 (hēgiasmenon, ‘sanctified,’ the household vessel ‘set apart… for honor’). Obsolescence risk, not false-friend risk, as in baseline; the vessel-of-honor metaphor gives this otherwise abstract term a vivid, concrete picture worth foregrounding.
Peace
Approved rendering: peace
Transliteration: peace
Doctrine: Peace with God
Rejected alternatives: world peace / inner peace (dominant secular senses)
Original: εἰρήνη
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package exactly. 2 Timothy occurrences: 1:2 (greeting), 2:22 (pursue… peace, alongside righteousness, faith, and love). Distinguish from political or merely psychological senses per baseline.
Spiritual Gifts
Approved rendering: spiritual gift
Transliteration: charisma
Doctrine: Spiritual Gifts
Rejected alternatives: gifted (dominant secular sense: innate talent or academic aptitude)
Original: χάρισμα
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package exactly. 2 Timothy occurrence: 1:6 (‘fan into flame the gift of God’). Adds an active-stewardship dimension to the baseline’s aptitude-versus-grace-enablement clarification: this is not an innate talent that persists automatically, but a Spirit-given enablement, given through the laying on of hands, that can cool if neglected.
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: kingdom of God
Transliteration: kingdom of God
Doctrine: Kingdom Mission
Rejected alternatives: a fantasy kingdom (contemporary media associations)
Original: βασιλεία (αὐτοῦ / ἐπουράνιος)
Category: Kingdom
Inherited from Romans package exactly. 2 Timothy occurrences: 4:1 (‘his kingdom,’ tied to Christ’s future judgment/appearing), 4:18 (‘his heavenly kingdom,’ Paul’s final hope). Apply baseline’s anti-fantasy-fiction-association caution to both occurrences; restate as Christ’s real, present-and-coming sovereign reign.
Gentiles
Approved rendering: Gentiles
Transliteration: Gentiles
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Rejected alternatives: non-believers (common but incorrect modern gloss)
Original: ἔθνη
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package exactly. 2 Timothy occurrence: 4:17 (‘so that all the Gentiles might hear it’). Frames Paul’s deliverance from danger as instrumental to gospel proclamation reaching non-Jewish peoples; do not gloss as ‘non-believers.‘
Power Of God
Approved rendering: power of God
Transliteration: power of God
Doctrine: Power of God for Salvation
Original: δύναμις (θεοῦ) / ἐνδυναμόω
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package exactly. 2 Timothy occurrences: 1:7-8 (Spirit of ‘power’ contrasted with a ‘spirit of fear’), 4:17 (endynamoō, ‘the Lord… strengthened me’). Reframed here positively and personally: courage-giving strength for suffering ministry and the Lord’s direct, felt empowering presence in extremity — distinguish from the largely negative secular power-abuse discourse per baseline.
Seed Of David
Approved rendering: seed of David / descended from David
Transliteration: sperma Dauid
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Rejected alternatives: descendant of David (acceptable modern-register gloss)
Original: ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυίδ
Category: Covenant
Inherited from Romans package exactly. 2 Timothy occurrence: 2:8, ‘descended from David,’ paired directly with ‘risen from the dead’ in the same clause. The covenant background should still be actively supplied, not assumed known from the David-and-Goliath narrative alone, per baseline.
Father
Approved rendering: Father
Transliteration: Father
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Original: πατήρ
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package exactly. 2 Timothy occurrence: 1:2 (greeting formula). Apply baseline’s Catholic-priest-title ambiguity note and pastoral sensitivity for readers with painful human father figures.
Equipped For Ministry
Approved rendering: equipped / thoroughly equipped
Transliteration: artios / exērtismenos
Doctrine: Inspiration and Sufficiency of Scripture
Original: ἄρτιος, ἐξηρτισμένος
Category: Scripture
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 3:17. Grounds Scripture’s sufficiency claim: no supplementary revelation is required to fully equip the believer for every good work. Note the live denominational contest, per the baseline’s transparency convention, between traditions holding Scripture’s sole sufficiency (most Protestant/Evangelical) and traditions holding a Scripture-plus-tradition/magisterium model (Catholic, Orthodox); state this range explicitly rather than silently resolving it.
Man Of God
Approved rendering: man of God / the person who serves God
Transliteration: ho tou theou anthrōpos
Doctrine: Inspiration and Sufficiency of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: God’s servant (acceptable gender-inclusive alternative where preferred)
Original: ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ ἄνθρωπος
Category: Scripture
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 3:17. An Old Testament covenant-messenger title (used of Moses, Elijah, etc.), applied here to any believer shaped by Scripture, not a clerical elite. Gender-language sensitivity: reads as gender-specific in contemporary English even though the underlying idiom is a covenantal-office title, not a claim restricting Scripture’s equipping work to men. State the idiom’s OT background explicitly and note the equipping described applies to every believer.
Pattern Of Sound Words
Approved rendering: pattern of sound teaching
Transliteration: hypotypōsis hygiainontōn logōn
Doctrine: Guarding Sound Doctrine
Original: ὑποτύπωσις ὑγιαινόντων λόγων
Category: Doctrine
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 1:13. Shares the ‘sound = healthy’ root with 4:3’s ‘sound doctrine.’ ‘Pattern’ as a fixed template to be followed exactly is a workable modern analogy and can be leaned into rather than avoided; Timothy must hold to Paul’s teaching as a fixed model, not merely a loose inspiration.
Profane Empty Chatter
Approved rendering: godless / irreverent, empty chatter
Transliteration: bebēlous kenophōnias
Doctrine: Guarding Sound Doctrine
Original: βεβήλους κενοφωνίας
Category: Doctrine
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 2:16. Low active-misreading risk, but ‘chatter’ alone risks sounding merely annoying rather than spiritually corrosive; keep paired with the immediately following ‘gangrene’ image (v.17) to retain the seriousness Paul intends.
Disqualified Faith
Approved rendering: disqualified / counterfeit regarding the faith
Transliteration: adokimoi peri tēn pistin
Doctrine: Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days
Original: ἀδόκιμοι περὶ τὴν πίστιν
Category: Apostasy
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 3:8. A metallurgical assay-testing term (metal that fails a purity test and is rejected as counterfeit). Obsolescence risk: this background image is unfamiliar to most contemporary readers; ‘disqualified’ alone reads as a modern sports metaphor and does not carry the ‘found fake on testing’ nuance without explicit explanation.
Vice List
Approved rendering: lovers of self… lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God
Transliteration: philautoi… philēdonoi mallon ē philotheoi
Doctrine: Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days
Original: φίλαυτοι, φιλήδονοι μᾶλλον ἢ φιλόθεοι, κ.τ.λ.
Category: Apostasy
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 3:2-4. An 18-item catalogue of vices climaxing in ‘lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,’ diagnosing disordered love as the root problem of the last days. ‘Lovers of self’ and ‘lovers of pleasure’ collide directly with the broadly positive contemporary therapeutic valuation of self-esteem and self-care, requiring explicit distinction between healthy self-regard and the disordered self-idolatry Paul names.
Impostors
Approved rendering: impostors
Transliteration: goētes
Doctrine: Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days
Original: γόητες
Category: Apostasy
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 3:13. Deceptive religious con-artists (root sense: enchanters/magicians), stronger than a generic ‘bad teacher.’ Rare word (obsolescence); modern ‘impostor’ has drifted toward the psychological self-doubt concept of ‘impostor syndrome,’ a false-friend risk worth flagging so readers do not import that unrelated modern sense in place of the active, deceptive con-artist sense intended.
Myths
Approved rendering: myths / made-up stories
Transliteration: tous mythous
Doctrine: Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days
Rejected alternatives: myths as meaningful cultural narratives (a sympathetic comparative-religion sense that would wrongly soften Paul’s pejorative use)
Original: τοὺς μύθους
Category: Apostasy
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 4:4. Speculative, fictional, doctrinally corrosive fabrication opposed to revealed apostolic truth. Contemporary ‘myth’ most often means ‘a debunked popular misconception,’ a reasonably useful analog; guard against the opposite risk of a sympathetic comparative-religion sense that treats myths as respectable cultural narratives, which would soften Paul’s clearly pejorative, truth-opposing use.
Solemn Charge
Approved rendering: I solemnly charge you
Transliteration: diamartyromai
Doctrine: The Charge to Preach the Word
Original: Διαμαρτύρομαι
Category: Ministry
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 4:1. Contemporary ‘charge’ carries a live false-friend risk from criminal-legal usage (‘charged with a crime,’ ‘pressing charges’), which could wrongly suggest accusation of wrongdoing rather than solemn commissioning made in the presence of God and Christ as witnesses. Clarify as ‘a solemn commission,’ not an accusation.
Herald
Approved rendering: herald / preacher
Transliteration: kēryx
Doctrine: The Charge to Preach the Word
Original: κῆρυξ
Category: Ministry
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 1:11 (‘preacher… apostle… teacher’). Mildly archaic English word (obsolescence) evoking town criers or medieval messengers; the underlying idea — publicly authorized proclamation, not self-generated opinion — should be made explicit, since it directly explains why ‘preach’ in 4:2 means official proclamation.
Evangelist
Approved rendering: evangelist
Transliteration: euangelistou
Doctrine: Faithful Transmission of the Gospel
Original: εὐαγγελιστοῦ
Category: Ministry
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 4:5, ‘do the work of an evangelist.’ Same negative cultural coding the Romans baseline flags for ‘evangelism’ (pushy, intrusive, televangelist-scandal associations) applies to this role-title; restore the positive, costly, faithful-proclamation sense — a concrete task to be done, not merely an abstract job title.
Sober Minded
Approved rendering: be sober-minded / keep a clear mind
Transliteration: nēphe
Doctrine: Perseverance under Suffering
Original: νῆφε (νήφω)
Category: Perseverance
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 4:5. Contemporary English ‘sober’ is now almost exclusively used regarding alcohol/substance recovery; the metaphorical extension to general mental clarity and vigilance in the face of ‘itching ears’ culture must be made explicit, since a reader may otherwise miss the metaphor entirely.
Departure
Approved rendering: departure
Transliteration: analysis (Gk. anaerisis root, transliterated analysis)
Doctrine: Perseverance under Suffering
Rejected alternatives: analysis (the word’s own etymological English descendant, but an entirely unrelated modern meaning and must not be used)
Original: ἀνάλυσις
Category: Perseverance
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 4:6. A nautical (loosing a ship’s mooring lines) or military-camp (striking tent pegs) metaphor for death understood as a journey’s beginning, not an ending. Notable low-risk etymological curiosity: this Greek word is the direct root of the modern English word ‘analysis,’ an unrelated meaning; all major English Bible versions correctly render ‘departure.‘
Ministry Metaphors
Approved rendering: soldier, athlete, farmer
Transliteration: stratiōtēs, athlētēs, geōrgos
Doctrine: Perseverance under Suffering
Original: στρατιώτης, ἀθλῶν/ἀθλητής, γεωργός
Category: Perseverance
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 2:3-6. Three vocational images for ministry: undivided focus (soldier), disciplined rule-keeping (athlete), patient labor before reward (farmer). The athlete’s qualifier ‘according to the rules’ (nomimōs) evokes ancient competition regulations disqualifying rule-breakers regardless of finishing position — worth surfacing explicitly for Assurance of Reward, since the crown is conditioned on faithful, rule-following endurance, not mere participation.
Righteous Judge
Approved rendering: the righteous Judge
Transliteration: ho dikaios kritēs
Doctrine: Assurance of Reward
Original: ὁ δίκαιος κριτής
Category: Reward
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 4:8; cf. 4:1’s ‘judge the living and the dead.’ Christ as the one who both judges and justly rewards faithful service — two functions of the same righteous authority. Contemporary ‘don’t judge’ cultural resistance to judgment language generally should not obscure the positive, reward-granting dimension of Christ’s righteous judgment, which should be foregrounded as good news for the faithful.
Knowledge Of Truth
Approved rendering: knowledge of the truth
Transliteration: epignōsis alētheias
Doctrine: Guarding Sound Doctrine
Original: ἐπίγνωσις ἀληθείας
Category: Doctrine
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 2:25, 3:7. A fuller, more thorough, relational recognition of truth than mere informational knowledge. Contemporary English ‘knowledge’ defaults to propositional/informational sense; epignōsis carries a fuller, more settled and relational recognition, used in both a positive sense (2:25’s goal of gentle correction) and negatively (3:7’s false teachers who never arrive at it).
Gentleness
Approved rendering: gentleness
Transliteration: praotēta
Doctrine: Guarding Sound Doctrine
Rejected alternatives: meekness (KJV; risks sounding like weakness or timidity to contemporary ears)
Original: πρᾳότητα
Category: Doctrine
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 2:25. Disciplined, controlled gentleness aimed at winning back an opponent to repentance, not weakness or capitulation. Should be explicitly distinguished from softness on truth — this is strength under control, aimed at restoration, not surrender of doctrinal conviction.
Vessels Of Honor
Approved rendering: vessels of honor / dishonor
Transliteration: skeuē eis timēn… eis atimian
Doctrine: Sanctification
Original: σκεύη εἰς τιμήν… εἰς ἀτιμίαν
Category: Sanctification
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 2:20-21. A household-vessel metaphor (gold/silver versus wood/clay) for varying roles within the church, calling for self-cleansing to become a vessel ‘for honor.’ Pairs directly with ‘sanctified’ (hēgiasmenon) in the same verse, reinforcing the baseline sanctification entry with a concrete household image.
Trustworthy Saying
Approved rendering: the saying is trustworthy
Transliteration: pistos ho logos
Doctrine: Assurance of Reward
Original: πιστὸς ὁ λόγος
Category: Reward
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 2:11-13. A formulaic introduction marking a quoted, settled, reliable confessional statement (likely an early hymn or creedal fragment). The formula itself is stable in English Bible tradition; the substantive content that follows (dying and reigning with Christ; denial’s consequences; Christ’s own unfailing faithfulness) touches directly on the live denominational debate over assurance and should be flagged for denominationally-transparent handling per the baseline’s ‘Assurance of Salvation’ convention.
Will Of God
Approved rendering: will of God
Transliteration: thelēmatos theou
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Rejected alternatives: personal purpose / life purpose (vague individualized secular substitute)
Original: θελήματος θεοῦ
Category: Calling
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 1:1. God’s sovereign determination and purpose, not human preference or personal opinion. Same self-actualization drift the baseline flags for ‘calling’ applies here: ‘God’s will’ risks being read as a vague, individualized sense of personal purpose rather than God’s objective, sovereign determination behind Paul’s apostleship.
Promise Of Life
Approved rendering: promise of life
Transliteration: epangelian zōēs
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Rejected alternatives: a legal promise / contractual guarantee (dominant modern legal-contractual sense)
Original: ἐπαγγελίαν ζωῆς
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 1:1. A specific covenantal promise of life in Christ Jesus, not a vague hope. Apply the baseline’s ‘covenant’ caution: distinguish this relational, promissory bond from a modern legal-contractual promise or a restrictive-covenant-style clause.
Mercy
Approved rendering: mercy
Transliteration: eleos
Doctrine: Grace
Rejected alternatives: mercy killing / at the mercy of (senses that either sentimentalize or darken the term)
Original: ἔλεος
Category: God
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 1:2 (greeting triad: grace, mercy, peace — expanded from Romans’ grace-and-peace pair). Compassionate favor toward those in need or distress, related to but distinct from grace (favor toward the undeserving as such). Clarify as God’s compassionate favor toward those in distress, fitting a letter written to a suffering, embattled minister.
Testimony
Approved rendering: testimony
Transliteration: martyrion
Doctrine: Faithful Transmission of the Gospel
Original: μαρτύριον
Category: Ministry
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 1:8. Authoritative, truthful witness-bearing to the gospel, at real personal cost. Worth noting the etymological connection to ‘martyr,’ since testimony-bearing in this letter is costly, sometimes to the point of death, as with Paul’s own imprisonment and eventual execution.
Firm Foundation
Approved rendering: God’s firm foundation stands
Transliteration: ho stereos themelios tou theou hestēken
Doctrine: Guarding Sound Doctrine
Original: ὁ στερεὸς θεμέλιος τοῦ θεοῦ ἕστηκεν
Category: Doctrine
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 2:19. A building metaphor of unshakeable stability: despite false teaching’s corrosive spread (2:16-18), God’s sovereign purpose and true church remain unshaken. Pairs with the following clause’s ‘the Lord knows those who are his,’ connecting stability to God’s sovereign knowledge of his own people.
Difficult Times
Approved rendering: difficult / terrible times
Transliteration: chalepoi kairoi
Doctrine: Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days
Rejected alternatives: perilous times (KJV; archaic register)
Original: χαλεποὶ καιροί
Category: Apostasy
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 3:1. A qualitatively distinct, morally dangerous period (kairos, a fitting/appointed time), not merely difficulty in the abstract. Worth surfacing this nuance since it signals a qualitatively identifiable era relevant to every church generation, not only ordinary hardship.
Present Age
Approved rendering: this present age / this present world
Transliteration: ho nyn aiōn
Doctrine: Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days
Rejected alternatives: worldly things (loses the specific temporal-theological eschatological contrast)
Original: ὁ νῦν αἰών
Category: Apostasy
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 4:10, of Demas: ‘having loved this present age.’ The current, passing evil age, contrasted with the age to come. Contemporary readers may not automatically supply this eschatological contrast and could misread it as generic moralistic ‘worldliness’ rather than a specific temporal-theological category naming a real, concrete desertion of gospel ministry.
Abolished Death Life Immortality
Approved rendering: abolished death… life and immortality
Transliteration: katargēsantos ton thanaton, phōtisantos de zōēn kai aphtharsian
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ
Rejected alternatives: destroyed death (risks a naive ‘death no longer occurs’ misreading)
Original: καταργήσαντος τὸν θάνατον, φωτίσαντος δὲ ζωὴν καὶ ἀφθαρσίαν
Category: Eschatology
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 1:10. Christ’s decisive victory over death’s ultimate power, and the incorruptible, undecaying life he brings to light through the gospel. ‘Abolished’ should be read as ‘death’s ultimate power/finality has been broken,’ not ‘death no longer occurs.’ ‘Immortality’ in contemporary secular/sci-fi usage often means merely unending existence, not the specific NT sense of resurrected, incorruptible, embodied life; draw this distinction out explicitly.
Ashamed
Approved rendering: ashamed
Transliteration: epaischynomai
Doctrine: Faithful Transmission of the Gospel
Original: ἐπαισχύνομαι
Category: Ministry
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 1:8, 1:12, 1:16. Social/relational shame at being publicly associated with someone or something — here the gospel, Paul’s imprisonment, and Paul himself. Contemporary honor/shame dynamics are less socially operative for many Western readers than in Paul’s world; the real social-relational cost of public gospel association (illustrated positively by Onesiphorus, 1:16, and negatively by those who abandoned Paul, 1:15, 4:10, 4:16) should be made explicit rather than reduced to mere private embarrassment.
Low Risk Terms
Exhort
Approved rendering: exhort
Transliteration: exhort
Doctrine: Mutual Edification
Original: παρακαλέω
Category: Faith
Inherited from Romans package exactly. 2 Timothy occurrence: 4:2, forming one-third of the pastoral triad (‘reprove, rebuke, and exhort’), paired with ‘complete patience.’ Low risk since it has no significant competing secular meaning.
Gangrene
Approved rendering: gangrene
Transliteration: gangraina
Doctrine: Guarding Sound Doctrine
Original: γάγγραινα
Category: Doctrine
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 2:17. Vivid, medically literal image with low misreading risk; reinforces the sound/healthy-teaching metaphor family running through the letter and describes false teaching’s corrosive, spreading effect.
Itching Ears
Approved rendering: itching ears
Transliteration: knēthomenoi tēn akoēn
Doctrine: Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days
Original: κνηθόμενοι τὴν ἀκοήν
Category: Apostasy
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 4:3. Hearers whose ears crave to be scratched/soothed with pleasing words rather than corrected by the truth. Already a well-known, vivid English idiom with minimal misreading risk; ensure readers connect the idiom back to its specific doctrinal context (consumer-style teacher-selection) rather than treating it as a free-floating cliché.
Ministry Completion Idioms
Approved rendering: fought the good fight, finished the race
Transliteration: ton kalon agōna ēgōnismai, ton dromon teteleka
Doctrine: Assurance of Reward
Original: τὸν καλὸν ἀγῶνα ἠγώνισμαι, τὸν δρόμον τετέλεκα
Category: Reward
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 4:7. Well-established, stable English idioms with low active-misreading risk. Note their pairing with ‘I have kept the faith,’ which shifts from athletic imagery to custodial/guarding imagery for the same underlying idea of a completed, faithful ministry.
Snare Of Devil
Approved rendering: the devil’s snare / trap
Transliteration: pagida tou diabolou
Doctrine: Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days
Original: παγίδα τοῦ διαβόλου
Category: Apostasy
NEW TERM. 2 Timothy 2:26. A hunting-trap image for entrapment in doctrinal error or sin. Straightforward once glossed; frames doctrinal error as more than intellectual mistake — a form of satanic entrapment behind the false teachers’ activity.
Referenced passages