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• Jude (Brother of the Lord)

  [People]

  Jude is a figure named in the New Testament as a brother of Jesus. He is traditionally identified with "Jude, the brother of James," the author of the New Testament Epistle of Jude.

• Bel and the Dragon

  [Bible]

  Bel and the Dragon is a story in which Daniel exposes the true nature of Bel, an idol of Babylon, and of a dragon that was worshiped there. It has been transmitted as an addition to the Greek Book of Daniel. Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include it as Daniel 14, while Protestants classify it among the Apocrypha.

• Hardening of the Heart

  [Bible]

  Hardening of the heart is a biblical term for the condition of a heart that has grown hard and refuses to receive God's word and warnings. It is best known from the account in Exodus of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart.

• Baptism of the Lord Sunday

  [Feasts & Seasons]

  Baptism of the Lord Sunday commemorates the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. In the Western church calendar, it is usually observed on the first Sunday after Epiphany.

• Raising of the Widow's Son at Nain

  [Bible]

  A miracle in which Jesus met a funeral procession near the gate of the town of Nain in Galilee, raised a widow's only son from the dead, and restored him to his mother. It is recorded only in Luke 7:11-17.

• Circumcision of the Heart

  [Bible]

  Circumcision of the heart is a biblical metaphor, drawn from physical circumcision, for the inward transformation in which a person casts off a heart hardened against God and is made new.

• Doctor of the Church

  [Church Offices]

  Doctor of the Church is a title the Catholic Church formally confers on saints who have made an outstanding contribution to teaching the faith and doctrine. Protestantism has no corresponding official office or title.

• Distribution of the Bread and the Cup

  [Worship & Rites]

  Bunbyeong-bunjan (分餠分盞) is a Korean term that combines bunbyeong, the distribution of the bread, and bunjan, the distribution of the cup, at the Lord's Supper. It refers to the part of the service in which the consecrated bread and cup are given to the communicants.

• Suspension from the Lord's Supper

  [Organization & Polity]

  Suspension from the Lord's Supper (Korean *suchan jeongji*) is a form of church discipline in which a member who has sinned is barred from participating in Communion for a period of time. The term is used chiefly in Presbyterian church constitutions.

• People of the Land

  [Bible]

  "People of the land" translates the Hebrew phrase *'am ha'aretz*. In the Old Testament, depending on period and context, it refers to the inhabitants of a land, the ordinary free citizens of Judah, or people outside the community of returned exiles. In later rabbinic literature it came to denote a person ignorant of the Law.

• Captain of the Guard

  [Bible]

  "Captain of the guard" is a biblical term for the head of a unit responsible for guarding an ancient king, carrying out executions, and similar duties. Nebuzaradan of Babylon and Potiphar of Egypt held related titles.

• Sending of the Seventy

  [Bible]

  An event in which Jesus appointed seventy others, apart from the Twelve, and sent them two by two ahead of him into every town he intended to visit. It is recorded only in Luke 10.

• Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

  [People]

  Pseudo-Dionysius was an anonymous Christian writer thought to have been active in the late fifth or early sixth century. He wrote under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, mentioned in the Book of Acts, and his negative theology and his account of the angelic hierarchy exerted a major influence on medieval theology.

• Methods of Interpreting the Book of Revelation

  [Doctrine & Theology]

  Methods of interpreting the Book of Revelation are approaches to understanding which events, and in which era, the visions and symbols of Revelation refer to. The principal approaches are preterism, historicism, futurism, and idealism.

• Light to the Gentiles

  [Bible]

  "Light to the Gentiles" is an expression in the Book of Isaiah indicating that the Servant of God was given a mission to bring the light of salvation beyond Israel to all nations. The New Testament applies it to Jesus Christ and to the preaching of the gospel.

• John of the Cross

  [People]

  John of the Cross (1542–1591) was a Spanish Carmelite friar, mystic, and poet. With Teresa of Ávila, he founded the Discalced Carmelites, and he wrote spiritual classics including The Dark Night.

• Religious Persecution in the Soviet Union

  [History]

  Religious persecution in the Soviet Union refers to the suppression of churches and believers by the Soviet regime after the Russian Revolution of 1917. The regime made atheism its state ideology and restricted religious activity through laws, administrative measures, propaganda, and arrests.

• Missionary Sending by the Korean Church

  [History]

  Missionary sending by the Korean church refers to the history of Korean Protestant churches and mission organizations sending missionaries to other regions and countries. Its beginning is commonly dated to the 1907 mission to Jeju Island. As of the end of 2024, there were 21,621 long-term missionaries serving in 171 countries.

• Voice of the Martyrs Korea

  [Institutions]

  Voice of the Martyrs Korea is an interdenominational mission organization that assists Christians persecuted for their faith, especially members of North Korea's underground church, and makes their stories known to the Korean church. It shares the lineage of The Voice of the Martyrs, the international organization begun by the Romanian pastor Richard Wurmbrand.

• Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit

  [Doctrine & Theology]

  Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the sin of reviling the Holy Spirit, which Jesus said "shall not be forgiven." Denominations and theologians differ on what exactly this sin is.