Theological terms briefly explained in simple language.

Un•jar•gon•ed New Series!

The New Testament was not written in a vacuum. The good news of Jesus Christ was first spoken into a world that was already full of other movements and competing…

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Un•jar•gon•ed—Quiz Review

The past several weeks of unjargoned have covered a selection of the “jargon” used by biblical scholars. While we will certainly come back to this in a later series, we…

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Per•i•co•pe

is a term that scholars most often use to refer to the individual stories about and teachings of Jesus that come together to form the canonical gospels. It is also…

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A•poc•ry•pha

normally refers to a group of books, not considered canonical by Jews or Protestants, that until 1827 were included (though clearly separated from the canon of the Old and New…

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Syn•op•tic

comes from two Greek words, the one a preposition meaning “together” and the other a noun meaning “sight.” In Biblical studies it is used to refer to the Gospels of…

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Gen•re

is a term frequently used by Biblical scholars to talk about the literary forms in which the books of Scripture were inspired to be written. One of the most remarkable things…

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Syn•tax

is the study of the way that words are arranged into phrases, clauses, and sentences. While most people do not use the term all that often to talk about English,…

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Eis•e•ge•sis

Is the practice of reading into a text a meaning that is foreign to it. It is an invented term formed by replacing the Greek preposition ex, meaning out of,…

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Hom•i•le•tics

Is the study of the task of preparing and delivering sermons. While homiletical technique must never be used as a substitute for the power of the Holy Spirit, the two…

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Her•men•eu•tics

While Exegesis deals with the task of understanding what a text meant in its original context, hermeneutics deals with what those texts mean to us today. However, it is important…

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