Core Glossary
Core Glossary — James
This glossary consolidates every load-bearing theological term identified in 07_semantic_analysis.md, spanning the entire book of James, chapter 1 through chapter 5. Risk tiers, categories, and definitions follow the baseline doctrine_risk_registry.json framework exactly:
- Critical — a dominant competing meaning in contemporary English (secular, legal, political, or denominational) is strong enough that most readers will confidently supply the wrong sense without deliberate correction. Mandatory human theologian review.
- High — significant secular dilution, cultural erosion, or denominational disagreement meaningfully risks miscommunication. Human theologian review required.
- Medium — some competing usage or reduced cultural resonance, but unlikely to be actively misunderstood with adequate context. Native speaker review recommended.
- Low — minor or negligible risk. Automated review sufficient.
Risk category key: FF = False-Friend Drift · DC = Denominational Contest · CE = Post-Christian Cultural Erosion/Obsolescence · ¶ = baseline-reused term (rendering locked to translation_memory.json)
Doctrine: Faith and Works (core passage doctrine)
| Term (English) | Greek / Transliteration | Key Passages | Risk | Category | Baseline Reuse | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| faith | πίστις / pistis | 2:14–26 (throughout) | High | FF | ¶ Yes — “faith” | James adds the risk of a merely professed faith being assumed genuine; must distinguish claimed faith from living faith. |
| works | ἔργα / erga | 2:14–26 | Critical | DC | New | Central Reformation-era denominational contest term (sola fide debate); mandatory theologian review and harmonizing note every occurrence. |
| justified / justification | δικαιοῦται, ἐδικαιώθη / dikaioutai, edikaiōthē | 2:21, 2:24, 2:25 | Critical | FF + DC | ¶ Term reused, but James-specific sense diverges — see note | Demonstrative/vindicating sense, not Paul’s initial-forensic sense; requires explicit disambiguation every occurrence, without exception. |
| faith alone | ἐκ πίστεως μόνον / ek pisteōs monon | 2:24 | Critical | DC | New — unique NT phrase | Only NT occurrence of this exact phrase; James denies it in his sense of “justified.” Mandatory theologian review. |
| dead (of faith) | νεκρά / nekra | 2:17, 2:20 (implied), 2:26 | Medium | FF (mild) | New | English “dead” metaphor mostly transfers well; guard against casual-intensifier reading. |
| credited / imputed | ἐλογίσθη / elogisthē | 2:23 | Critical | FF | ¶ Yes — “imputed righteousness” | Identical verb and OT citation as Romans 4:3; must be cross-referenced, not treated as contradictory. |
| righteousness | δικαιοσύνη / dikaiosynē | 2:23 | High | FF/CE | ¶ Yes — “righteousness” | Reuse baseline exactly; guard against “self-righteous” drift. |
| friend of God | φίλος θεοῦ / philos theou | 2:23 | Medium | FF/CE | New | Contrast term with “friendship with the world” (4:4); “friend” diluted by casual contemporary usage. |
| worked together with | συνήργει / synērgei | 2:22 | Medium | FF | New | Avoid importing corporate “synergy” branding connotation. |
| perfected / completed | ἐτελειώθη / eteleiōthē | 2:22 | High | FF | New | Cognate of teleios; do not read as “made flawless.” |
| save | σῶσαι / sōsai | 2:14 | Critical | FF/DC | ¶ Yes — “salvation” | Eschatological sense here; contrast with the healing sense at 5:15. |
| messengers (not “angels”) | ἀγγέλους / angelous | 2:25 | Medium-High | FF | New | Refers to human spies (Joshua 2), not heavenly beings; several modern versions render “spies.” |
| body / breath-spirit | σῶμα, πνεῦμα / sōma, pneuma | 2:26 | Medium | FF | New (pneuma here ≠ baseline “Holy Spirit”) | Ordinary life-breath, not a Trinitarian reference; must be explicitly distinguished from baseline “Holy Spirit” entry. |
| brother / sister | ἀδελφός, ἀδελφή / adelphos, adelphē | 2:15 (and throughout) | Low-Medium | CE (mild) | New | Fellow church member; connects to baseline church_as_gods_people. |
| demons | δαιμόνια / daimonia | 2:19 | Medium-High | FF | New | Not a metaphor for inner struggles; James requires real, personal, accountable beings. |
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
| Term (English) | Greek / Transliteration | Key Passages | Risk | Category | Baseline Reuse | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| trial / temptation | πειρασμός / peirasmos | 1:2–4, 1:12–14 | High | FF | New | Single Greek word covers both “trial” (testing, positive/neutral) and “temptation” (enticement to sin, negative); English requires two different words, obscuring the wordplay. Also collides with “law”-adjacent legal false-friend (“trial” = court proceeding). |
| testing / proven genuineness | δοκίμιον / dokimion | 1:3 | Medium | CE | New | Metal-refining metaphor less familiar to non-industrial modern audience. |
| endurance / steadfastness | ὑπομονή / hypomonē | 1:3–4, 5:11 | Medium | FF (mild) | New | Active perseverance, not passive waiting; distinguish from makrothymia (Ch. 5). |
| perfect / mature / complete | τέλειος / teleios | 1:4, 1:17, 1:25, 3:2 | High | FF | New | NOT sinless flawlessness; means wholeness/maturity. Perfectionism-culture false friend. |
| double-minded | δίψυχος / dipsychos | 1:8, 4:8 | Low-Medium | CE | New | Rare/archaic but no strong competing meaning. |
Doctrine: Wisdom from Above
| Term (English) | Greek / Transliteration | Key Passages | Risk | Category | Baseline Reuse | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| wisdom | σοφία / sophia | 1:5, 3:13–17 | Medium | CE/FF | New | Contemporary secular usage is generic self-help virtue, detached from divine source; James’s “from above” vs. “earthly, unspiritual, demonic” framework must be retained, not softened. |
| jealousy / selfish ambition | ζῆλος, ἐριθεία / zēlos, eritheia | 3:14, 3:16 | Medium | FF | New | Contemporary “ambition” often praised; James’s qualifier “selfish” must not be dropped. |
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
| Term (English) | Greek / Transliteration | Key Passages | Risk | Category | Baseline Reuse | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| favoritism / partiality | προσωπολημψία / prosōpolēmpsia | 2:1, 2:9 | Medium-High | FF (scope) | New | Well-understood concept, but contemporary default is personal/interpersonal favoritism, not James’s socioeconomic-status target within the gathered church. |
| poor | πτωχός / ptōchos | 1:9, 2:2–6 | Medium | DC | New | Live tension with “prosperity gospel” strands of contemporary American Christianity. |
| rich | πλούσιος / plousios | 1:10–11, 2:6–7, 5:1–6 | Medium | DC | New | See above; James consistently critical of the oppressive rich. |
| royal law / law of liberty | βασιλικὸς νόμος, νόμος ἐλευθερίας | 1:25, 2:8, 2:12 | High | FF | New — extends baseline “law” entry | ”Law” and “liberty” sound contradictory to individualist modern ears; requires active explanation. |
| mercy | ἔλεος / eleos | 2:13 | Low-Medium | CE (mild) | New | Fairly stable; judicial usage (“mercy of the court”) is a mild asset. |
Doctrine: Taming the Tongue
| Term (English) | Greek / Transliteration | Key Passages | Risk | Category | Baseline Reuse | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| tongue | γλῶσσα / glōssa | 3:1–12 | Medium | FF (specific) | New | Must not be confused with unrelated “speaking in tongues” (glossolalia); casual register risks trivializing James’s serious warning. |
| teacher | διδάσκαλος / didaskalos | 3:1 | Low | — | New | Stable. |
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
| Term (English) | Greek / Transliteration | Key Passages | Risk | Category | Baseline Reuse | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| the world / worldliness | κόσμος, φιλία τοῦ κόσμου / kosmos, philia tou kosmou | 1:27, 4:4 | High | FF (severe inversion) | New | Contemporary “worldly”/“a man of the world” is a POSITIVE, sophisticated connotation — a near-total inversion of James’s negative sense. Highest-severity false-friend inversion in this glossary. |
| grace | χάρις / charis | 4:6 | Critical | FF/DC | ¶ Yes — “grace” | Reuse baseline treatment exactly even though immediate context (humility vs. pride) differs from Romans. |
| the devil | διάβολος / diabolos | 4:7 | Medium | CE | New | Trivialized by pop-culture cartoon imagery and joking idiom (“devil’s advocate”); James assumes a real, personal, defeatable adversary. |
| desire / lust | ἐπιθυμία / epithymia | 1:14–15, 4:1–2 | Medium | FF | New | Contemporary self-actualization culture treats “desire” as positive/authentic; James’s sense here is disordered, sin-producing desire. |
| friend of God | φίλος θεοῦ / philos theou | 2:23 | Medium | FF/CE | New | (Cross-listed; see Faith and Works table.) Direct structural contrast with “friendship with the world.” |
| judge | κριτής / kritēs | 4:11–12 | Low | — | New | Stable. |
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
| Term (English) | Greek / Transliteration | Key Passages | Risk | Category | Baseline Reuse | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| prayer | προσευχή, εὔχομαι / proseuchē, euchomai | 5:13–18 | Medium | CE | New | ”Thoughts and prayers” cultural cliché risks connoting hollow, performative gesture; James assumes sincere, powerful, effective prayer. |
| elders | πρεσβύτεροι / presbyteroi | 5:14 | Medium | DC | New | Connects to baseline church_as_gods_people; denominational variance in governance structure. |
| anointing with oil | ἀλείψαντες ἐλαίῳ | 5:14 | Medium-High | DC | New | Sacramental (Catholic/Orthodox) vs. symbolic (Protestant) vs. faith-expectation (Pentecostal/charismatic) readings differ; state this curriculum’s reading transparently. |
| save / heal | σῴζω / sōzō | 5:15 | High | FF (sense-shift) | ¶ Term reused, distinct sense flagged | Physical-healing sense here, distinct from the eschatological-salvation sense at 2:14; must be explicitly disambiguated. |
Doctrine: Patience and the Lord’s Return
| Term (English) | Greek / Transliteration | Key Passages | Risk | Category | Baseline Reuse | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| patience / long-suffering | μακροθυμία / makrothymia | 5:7–8, 5:10 | Medium | FF (mild) | New | Distinct from hypomonē (Ch. 1); English “patience” collapses both, risking conflation. |
| the Lord’s coming | παρουσία / parousia | 5:7–8 | Medium | CE | New | Parallel to baseline’s “resurrection” treatment — state the real, personal, future expectation plainly against secular skepticism and sensationalized “end-times” media associations. |
| oaths | ὅρκος, ὀμνύω | 5:12 | Low-Medium | DC (minor) | New | Minor historic denominational variance (literal vs. general application). |
Doctrine: Confession and Restoration
| Term (English) | Greek / Transliteration | Key Passages | Risk | Category | Baseline Reuse | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| confess | ἐξομολογεῖσθε / exomologeisthe | 5:16 | Medium-High | DC | New | Sacramental (priestly) vs. mutual/corporate reading differs by tradition, parallel to baseline’s “Father”/priest note; state this curriculum’s mutual/corporate reading transparently. |
| turn back / restore | ἐπιστρέψῃ / epistrepsē | 5:19–20 | Medium | FF (scope) | New | Restoration of an already-professing believer who has strayed, not an initial “conversion” narrative — distinguish from the narrower contemporary sense of “convert.” |
| soul | ψυχή / psychē | 1:21, 5:20 | Medium | CE | New | Contemporary secular usage (soul music, soul-searching) is vague and detached from eternal-destiny stakes. |
Cross-Cutting Terms (Reused Exactly from Baseline Romans Language Package)
These terms appear in James and MUST use the identical rendering and risk tier recorded in the baseline translation_memory.json / bible_term_registry.json. No new entry is created; James-specific contextual notes are added only where the immediate context differs materially from Romans.
| Term | Baseline Risk | James Occurrences | James-Specific Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| God | Critical | 1:1, 1:5, 1:13, 1:17, 1:20, 1:27, 2:5, 2:19, 2:23, 4:4, 4:6–8, 5:4 | No material change from baseline treatment. |
| Lord | Critical | 1:1, 1:7, 2:1, 4:10, 4:15, 5:4, 5:7–8, 5:10–11, 5:14–15 | 2:1 — “our glorious Lord Jesus Christ” (lit. “the Lord of glory”) directly connects to baseline lordship_of_christ and glory entries. |
| Jesus (Christ) | Critical | 1:1, 2:1 | No material change from baseline treatment. |
| glory | High | 2:1 | Reuse baseline treatment exactly. |
| faith | High | throughout | See Faith and Works table above for James-specific expansion. |
| grace | Critical | 4:6 | See Worldliness table above. |
| righteousness | Critical | 1:20, 2:23, 3:18 | Reuse baseline treatment exactly; 3:18’s “fruit of righteousness” (peace-loving imagery) is a new collocation but not a new sense. |
| justification / justified | Critical | 2:21, 2:24, 2:25 | See Faith and Works table — James-specific sense divergence requires additional mandatory disambiguation beyond the baseline entry. |
| salvation / save | Critical | 1:21, 2:14, 4:12, 5:15, 5:20 | Two distinct senses within this one letter — eschatological (1:21, 2:14, 4:12, 5:20) and physical-healing (5:15); must be disambiguated per occurrence. |
| sin | High | 1:15, 2:9, 4:17, 5:15–16, 5:20 | Reuse baseline treatment exactly, including caution against trivializing/marketing usage and non-judgmental therapeutic-culture resistance. |
| law | Medium | 1:25, 2:8–12, 4:11 | Reuse baseline treatment; extended by the James-specific “royal law / law of liberty” compound terms (see Favoritism table). |
| church (implied — “assembly,” 2:2 synagōgē) | Critical | 2:2, 5:14 | James 2:2 uses synagōgē (“synagogue/assembly”) for the gathered congregation, a term choice reflecting the letter’s early, Jewish-Christian setting; functionally equivalent to baseline church_as_gods_people doctrine — reuse that doctrine’s risk treatment. |
| called | High | 2:7, 2:23 | 2:23’s “was called [a] friend of God” is a bestowed-title sense, distinct from baseline’s effectual-calling-to-salvation sense; note the distinction. |
| peace | Medium | 2:16, 3:17–18 | 2:16’s ironic, hollow usage requires special handling — see Faith and Works core passage notes. |
| holy / set apart | Medium | (implicit throughout; no direct hagios occurrence) | No direct new occurrence requiring separate treatment. |
Glossary Statistics
| Category | Count |
|---|---|
| New terms introduced by James (not in baseline) | 34 |
| Terms reused exactly from baseline Romans package | 15 |
| Critical risk (new or extended) | 6 |
| High risk (new or extended) | 8 |
| Medium risk (new or extended) | 17 |
| Low / Low-Medium risk (new or extended) | 6 |
Highest-priority items for Phase 2 human theologian review (Critical tier): works (ἔργα); justified/justification (δικαιοῦται, ἐδικαιώθη) in its James-specific demonstrative sense; the unique phrase “faith alone” (ἐκ πίστεως μόνον); credited/imputed righteousness (ἐλογίσθη, cross-referenced to Romans 4); grace (χάρις, baseline reuse at 4:6); save (σῶσαι/σῴζω) at 2:14 and its distinct healing-sense counterpart at 5:15.
Highest-severity false-friend inversion (flagged for special attention though not tiered Critical by denominational contest alone): “the world / worldliness” (κόσμος, φιλία τοῦ κόσμου) at 4:4 — contemporary English’s positive connotation for “worldly” is nearly inverted from James’s negative sense, exceeding even the baseline’s documented inversions for “glory” and “power.”
See 07_semantic_analysis.md for full verse-by-verse and chapter-by-chapter analysis underlying every entry in this table.
See baseline translation_memory.json, bible_term_registry.json, and doctrine_risk_registry.json for all cross-cutting term definitions and enforcement rules, which this glossary extends but never contradicts.
Critical Risk Terms
Lord
Approved rendering: Lord
Transliteration: Lord
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: boss / master (attempts at modernization that lose the term’s exclusivity and worship-worthiness), a British Lord (the aristocratic title sense, especially salient for British/Commonwealth readers)
Original: κύριος
Category: Christology
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, copied exactly] James occurrences: 1:1, 1:7, 2:1, 4:10, 4:15, 5:4, 5:7-8, 5:10-11, 5:14-15. James 2:1’s compressed ‘our glorious Lord Jesus Christ’ (literally ‘the Lord of glory’) carries the full weight of the baseline risk; because James states this title briefly and moves quickly to the favoritism argument, there is real risk this curriculum could pass over restoring its weight — must be actively flagged per doctrine_risk_registry.json ‘deity_and_lordship_of_christ’ (Critical).
Jesus
Approved rendering: Jesus
Transliteration: Jesus
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: Jesus (as a casual interjection/expletive, entirely secularized and disrespectful usage)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, copied exactly] James names Jesus Christ explicitly only twice (1:1, 2:1) despite the letter’s pervasive ethical focus. Popular ‘historical Jesus’ framings that quietly strip out divine claims apply here as in Romans.
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: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, copied exactly] James’s sole occurrence is 4:6, ‘God gives grace to the humble’ (quoting Proverbs 3:34). Must still trigger the full baseline clarification even though the immediate context (humility vs. pride) differs from Romans’s justification argument — easy to under-flag given this single appearance. Cross-references the doctrine ‘Worldliness versus Friendship with God.‘
Justification
Approved rendering: justification
Transliteration: justification
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: justifying your answer / justifying an action (the near-universal everyday sense: giving a reason or excuse for something already done)
Original: δικαίωσις / ἐδικαιώθη / δικαιοῦται
Category: Salvation
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, copied exactly] James occurrences: 2:21, 2:24, 2:25 (‘was justified’ / ‘is justified’). CRITICAL COMPOUND RISK: James uses this identical English word in a demonstrative/vindicating sense (Abraham’s already-existing faith-righteousness was SHOWN to be genuine by obedience) rather than Paul’s initial-forensic sense (God’s declarative act establishing right standing). English has only one common word for both senses. Every occurrence in James 2 requires the mandatory harmonizing note (see analysis/07_semantic_analysis.md v.14 and v.21 notes) without exception; mandatory human theologian review.
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)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, copied exactly] James’s verb sōzō/sōsai appears in (at least) two distinct senses within this one short letter: eschatological/final salvation (1:21, 2:14, 4:12, 5:20) and this-worldly physical healing (5:15, see ‘save_heal’ entry below). Each occurrence must be explicitly disambiguated; see doctrine_risk_registry.json ‘faith_and_works’ and ‘prayer_and_healing’.
Church
Approved rendering: church
Transliteration: church
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, copied exactly] James 2:2 uses synagōgē (‘synagogue/assembly’) for the gathered congregation, reflecting the letter’s early Jewish-Christian setting; 5:14 assumes a local congregation with elders. Functionally equivalent to this baseline doctrine — reuse its risk treatment against contemporary post-Christian associations of ‘church’ with institutional decline, though James’s own doctrine-registry entry (Medium, native-speaker routing) reflects the theme’s comparatively incidental role in this letter versus Romans.
Works
Approved rendering: works
Transliteration: erga
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: law-keeping performed to earn righteousness (Paul’s target in Romans/Galatians, not James’s sense), good deeds in a generic moral-behavior sense divorced from evidencing genuine faith
Original: ἔργα
Category: Faith and Works
NEW TERM. James 2:14-26 (core passage). The highest-stakes term in the entire James curriculum: a five-centuries-old, still-live English-speaking Christian denominational fault line (Luther’s discomfort with James, ‘an epistle of straw’; the Reformation’s sola fide formula; the Council of Trent’s citation of James 2 against it). Concretely in James, works means observable, active fruit — most concretely, meeting a needy brother’s or sister’s physical want (2:15-16) — not ritual/ceremonial law-keeping. MANDATORY: supply the harmonizing note (Paul answers ‘how is one initially declared righteous’; James answers ‘what kind of faith is genuine’) at every occurrence, and name that Catholic/Orthodox tradition reads James 2 as more directly qualifying sola fide. Mandatory human theologian review without exception.
Faith Alone
Approved rendering: faith alone
Transliteration: ek pisteōs monon
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: a softened or silently harmonized paraphrase that avoids stating the phrase plainly, silent omission of the phrase to avoid controversy
Original: ἐκ πίστεως μόνον
Category: Faith and Works
NEW TERM. James 2:24 — the ONLY occurrence of this exact phrase in the entire New Testament, and James explicitly denies it as the mechanism by which a person is justified in his (demonstrative) sense of the word. Must be stated plainly without softening; must supply the harmonizing note every time; must name that Luther and the wider Reformation tradition wrestled seriously with this verse, and that Catholic/Orthodox tradition reads it as directly qualifying the sola fide formula. Silent harmonization or silent avoidance are both prohibited. Mandatory human theologian review without exception.
High Risk Terms
Righteousness
Approved rendering: righteousness
Transliteration: righteousness
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: self-righteous / holier-than-thou (the dominant connotation ‘righteous’ now carries in casual usage — smug, judgmental superiority)
Original: δικαιοσύνη
Category: Salvation
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, copied exactly] James occurrences: 1:20, 2:23, 3:18. 3:18’s ‘fruit of righteousness’ (sown in peace) is a new collocation but not a new sense; guard against readers hearing righteousness-as-performance here, tying it back to the forensic, gift-received sense established at 2:23.
Faith
Approved rendering: faith
Transliteration: faith
Doctrine: Faith
Rejected alternatives: faith in humanity / a leap of faith (secularized idioms meaning generic optimism or an unsupported gamble, not trust in a specific person)
Original: πίστις
Category: Faith and Works
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, copied exactly] James occurrences throughout, especially 1:3, 1:6, 2:1, 2:14-26, 5:15. James adds a layer beyond the baseline risk: readers must not assume every self-described ‘faith’ (James 2:14, ‘if someone SAYS he has faith’) is automatically genuine — the whole passage argues a merely professed, workless faith is not saving faith at all.
Called
Approved rendering: called
Transliteration: called
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Original: κεκλημένον / ἐκλήθη
Category: Salvation
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, copied exactly] James occurrences: 2:7 (‘the honorable name by which you were called’), 2:23 (‘was called a friend of God’). Both are a bestowed-title sense, distinct from the baseline’s effectual-calling-to-salvation sense (Romans 8:28-30); note this distinction explicitly so readers do not conflate the two senses across curricula.
Sin
Approved rendering: sin
Transliteration: sin
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability
Rejected alternatives: sinfully delicious / my one sin (trivialized marketing and joking usage, e.g. dessert advertising)
Original: ἁμαρτία
Category: Sin
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, copied exactly] James occurrences: 1:15, 2:9, 4:17, 5:15-16, 5:20. James adds a distinct emphasis largely unaddressed by the baseline: 4:17’s ‘sin of omission’ (knowing the right thing to do and failing to do it) runs against a contemporary moral culture that more readily judges active wrongdoing than passive failure to act — requires explicit correction.
Imputed Righteousness
Approved rendering: imputed righteousness
Transliteration: imputed righteousness
Doctrine: Justification by Faith
Rejected alternatives: earned righteousness / good-person status (the explicit rejected opposite — righteousness achieved by good behavior)
Original: ἐλογίσθη
Category: Salvation
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, copied exactly] James 2:23 quotes the identical verb (elogisthē, from logizomai) and the identical Genesis 15:6 citation Paul uses in Romans 4:3. James treats this crediting as CONFIRMED, not contradicted, by Abraham’s later obedience in Genesis 22 (decades after Genesis 15). Must explicitly cross-reference the Romans 4 usage so the two curricula’s treatments of the identical verse do not appear to readers to conflict. Mandatory human theologian review, per doctrine_risk_registry.json ‘inspiration_and_authority_of_scripture.‘
Perfected
Approved rendering: perfected / brought to completion
Transliteration: eteleiōthē
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: made flawless (the dominant contemporary sense of ‘perfected’)
Original: ἐτελειώθη
Category: Faith and Works
NEW TERM. James 2:22, cognate of teleios (see perfect_mature below). Abraham’s already-real faith was not made MORE real by his obedience (already credited righteous in Genesis 15) but reached its mature, completed, outworked expression. Must be actively distinguished on first use: matured/completed, not made flawless from a prior flawed state.
Demons
Approved rendering: demons
Transliteration: daimonia
Doctrine: Reality of Spiritual Evil
Rejected alternatives: fighting my demons (pop-psychology metaphor for inner psychological struggles), horror-genre fictional monsters
Original: δαιμόνια
Category: Spiritual Warfare
NEW TERM. James 2:19 — real, personal, malevolent, morally accountable spiritual beings who correctly hold monotheistic doctrine yet respond only with terror, not saving trust. Contemporary secular/pop-psychology usage has repurposed ‘demons’ as a metaphor for inner struggles, and horror entertainment treats them as fiction — both strip out the real personal agency James’s argument requires. Must be stated plainly.
Trial Temptation
Approved rendering: trial / temptation
Transliteration: peirasmos
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
Rejected alternatives: a court trial / legal proceeding (the dominant contemporary sense of ‘trial’), a clinical/product trial run, temptation restricted only to its negative enticement-to-sin sense, obscuring the positive/neutral testing sense
Original: πειρασμός
Category: Trials and Testing
NEW TERM. James 1:2-4 (positive/neutral ‘trial’), 1:12-14 (negative ‘temptation’) — a single Greek word split across two English words with opposite emotional valence, destroying the letter’s wordplay. English ‘trial’ collides with legal-proceeding and product/clinical-trial false friends; English ‘temptation’ carries an almost-exclusive sinful-enticement connotation. Both must be actively disambiguated on first use; name the underlying single-word wordplay explicitly.
Perfect Mature
Approved rendering: perfect / mature
Transliteration: teleios
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
Rejected alternatives: flawless / sinless (the dominant contemporary sense of ‘perfect’)
Original: τέλειος
Category: Trials and Testing
NEW TERM. James 1:4, 1:17, 1:25, 3:2. Contemporary English ‘perfect’ overwhelmingly denotes flawlessness (perfectionism culture); James’s sense is wholeness/maturity, not sinless performance. Acutely dangerous at 3:2 (‘if anyone does not stumble in speech, he is a perfect man’), which could be misread as claiming achievable sinless flawlessness — the opposite of James’s own statement two verses earlier (‘we all stumble in many ways’). Must be actively corrected every occurrence, not just first use.
Favoritism
Approved rendering: favoritism
Transliteration: prosōpolēmpsia
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Rejected alternatives: personal/interpersonal favoritism alone (too narrow; James targets structural socioeconomic discrimination within the gathered church)
Original: προσωπολημψία
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW TERM. James 2:1, 2:9 — judging by external appearance/status, favoring a wealthy visitor over a poor one within the gathered assembly. English ‘favoritism’ is a familiar, well-understood everyday concept (a genuine asset), but readers default to personal/interpersonal scope rather than James’s specific structural, socioeconomic-status target; this scope must be made explicit.
Royal Law Liberty
Approved rendering: royal law / law of liberty
Transliteration: basilikos nomos / nomos eleutherias
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Rejected alternatives: law and liberty presented as flatly contradictory concepts
Original: βασιλικὸς νόμος / νόμος ἐλευθερίας
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW COMPOUND TERM, extending the baseline ‘law’ entry. James 1:25, 2:8, 2:12 — God’s moral law, summarized as neighbor-love (quoting Leviticus 19:18), and, rightly kept, a law that liberates rather than enslaves. Contemporary Western individualist culture is trained to see ‘law’ and ‘liberty’ as near-opposites; must always be paired with an explanatory clause (rightly-kept law producing true freedom, not a legalistic burden nor a libertarian absence of constraint) or the phrase can sound self-contradictory or like doublespeak.
Worldliness
Approved rendering: the world / worldliness
Transliteration: kosmos / philia tou kosmou
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
Rejected alternatives: worldly / a man of the world (the dominant contemporary POSITIVE sense: sophisticated, cosmopolitan, cultured — nearly inverted from James’s sense)
Original: κόσμος / φιλία τοῦ κόσμου
Category: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
NEW TERM — the single most severe false-friend INVERSION in the James package, exceeding even the baseline’s documented reversals for ‘glory’ and ‘power.’ James 1:27, 4:4 — humanity organized in rebellion against God, a rival moral-spiritual allegiance set in deliberate contrast with ‘friend of God’ (2:23). Contemporary English ‘worldly’/‘a man of the world’ carries a distinctly POSITIVE connotation. Must be flagged at EVERY occurrence, not just first use; warrants human theologian-level review attention.
Anointing With Oil
Approved rendering: anointing with oil
Transliteration: aleipsantes elaiō
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
Original: ἀλείψαντες ἐλαίῳ
Category: Prayer and Healing
NEW TERM. James 5:14. DENOMINATIONAL CONTEST: Catholic/Orthodox tradition treats this as a formal sacrament (Anointing of the Sick/Extreme Unction); many Protestant traditions treat it as a simple, non-sacramental symbolic act; some Pentecostal/charismatic traditions emphasize it as a point of faith-expectation for healing. This curriculum states its own reading (symbolic act accompanying prayer) transparently while noting the range of practice, per the baseline’s denominational-transparency convention.
Save Heal
Approved rendering: save / heal
Transliteration: sōzō
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
Rejected alternatives: save (used without disambiguation, risking confusion with the eschatological sense at James 2:14)
Original: σῴζω
Category: Prayer and Healing
NEW SENSE OF A BASELINE-REUSED WORD. James 5:15 — ‘the prayer of faith will save/heal the one who is sick’: physical healing/restoration to health, a distinct sense from the eschatological salvation of 2:14 within the very same short letter. English ‘save’ retains this same flexibility (‘saved from drowning’) — a genuine asset — but the active sense must be flagged per occurrence; conflating the two senses risks either trivializing eschatological salvation or over-promising guaranteed physical healing from every prayer.
Confess
Approved rendering: confess
Transliteration: exomologeisthe
Doctrine: Confession and Restoration
Rejected alternatives: confess used only in its criminal-justice/true-crime admission-of-guilt sense, losing James’s restorative purpose
Original: ἐξομολογεῖσθε
Category: Confession and Restoration
NEW TERM. James 5:16 — mutual, relational, restorative acknowledgment of sin to one another for healing. DENOMINATIONAL CONTEST parallel to the baseline’s ‘Father’/priest note: Catholic tradition situates formal confession within the priesthood; most Protestant traditions read this as mutual, informal confession among believers generally. State this curriculum’s mutual/corporate reading transparently while noting the sacramental reading exists elsewhere. Separately, contemporary secular usage of ‘confess’ is dominated by criminal-justice/true-crime framing, emphasizing guilt-admission over James’s restorative purpose (‘that you may be healed’), which must be actively foregrounded.
Religion
Approved rendering: religion
Transliteration: thrēskeia
Doctrine: Sanctification and Holy Living
Rejected alternatives: “I’m spiritual, but not religious” framing (treats ‘religion’ as institutional, empty, or oppressive)
Original: θρησκεία
Category: Sanctification
NEW TERM. James 1:26-27 — defines ‘pure and undefiled religion’ concretely as caring for orphans and widows and keeping oneself unstained by the world, an unusually positive and active use of the term. Runs directly against the common contemporary self-identification ‘spiritual, not religious’; must be highlighted as a deliberate correction, not passed over.
Meekness
Approved rendering: gentleness / meekness
Transliteration: prautēs
Doctrine: Sanctification and Holy Living
Rejected alternatives: meek as weak/timid/a pushover (the dominant contemporary sense, nearly inverted from James’s controlled-strength sense)
Original: πραΰτης
Category: Sanctification
NEW TERM. James 1:21, 3:13 — strength held under control, disciplined gentleness (as in Matthew 5:5 and Jesus’s own self-description, Matthew 11:29), NOT weakness or passivity. Contemporary English ‘meek’ is strongly and almost exclusively associated with timidity; must be actively corrected on first use, parallel to the baseline’s caution about ‘obedience’ against autonomy-prizing culture.
Scripture
Approved rendering: Scripture
Transliteration: graphē
Doctrine: Inspiration and Authority of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: the Bible as a purely human, historically-conditioned literary artifact (a common secular/academic framing)
Original: γραφή
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM, extending the baseline ‘inspiration_of_scripture’ doctrine. James 2:23 — treats the Genesis 15:6 crediting text as authoritative, fulfilled revelation (‘the Scripture was fulfilled’). Engages the same live ‘Scripture as human product vs. divinely inspired’ cultural debate the baseline documents, compounded by the risk that James’s and Paul’s shared use of Genesis 15:6 could appear contradictory rather than complementary unless explicitly cross-referenced.
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
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, copied exactly] James occurrences: 1:1, 1:5, 1:13, 1:17, 1:20, 1:27, 2:5, 2:19, 2:23, 4:4, 4:6-8, 5:4. No material change from baseline treatment; James 1:17’s ‘Father of lights, who does not change’ reinforces the baseline’s caution against vague, impersonal substitutes.
Law
Approved rendering: law
Transliteration: law
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
Original: νόμος
Category: Covenant
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, copied exactly] James occurrences: 1:25, 2:8-12, 4:11. Extended in James by the new ‘royal law / law of liberty’ compound terms (see Section B), which add a conceptual-paradox risk (law and liberty sounding contradictory to individualist modern ears) beyond the baseline’s existing legalism-vs-‘hyper-grace’ caution.
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: βασιλεία
Category: Kingdom
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, copied exactly] James’s sole occurrence, 2:5: ‘heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him.’ Directly reinforces the baseline’s caution about ‘kingdom’ evoking fantasy-fiction realms rather than God’s real, present-and-coming reign, and structurally connects to the Favoritism and the Poor doctrine (the poor as kingdom heirs).
Peace
Approved rendering: peace
Transliteration: peace
Doctrine: Peace with God
Rejected alternatives: world peace / inner peace (the dominant secular senses: political non-conflict or psychological calm)
Original: εἰρήνη
Category: Salvation
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, copied exactly] James occurrences: 2:16 (ironic — a hollow verbal blessing substituting for real help), 3:17-18 (genuine relational fruit of wisdom from above). 2:16’s irony requires special handling: because baseline ‘peace’ already risks being read as mere psychological calm, this verse’s irony could be doubly misread as James criticizing wishing someone calm feelings rather than criticizing empty religious talk substituting for concrete love — the irony must be made explicit.
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)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, copied exactly] No direct hagios occurrence in James; included for cross-reference completeness because the letter’s Sanctification and Holy Living doctrine (religion, meekness, perfection/maturity) is thematically continuous with this baseline entry even without a direct lexical occurrence.
Glory
Approved rendering: glory
Transliteration: glory
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: glory days (nostalgic secular usage for past success), a glory hound (a pejorative term for self-seeking attention)
Original: δόξα
Category: God
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, copied exactly] James’s sole occurrence, 2:1: ‘our glorious Lord Jesus Christ’ (literally ‘the Lord of glory’), identifying Jesus with the Shekinah glory of God. Several dynamic-equivalence translations (NIV, NLT) smooth this into adjectival ‘glorious,’ slightly under-translating the identification; this curriculum’s teaching commentary should retain the stronger sense even while quoting NLT wording.
Dead Faith
Approved rendering: dead
Transliteration: nekra
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: weak / immature faith (trivializes James’s point that this is no saving faith at all, not merely deficient faith)
Original: νεκρά
Category: Faith and Works
NEW TERM. James 2:17, 2:20 (implied), 2:26 — the letter’s controlling refrain on faith and works. English ‘dead’ metaphor transfers productively (dead battery, dead weight, dead end) — a mild asset. Risk: casual intensifier usage (‘dead tired,’ ‘dead serious’) could blunt the force; stress corpse-like inertness (2:26’s body/breath analogy), not mere emphasis.
Friend Of God
Approved rendering: friend of God
Transliteration: philos theou
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: casual acquaintance (the dominant contemporary secular sense of ‘friend’), social-media ‘friend’ (a low-commitment, easily multiplied category)
Original: φίλος θεοῦ
Category: Faith and Works
NEW TERM. James 2:23 — the climactic title given to Abraham, denoting an ancient trusted royal/patron intimate bound by loyal, covenant-like obligation, not a casual acquaintance. Establishes the direct structural contrast with ‘friendship with the world’ (4:4). Must be actively expanded on first use (‘a trusted, loyal, covenant intimate — not a casual acquaintance’), parallel to the baseline’s treatment of ‘Lord’ and ‘fellowship.‘
Worked Together With
Approved rendering: worked together with
Transliteration: synērgei
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: synergy (corporate/business buzzword implying efficient strategic combination for results)
Original: συνήργει
Category: Faith and Works
NEW TERM. James 2:22 — faith and the concrete act of obedience pictured as partners acting jointly in Abraham’s response, not faith producing works only as a separate later effect. Prefer plain ‘worked together with’ over any language echoing corporate ‘synergy’ branding.
Messengers
Approved rendering: messengers
Transliteration: angelous
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: angels (the dominant contemporary sense of heavenly supernatural beings — wrong referent here)
Original: ἀγγέλους
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM. James 2:25 — refers to the two human spies Joshua sent into Jericho (Joshua 2), whom Rahab sheltered, NOT heavenly angelic beings. Because English ‘angel’ has specialized almost exclusively to the supernatural sense, and Rahab’s story is less independently familiar than Abraham’s, real risk exists of picturing literal angelic visitors. Several modern English Bible translations (NLT, NIV) already render this ‘spies’ for exactly this reason; this curriculum follows that convention rather than defaulting to ‘angels.‘
Spirit Breath
Approved rendering: spirit (breath)
Transliteration: pneuma
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: Holy Spirit (capitalized Trinitarian sense — wrong referent; this is ordinary life-breath)
Original: σῶμα / πνεῦμα
Category: Faith and Works
NEW TERM, distinct from the baseline ‘holy_spirit’ entry. James 2:26 — closing analogy: a body without its ordinary animating breath/life-force is a corpse, exactly as faith without works is dead. Must explicitly clarify ‘spirit’ here means ordinary life-breath, not the Holy Spirit; must not be capitalized or connected to the baseline Holy Spirit doctrine, given how heavily that Critical-risk term is used elsewhere in the New Testament.
Testing
Approved rendering: testing
Transliteration: dokimion
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
Original: δοκίμιον
Category: Trials and Testing
NEW TERM. James 1:3 — ‘the testing of your faith produces endurance,’ a metal-refining-by-fire metaphor. Less immediately familiar to a non-industrial, non-agrarian modern audience; supply a brief explanatory gloss (fire testing/purifying metal) every time, parallel to the baseline’s ‘engrafted olive branches’ note.
Endurance
Approved rendering: endurance
Transliteration: hypomonē
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
Rejected alternatives: patience in the sense of passive waiting (conflates with makrothymia, Ch. 5)
Original: ὑπομονή
Category: Trials and Testing
NEW TERM. James 1:3-4, 5:11 — active, steadfast perseverance under pressure, not passive waiting. Must be explicitly distinguished from makrothymia/‘patience’ in Chapter 5, since English commonly collapses both into one word.
Wisdom
Approved rendering: wisdom
Transliteration: sophia
Doctrine: Wisdom from Above
Rejected alternatives: life hacks / words of wisdom (generic self-help virtue detached from God as source)
Original: σοφία
Category: Wisdom
NEW TERM. James 1:5 (a gift requested by prayer), 3:13-17 (stark two-source framework: ‘from above’ vs. ‘earthly, unspiritual, demonic’). Contemporary secular usage treats wisdom as a generic, positively-valenced self-help virtue with no necessary reference to God; James’s two-source contrast must be retained explicitly, not softened into advice-column language, and ‘demonic’ at 3:15 must not be treated as a mere figure of speech.
Jealousy Selfish Ambition
Approved rendering: jealousy / selfish ambition
Transliteration: zēlos / eritheia
Doctrine: Wisdom from Above
Rejected alternatives: ambition alone (contemporary professional culture treats bare ‘ambition’ as an unambiguous virtue)
Original: ζῆλος / ἐριθεία
Category: Wisdom
NEW TERM. James 3:14, 3:16 — identified as the root of false, earthly wisdom and of ‘disorder and every vile practice.’ The qualifier ‘selfish/self-seeking’ must be retained and stressed, not dropped, given contemporary culture’s generally positive framing of bare ambition.
Poor
Approved rendering: poor
Transliteration: ptōchos
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Rejected alternatives: material poverty as evidence of insufficient faith (a prosperity-gospel-adjacent misreading)
Original: πτωχός
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW TERM. James 1:9, 2:2-6 — materially poor believers, whom James describes as exalted/chosen by God and rich in faith. Live tension with a prosperity-gospel strand of contemporary American/English-speaking Christian culture that reads material wealth as a sign of divine favor; this curriculum must name the tension directly rather than assume reader consensus.
Rich
Approved rendering: rich
Transliteration: plousios
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Rejected alternatives: wealth as a straightforward sign of God’s blessing (a prosperity-gospel misreading in tension with James’s consistently critical stance)
Original: πλούσιος
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW TERM. James 1:10-11, 2:6-7, 5:1-6 — the materially wealthy, pictured as a withering flower and indicted for oppressing the poor and withholding wages. James’s consistently critical stance toward the rich should not be softened to accommodate a contemporary ‘wealth as blessing’ reading.
Tongue
Approved rendering: tongue
Transliteration: glōssa
Doctrine: Taming the Tongue
Rejected alternatives: speaking in tongues / glossolalia (an unrelated NT phenomenon sharing only the English word)
Original: γλῶσσα
Category: Taming the Tongue
NEW TERM. James 3:1-12 — the organ of speech and, by extension, the words a person produces; small but disproportionately powerful. English retains a rich, functional idiom (‘watch your tongue,’ ‘sharp-tongued’) — a genuine asset. Two risks: casual register may trivialize James’s serious warning into minor etiquette; must not be confused with the unrelated NT phenomenon of glossolalia, especially for readers from charismatic/Pentecostal backgrounds.
Devil
Approved rendering: the devil
Transliteration: diabolos
Doctrine: Reality of Spiritual Evil
Rejected alternatives: the devil made me do it (a joking excuse), devil’s advocate (a rhetorical stance), cartoonish horned-and-pitchfork imagery
Original: διάβολος
Category: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
NEW TERM. James 4:7 — ‘resist the devil, and he will flee from you,’ assuming a real, personal, defeatable spiritual enemy. Contemporary secular usage frequently trivializes ‘the devil’ into a cartoonish or joking figure, stripping the term of the real, personal, morally serious adversary James assumes; must be actively named as real, not metaphor.
Desire
Approved rendering: desire
Transliteration: epithymia
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
Rejected alternatives: follow your desires / honor your truth (contemporary wellness-culture framing of desire as positive authentic self-expression)
Original: ἐπιθυμία
Category: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
NEW TERM. James 1:14-15 (personified, conceiving and giving birth to sin, which brings forth death), 4:1-2 (source of quarrels and conflicts). Contemporary self-actualization/wellness culture treats ‘desire’ as broadly positive and authentic; James’s usage is specifically disordered, sin-producing craving and must be distinguished explicitly from the neutral-to-positive contemporary default, parallel to the baseline’s caution about ‘sin.‘
Prayer
Approved rendering: prayer
Transliteration: proseuchē / euchomai
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
Rejected alternatives: “thoughts and prayers” used as the operative model (contemporary cliché for a hollow, performative gesture)
Original: προσευχή / εὔχομαι
Category: Prayer and Healing
NEW TERM. James 5:13-18 — prayer in suffering, in joy, and for the sick; Elijah as a model of fervent, effective prayer. Contemporary secular public discourse has developed a cynical, cliché-coded usage of ‘thoughts and prayers,’ especially post-tragedy on social media, undermining the sincerity and confidence James assumes; name this headwind explicitly, parallel to the baseline’s largely low-risk treatment of ‘intercession.‘
Elders
Approved rendering: elders
Transliteration: presbyteroi
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
Original: πρεσβύτεροι
Category: Prayer and Healing
NEW TERM. James 5:14 — recognized church leaders called to pray over and anoint the sick. Connects to the baseline ‘church_as_gods_people’ doctrine; denominational variance in church governance structure and the office’s authority exists across English-speaking traditions, though the English word itself is stable.
Patience
Approved rendering: patience
Transliteration: makrothymia
Doctrine: Patience and the Lord’s Return
Rejected alternatives: patience used interchangeably with endurance (conflates hypomonē, Ch. 1, and makrothymia, Ch. 5)
Original: μακροθυμία
Category: Patience and the Lord’s Return
NEW TERM, distinct from ‘endurance’ (hypomonē) above. James 5:7-8, 5:10 — forbearing, hopeful waiting for a promised future event, especially the Lord’s coming, modeled by the farmer awaiting harvest and the prophets. Should be distinguished explicitly wherever both concepts appear in the same teaching unit.
Lords Coming
Approved rendering: the Lord’s coming
Transliteration: parousia
Doctrine: Patience and the Lord’s Return
Rejected alternatives: sensationalized end-times speculation (pop-culture prediction-obsessed media framing)
Original: παρουσία
Category: Patience and the Lord’s Return
NEW TERM. James 5:7-8 — Christ’s promised, personal, future return, grounding the entire patience exhortation. Parallel to the baseline’s treatment of ‘resurrection’: contemporary skepticism tends to allegorize such expectation, and pop-culture ‘end-times’ media franchises can make sober biblical patience-in-hope teaching seem dated or overheated by association. State the historical, personal expectation plainly.
Turn Back Restore
Approved rendering: turn back / restore
Transliteration: epistrepsē
Doctrine: Confession and Restoration
Rejected alternatives: convert (narrowed to a dramatic first-time change of religious allegiance; wrong for restoring an already-professing wanderer)
Original: ἐπιστρέψῃ
Category: Confession and Restoration
NEW TERM. James 5:19-20 — the letter’s closing image: a fellow believer who has ‘wandered from the truth’ being turned back by another believer’s intervention. Contemporary English ‘convert’ is heavily specialized toward a dramatic first-time change of religious allegiance; ‘turn back’ or ‘restore’ is the preferred rendering to avoid this narrowing.
Soul
Approved rendering: soul
Transliteration: psychē
Doctrine: Confession and Restoration
Rejected alternatives: soul music / soul-searching / feed your soul (vague secular/self-help senses detached from eternal destiny before God)
Original: ψυχή
Category: Confession and Restoration
NEW TERM. James 1:21 (‘the implanted word… able to save your souls’), 5:20 (‘save his soul from death’). Refers to the whole person’s life and ultimate well-being, not merely an immaterial inner part distinct from the body. Contemporary English ‘soul’ is heavily used in secular, musical, and self-help registers, generally positive but vague; the specific, weighty, salvation-context sense here should be actively distinguished.
Low Risk Terms
Brother Sister
Approved rendering: brother / sister
Transliteration: adelphos / adelphē
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Rejected alternatives: generic solidarity language detached from actual church membership
Original: ἀδελφός / ἀδελφή
Category: Church
NEW TERM. James 2:15 (and throughout) — a fellow member of the covenant community/church, not merely a biological sibling, sharpening the ethical force of the neglected-person example. Contemporary English retains this familial/community usage productively; minor risk readers hear generic solidarity rather than the specific, binding obligation of shared church membership.
Double Minded
Approved rendering: double-minded
Transliteration: dipsychos
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
Original: δίψυχος
Category: Trials and Testing
NEW TERM. James 1:8, 4:8 — ‘two-souled,’ divided in mind/loyalty; the doubter who asks God for wisdom while wavering. Rare, slightly archaic English (obsolescence risk) but no strong competing secular meaning; low risk of active misreading, mainly needs a brief gloss.
Mercy
Approved rendering: mercy
Transliteration: eleos
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Original: ἔλεος
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW TERM. James 2:13 — ‘judgment without mercy’ awaits the merciless; ‘mercy triumphs over judgment.’ Fairly stable English word with limited competing secular usage; its surviving legal/judicial usage (‘mercy of the court’) is a mild asset reinforcing the judicial framing of 2:12-13.
Teacher
Approved rendering: teacher
Transliteration: didaskalos
Doctrine: Taming the Tongue
Original: διδάσκαλος
Category: Taming the Tongue
NEW TERM. James 3:1 — one who instructs others in God’s word, held to stricter accountability for speech. Stable English vocabulary; no significant destination-language drift risk.
Judge
Approved rendering: judge
Transliteration: kritēs
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
Original: κριτής
Category: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
NEW TERM. James 4:11-12 — James forbids believers from usurping God’s exclusive role as judge of the law. Stable vocabulary; brief connection to the ‘judges with evil motives’ language of 2:4 worth noting as a structural echo.
Oaths
Approved rendering: oaths
Transliteration: horkos / omnyō
Doctrine: Patience and the Lord’s Return
Original: ὅρκος / ὀμνύω
Category: Patience and the Lord’s Return
NEW TERM. James 5:12 — prohibits swearing oaths to escalate the credibility of speech, commending plain truthful ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Minor historic denominational variance (literal application by some Anabaptist/Quaker traditions vs. most traditions reading it as opposing casual oath-multiplying, not a blanket prohibition on e.g. legal oaths in court); the concept itself is stable English vocabulary.
Abraham
Approved rendering: Abraham
Transliteration: Abraam
Doctrine: Inspiration and Authority of Scripture
Original: Ἀβραάμ
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM (proper name). James 2:21-23 — the patriarch whose faith, credited as righteousness in Genesis 15:6, was later shown genuine by his near-sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22. Standard covenant-history background; James’s readers need the Genesis 15 and Genesis 22 narratives briefly supplied, since the decades-long gap between them is essential to the passage’s argument.
Rahab
Approved rendering: Rahab
Transliteration: Rhaab hē pornē
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Original: Ῥαὰβ ἡ πόρνη
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM (proper name). James 2:25 — a Gentile woman with a morally disreputable occupation who sheltered Israel’s spies (Joshua 2), cited as a second faith-and-works example at the opposite social extreme from Abraham. James’s argument is strengthened, not embarrassed, by this choice; pastoral sensitivity is warranted in framing.
Referenced passages