The verb διδωμι (didomi) means to give

The verb διδωμι (didomi) means to give and is used largely on a par with the English verb "to give". It describes the willingly handing over of items (Matthew 4:9) or services (Matthew 10:8), giving in response to being asked for something (Matthew 7:7), bestowing on people certain powers (Matthew 10:1), wages (Matthew 20:4), legislation (John 7:19), conditions (John 10:28), answers (John 1:22), knowledge (Matthew 13:11), glory (Revelation 4:9), or breakthroughs of a socio-technological nature: a well (John 4:12), an open door (Revelation 3:8).

Our verb may be used in the sense of to offer sacrifices (Luke 2:24) or praise (Luke 18:43). It may describe a logical or procedural result or progression and as such appear where in English a verb other than "to give" is preferred: the moon gives light (Matthew 24:29), false prophets give signs (Matthew 24:24), heaven gives rain (James 5:18), the earth gives produce (Matthew 13:8).

Our verb may be used in the sense of giving up someone (Luke 7:15, John 10:29) or something (Luke 15:22, Matthew 7:6, Revelation 20:13), to commit oneself to something (2 Corinthians 8:5, Galatians 1:4), or to charge someone with certain tasks (John 5:36, Ephesians 1:22).

The verb διδωμι (didomi) is used 414 times in the New Testament, see full concordance, and comes with more than a dozen derivations such as the familiar noun δοσις (dosis, meaning a giving (hence our English word "dose") and the names Dorothy and Dorean.

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The Greek verb didomi means to give

The Greek verb εγειρω (egeiro) means to awaken

The verb εγειρω (egeiro) means to awaken, incite, rouse or rise. There's no proper English equivalent of this verb but it indicates the opposite of being inactive and inattentive (or asleep) and is as such used figuratively to describe a becoming alert or focused, or getting underway on a journey or perhaps en route to an understanding.

Our verb is often translated with terms like "rise" or "awaken" but the emphasis lies on the gathering up of one's scattered thoughts or unconscious attentions and bundling these into a unified purpose.

It's used 139 times in the New Testament, see full concordance and comes with a bunch of derivatives.

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Get Wow-Wow-Woke Already!!!

Free online concordance of Hallelujah in the New Testament

Check out our free online concordance of New Testament Greek. It lists all words that occur more than 3 times, and offers links to their respective dictionary pages and analyses of the grammar.

Guess how many times the familiar word Hallelujah occurs in the New Testament. A mere 4 times:

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What's fishy about the name Philologus?

The name Philologus occurs only once in the Bible, namely at the end of Paul's letter to the Romans (Romans 16:15). Since Christianity was pretty much illegal in Rome, it's unlikely that Paul would mention the real and traceable names of his friends in the capital. It's therefore more likely that Paul used a kind of code, referring to historical figures or scenes from "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" (Ephesians 5:19, Colossians 3:16) to get his final (and perhaps politically incorrect or even illegal) points across.

The name Philologus is rather unusual. The only one named such, as far as we know, was Andromachus Philologus, the husband of a 3rd century BC poet named Moero, from whom no work is extant. But the meaning of the name Philologus is so strikingly fitting the husband of a poet that one may be forgiven entertaining the possibility that our "name" is jocular.

The "name" Philologus is the same as the word philologus, which is quite a common term in classical literature, and literally means "fond of words" or "talkative". Plato had Socrates use it for himself, when the latter was enticed by his rhetoric sparring partner to speak on an unfamiliar topic, by swearing upon not some god but rather a tree that he would (Plato Phaedrus.236e; see Galatians 3:13). Other writers used it to express a fondness of philosophical argument, or of learning, and as such as synonym for student or eager pupil.

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Did God destroy the tower of Babel for punishment?

God is happy to see people unite and approach Him, but the Tower-builders were wrong about thinking that stacking stones (literally 'works') together would get them closer to heaven. Their goal was good, their effort folly.

God destroyed the effort and introduced variety of speech. Soon after, Abram was called and was promised blessing for all nations. Jesus became that which the Tower-builders were after: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself." — John 12:32.

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The Greek noun πνευμα (pneuma) means exhalation not "spirit"

Contrary to pagan musings, when a person's breathing departs from him/her, it doesn't go anywhere, it just stops. But at the promised resurrection of the body (Mark 12:8-27, John 5:28-29, John 11:25, 1 Corinthians 15:1-58, Philippians 3:10) it returns — that is to say, the person starts to breathe again and becomes a living soul once again (see Genesis 2:7: "and Adam became a living soul"; he didn't get one).

The noun πνευμα (pneuma), which is often translated with "spirit," likewise comes from a verb that has to do with breathing (namely πνεω, pneo; and see our article on this verb to meet our noun's siblings), but this time the verb emphasizes a breathing out rather than in. The difference is colossal, because even though both inhaling and exhaling are part of the same process (namely breathing) and this very process demonstrates that a person is alive, the inhaling part is all about deeply needing something that you can get all around, whereas the exhaling part is about releasing waste products and the excess of stuff that you took for yourself but in the end had no need for.

And of course, onto our breathing-out we can piggyback a wonderful array of signals, from whistles and shouts to Psalms and Shakespeare and even scent-signals that tell our neighbors whether we are healthy or not. And that's the key idea of the spirit: the ability to bond with other beings (including God) and create the larger structures we call societies and cultures (see for instance Daniel 10:20). Likewise the Holy Spirit is not a part of God but God doing something, predominantly uniting people into what's called the Body of Christ.

Spirit is a word like electricity; it doesn't sit at some specific location and does not take on the personality of the one it moves. Spirit leads elements into a common direction, just like the wind that waves through a field of standing grain or scoops up piles of leaves and makes them dance like birds in the air. Flocks of starlings or schools of fish operate on the spiritual principle, and so do bees and ants.

It may be a bit of a let down for people who believe that incense, rainbows and healing crystals are "spiritual things", but no, there are no "spiritual things" and all spirit is willful interaction and cooperation. Our cities are highly spiritual, but so of course is our language. It's taking eons of interaction and forming agreements to produce the language we use today, and there is very little on earth that is more spiritual than language (apart perhaps from the Internet).

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The Greek verb ακουω (akouo) means to hear

The verb ακουω (akouo) means to hear (hence our English word "acoustic"). It probably comes from a combination of the prefix α (a), which in this case means "together with," and a word that probably stemmed from a hugely old Proto-Indo-European root kous-, from whence also our English verb "to hear" comes.

In the New Testament this verb is used pretty much in parallel with our English verb. It may denote the mere perception of sound (Matthew 2:18, 11:15) or the physical ability to do so (Matthew 11:5). But more often describes the receiving of certain news (Matthew 2:3, Mark 2:1) or handed down traditions (Matthew 5:21). It may describe attending a verbal presentation (Matthew 12:42), or the mental capacity to understand what was said (Romans 11:8).

Our verb may imply compliance (Luke 10:16), cooperation (Matthew 10:14), or examination (a hearing; Acts 25:22), but most often it describes the understanding and comprehension of information, which is where faith begins. Or as Paul says, "Faith is by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17, also see Galatians 3:2-5).

Our verb occurs a total of 436 times, see full concordance.

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Neapolis - the New City

There were quite a few cities and settlements named Neapolis (= New City) in the ancient world. Creating colonies was all the fad but coming up with snazzy new names apparently wasn't. This is also how the world begot Naples (= Napoli = Neapolis) and the scores of Newtons (= New Town, same thing).

The Neapolis that is mentioned in the Bible is present day Kavala, a city on the coast of modern Greece but Macedonia back then. It's situated about 14 kilometer south-east of Philippi, and its two-fold claim to fame began when it provided the renegades Brutus and Cassius with a military base, right before they were defeated by Mark Anthony and Octavian, at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC. About a century later, with less fanfare but comparable effect, the apostle Paul entered Europe via Neapolis and brought Christianity with him (Acts 16:11).

Paul and Silas had picked up Timothy at Lystra and toured the Phrygian and Galatian region, but in Troas a vision had appeared to Paul in which a Macedonian man pleaded for them to come to Macedonia. As soon as passage was available, the men had boarded a ship headed for the island of Samothrace, and for Neapolis the following day. From there they went to Philippi and that Sabbath, they met and converted a female purple trader named Lydia.

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The name Isaac means laughter

The root-verb צחק (sahaq) means to laugh, or rather: to have fun, in pretty much the same range of applications as in English (Genesis 39:14-17, Exodus 32:6, Judges 16:25).

Laughter makes us human and was the first formal result of the covenant God made with Abraham.

The first people to laugh in the Bible are Abraham (Genesis 17:17) and Sarah (Genesis 18:3, 21:6), but when Ishmael, the son of Abraham with Hagar also starts laughing, Sarah drives him and his mother out (Genesis 21:9). Sarah's son Isaac is named after the verb to laugh, and as he marries Rebekah, he appears to have ways to make her laugh as well. That their 'laughing' wasn't restricted to mere merriment is attested by the outcry of the local king Abimelech, "Behold, certainly, she is your wife!" (Genesis 26:8).

Laughter, like speech, is an acquired ability which developed in our past for reasons that have long been obscure. This obscurity in turn was due to the obvious fact that laughter is a continuation of the fear reflex — that's why it's so contagious, so hard to stop when you're at it and often so unclear whether someone is laughing or crying: it's basically the same sound produced by the same body parts.

In the last few decades, the study of natural synchronicity has made the connection clear. Humanity's incredible success in the world is not due to our intelligence, but much rather to our ability to tune into each other: synchronicity, or the mentally blending together at the reflex and subconscious level. Many closely monitored and double-blinded experiments have shown that humans (and particularly kin and romantic partners) have the ability to synchronize their heart beat, skin conductivity and even general mood. Women living together often menstruate at the same time.

In the natural world, one "naked ape" isn't much of a foe, but fifteen of them could be problematic, unless of course these fifteen don't want anything to do with each other. Should they, however, demonstrate a very high level of synchronicity, namely by exclaiming their alarm cry in utter synchronicity (perhaps even in multiple voices and snazzy rhythms, hence vocal music) any enemy with any sense at all will realize that the group is not simply fifteen times a naked ape, but rather one super-organism like a dragon with fifteen heads and a transparent body.

Human singing and laughing originated not in entertainment but in shows of force and are similar to an animal's standing upright, showing teeth or flapping brightly colored feathers. The name Abraham means Their Strength (or They Are Now Protected) and expresses international synchronicity. His son's name Isaac means Laughter.

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Nicodemus: a comic encounter

There's only one man named Nicodemus in the Bible but he plays quite a part. His name appears only in the gospel of John (a mere 5 times; see full concordance) and his literary character develops beautifully from scholarly and skeptic to justificatory and finally sympathetic, empathic if not outrageously exuberant.

The story of Nicodemus is deliberately comical

The gospel of John is one of the latest additions to the New Testament; it was written when the synoptic gospels had been circulating for decades and the letters of Paul even longer. Its perspective is clearly that from after the resurrection of Christ and its intended audience knew that the protagonist was going to end up alive and glorious.

The audience's assumed foreknowledge of the facts is clearly demonstrated by John's introduction of the story of the raising of Lazarus, in which he refers to Mary as the one who had anointed Jesus (John 11:2). He's not referring to something he's already told. John's own version of that account would follow in chapter 12.

John is not trying to add more facts but organize the existing facts in a new way, quite possibly also to address the follies of Gnosticism, which slowly began to distinguish itself as an independent philosophy around the time of John's writing. The early Gnostics began to believe that salvation was the result of a certain true knowledge and that this true knowledge could be achieved by a life of study and ascetic self-denial. Christianity differs from Gnosticism in its belief that salvation comes from Christ, whose love surpasses all knowledge (Ephesians 3:19). Knowledge is of course highly appreciated in the Bible, but ultimately it's not knowledge but He who makes us able to stand blamelessly in the presence of God, and He gives great joy (Jude 1:24, Jude is also a relatively late book). Or said popularly: if true knowledge was the key, the devil would be in.

John's gospel is deliberately joyful; it even ends with a quip (John 21:25; also see John 20:30-31). John is probably too early to be an actual formal response to Gnosticism, but it deliberately shows the inadequacy of the intellectual effort and does that in the form of satire and downright banter. Commentators rarely touch the comic character of the debate between Nicodemus and Jesus, but while Nicodemus is obviously displayed as a stern academic and a very learned man, Jesus treats him like a banana.

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