Passage
Romans 15
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Doctrine
Christ-Centered Ministry
Ministry done in Christ's name and power, not humanitarian service divorced from the gospel.
ROM.15.17-21
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Doctrine
Christian Fellowship
Shared participation in Christ; translators should avoid phrasing that echoes the collectivist 'Volksgemeinschaft' register given Germany's specific 20th-century history, though the word itself is biblically sound and pre-dates that misuse.
ROM.15.24
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Glossary Term
Church
HIGH RISK: Catholic and state-church (Landeskirche) usage defaults 'Kirche' to the institution; Free church (Freikirche) and Pietist tradition prefer 'Gemeinde' for the gathered local body, closer to NT ekklesia.
ROM.15.26
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Doctrine
Church as God's People
New covenant community, not the institutional Kirche or Landeskirche tax-registered membership alone; Free church tradition's 'Gemeinde' vocabulary better captures the NT sense.
ROM.15.26
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Glossary Term
Covenant
Relational covenant bond, established biblical German usage since Luther.
ROM.15.12
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Glossary Term
David
Standard proper name form across all German traditions.
ROM.15.12
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Doctrine
Davidic Covenant
Requires OT background explanation; 'Same Davids' is archaic and should be rendered 'Nachkomme Davids' to avoid clinical register collision.
ROM.15.12
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Doctrine
Evangelism
In an increasingly secular, religiously plural society, evangelism language must be framed as respectful proclamation and witness rather than pressure.
ROM.15.20
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Glossary Term
Exhort
Context-sensitive: 'ermahnen' leans toward admonish/warn; use 'ermutigen' (encourage) for the building-up sense where the context calls for warmth rather than correction.
ROM.15.2
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Glossary Term
Fellowship
The ordinary Luther Bible word for koinonia.
ROM.15.24
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Doctrine
Fulfillment of Prophecy
Linear historical fulfillment (OT to NT); low OT literacy among secular or lightly-churched readers requires explicit cross-referencing.
ROM.15.8-12
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Glossary Term
Gentiles
HIGH RISK: the traditional Lutheran rendering carries a pejorative 'uncivilized pagan' connotation in modern German.
ROM.15.7-12
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Doctrine
Gospel
Stable term, coined in this exact theological sense by Luther himself; the word is not disputed, though rising biblical illiteracy especially in former East Germany means content can no longer be assumed as common knowledge.
ROM.15.19-20
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Glossary Term
Gospel
Shared, stable term across Catholic (Einheitsübersetzung) and Protestant (Lutherbibel) German Bibles since Luther himself coined this usage.
ROM.15.19-20
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Glossary Term
Holy
Set apart for God and morally pure; 'rein' alone loses the set-apart sense.
ROM.15.16
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Glossary Term
Holy Spirit
The personal third Person of the Trinity; no competing deity-concept risk in German culture.
ROM.15.16
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Doctrine
Inspiration of Scripture
Distinguish God-breathed Scripture from a purely historical-critical reading common in the German academic theological tradition (historisch-kritische Methode), which has deep roots in German biblical scholarship.
ROM.15.4
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Glossary Term
Intercession
Standard term used in both Catholic and Protestant German liturgy for congregational prayers of intercession; lower risk of Marian/saint-devotional conflation than in French or Italian since it functions primarily as the shared liturgical word for this practice.
ROM.15.30-32
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Glossary Term
Israel
Germany's post-Holocaust national policy (Staatsräson, explicitly tying German national identity to Israel's security) makes biblical Israel especially prone to conflation with the modern nation-state in German public discourse, a distinctly acute version of this general Western risk.
ROM.15.7-12
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Doctrine
Kingdom Mission
God's reign advancing through the gospel, not a political or national project; 'Reich' should be understood in its long-standing biblical sense.
ROM.15.12, ROM.15.18-21
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Glossary Term
Kingdom Of God
Long-standing biblical German phrase since Luther; not perceived as problematic in religious context despite 'Reich' carrying unrelated 20th-century historical associations (Reich Gottes predates and is theologically unrelated to that history) — worth a brief translator-awareness note for non-native reviewers.
ROM.15.12, ROM.15.18-21
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Glossary Term
Law
'Gesetz und Evangelium' (law and gospel) is a cornerstone Lutheran hermeneutical dialectic, more load-bearing in German homiletic tradition than in most other languages in this batch.
ROM.15.8-12
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Glossary Term
Messiah
The Anointed One fulfilling OT promise.
ROM.15.8-12
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Doctrine
Messianic Promise
The specific Jewish OT concept fulfilled exclusively in Jesus must not be flattened into a generic moral teacher, a real drift risk given widespread biblical illiteracy.
ROM.15.8-12
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Glossary Term
Mission
Germany's colonial missionary history (German East Africa) is shorter than France's but still informs some postcolonial critique in contemporary German missiological discourse.
ROM.15.15-24
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Doctrine
Mission to the Nations
Germany's shorter colonial missionary history still informs some postcolonial critique in contemporary German missiological discourse.
ROM.15.15-24
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Doctrine
Mutual Edification
Building one another up in faith; no significant doctrinal risk.
ROM.15.2
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Doctrine
Prayer and Intercession
Direct access to God in Christ's name; 'Fürbitte' is a shared liturgical term across Catholic and Protestant German worship, lowering (though not eliminating) risk of Marian/saint-devotional conflation.
ROM.15.30-32
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Glossary Term
Prophecy
Luther's older term, still current; 'Prophezeiung' also acceptable.
ROM.15.8-12
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Glossary Term
Prophet
God's spokesperson.
ROM.15.4
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Doctrine
Sanctification
The Spirit's ongoing work of making believers holy; low risk of ritual-purification confusion in German culture.
ROM.15.16
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Glossary Term
Sanctification
The Spirit's ongoing work of making believers holy.
ROM.15.16
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Glossary Term
Seed Of David
Luther's literal 'von dem Samen Davids' is now archaic; modern 'Same' primarily denotes biological seed/semen in clinical register.
ROM.15.12
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Doctrine
Separation unto God's Service
Must not collapse into monastic withdrawal; biblical separation is devotion to God while remaining engaged in ordinary life and vocation.
ROM.15.16
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Doctrine
Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Given Germany's specific historical relationship to antisemitism, this pairing requires unusually careful, historically aware handling from reviewers rather than casual paraphrase.
ROM.15.7-12