Semantic Analysis

Because English is the source language, this document analyzes semantic range differently than in every other Language Package in this pipeline: not the gap between an English source word and a foreign-language rendering, but the gap between a single English word’s dominant contemporary sense and its narrower, specific Pauline theological sense.

Words that have broadened far beyond Paul’s specific sense

• faith: broadened from personal, saving trust in a specific person (Christ) to a generic, contentless optimism (“faith in humanity,” “a leap of faith”) applicable to almost anything.
• grace: broadened (or rather, split) into physical elegance/poise and a legal/financial extension-of-time sense, both entirely detached from unmerited divine favor.
• calling: broadened from a divine summons initiated by God to any self-discovered sense of career purpose or passion, reversing the direction of agency.
• peace: broadened from Romans 5:1’s specific relational, judicial peace with God to political non-conflict and generalized psychological calm.

Words that have narrowed or shifted to a different specific sense

• justification: narrowed and shifted entirely to the rational-defense sense (“justify an action”), essentially losing the forensic-declaration sense outside theological usage altogether.
• election: narrowed and shifted entirely to the political-voting sense, to the point that the theological sense is now the unusual, marked usage requiring explanation rather than the default.
• righteous: shifted toward an entirely negative connotation (self-righteous, sanctimonious) in casual usage, nearly inverting Paul’s positive sense of a right standing before God.

Words that have simply fallen out of ordinary use

• sanctification, intercession, exhort, imputed: none has a strong competing everyday meaning; the risk here is a blank rather than a false substitution, and is treated as comparatively lower risk in this registry precisely because readers are more likely to ask for a definition than to supply a confident wrong one.

Implication

Where a word’s contemporary semantic range or shift differs from its Pauline sense, the glossary’s notes field (see translation_memory.json) exists specifically to flag the gap for content developers, distinguishing the higher-risk false-friend cases (where a reader will confidently supply the wrong meaning) from the lower-risk obsolescence cases (where a reader will recognize they need a definition).