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Zealots
[Bible]The Zealots were Jewish groups in first-century Judea under Roman rule who resisted foreign domination in the name of "zeal" for God and the Law. In the Bible the term appears as "Zelotes," the epithet of Simon, one of the twelve disciples.
Basemath
[People]Basemath is a wife of Esau in the Book of Genesis who, through her son Reuel, became an ancestor of the chiefs of Edom. Genesis 26 and Genesis 36 give differing accounts of her origin. The First Book of Kings mentions a daughter of Solomon who bore the same name.
Four Horsemen
[Bible]The Four Horsemen are four figures riding horses of different colors who appear in turn in Revelation 6 as the Lamb opens the first four of the seven seals. They are commonly called the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse."
Isaiah 53:10–12
[Bible Verses]This passage concludes the fourth "Servant Song" in the Book of Isaiah and declares that the servant who suffered and died bears the sins of many and is ultimately exalted. Christians read it as a prophecy of Christ's atoning death and resurrection, and it is frequently cited in connection with the doctrine of the atonement.
The Good Shepherd
[Bible]The Good Shepherd is a figurative expression Jesus used of himself in John 10. It portrays the true leader as a shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, in contrast to the hireling and the thief.
World Christian Population
[History]The world Christian population is an estimate of the number of people worldwide who identify themselves as Christians or are affiliated with a church. As of 2020 it stood at roughly 2.3 to 2.5 billion, and over the course of the twentieth century its center shifted from Europe to Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
Galatians 3:24
[Bible Verses]Galatians 3:24 is a verse in which Paul says that the law served as a "schoolmaster" (Greek *paidagōgos*), a guardian who took charge of people and guided them until Christ came. It is frequently cited in discussions of the relationship between law and gospel and of the uses of the law.
Chuza
[People]Chuza was the steward of Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee. He was the husband of Joanna, one of the women who ministered to Jesus and his company out of their own means, and he is named only once in Scripture, in Luke 8:3.
Ezra 9
[Bible]Ezra 9 is the chapter in which Ezra, on hearing that the people and leaders who had returned to Jerusalem had intermarried with the surrounding foreign peoples, tears his garments in grief and, at the time of the evening sacrifice, offers a prayer confessing the sin of the whole people.
Matthew 19
[Bible]Matthew 19 is the chapter in which Jesus, traveling from Galilee into the region of Judea, answers the Pharisees' question about divorce, lays his hands on little children, and speaks with a rich young man who asks about eternal life.
Shinab
[People]Shinab was the king of Admah named in Genesis 14. He was one of five kings who fought against the coalition of four kings led by Chedorlaomer.
Priest
[Church Offices]A priest is one of the three holy orders in Anglicanism, alongside bishop and deacon, and is an ordained minister who presides at the Eucharist and cares for the church. Priests are commonly addressed as "Father," and unlike Roman Catholic priests, who observe celibacy, Anglican priests may marry.
Revelation 11:4
[Bible Verses]Revelation 11:4 identifies the "two witnesses" of Revelation 11 as "the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks." The imagery comes from the vision in Zechariah 4. Interpreters disagree about who the two witnesses are. In Korea, groups regarded as heretical have frequently cited the verse in support of their teachings.
Pool of Bethesda
[Bible]The Pool of Bethesda was a pool beside the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem. In John 5, it is the place where Jesus healed, on the Sabbath, a man who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
Parable of the Two Sons
[Bible]The Parable of the Two Sons is a parable of Jesus found in Matthew 21:28-32. It contrasts a son who refused his father's request but afterward changed his mind and went to work with a son who said he would go but did not.
Investiture Controversy
[History]The Investiture Controversy was a conflict in eleventh- and twelfth-century Western Europe between the Roman popes and secular rulers, especially the Holy Roman Emperor, over who had the right to appoint bishops and abbots. It was largely settled by the Concordat of Worms in 1122.
Susanna
[People]Susanna is a woman named once in Scripture, in Luke 8:3. She was one of the women who accompanied Jesus and the Twelve and ministered to them out of their own substance.
Jether
[People]Jether was the firstborn son of the judge Gideon. In Judges 8 he appears as a youth whom his father commanded to kill Zebah and Zalmunna, the two kings of Midian, but who did not draw his sword because he was young and afraid.
Numbers 1
[Bible]Numbers 1 records how, in the second year after the Exodus, Moses and Aaron numbered the men of the twelve tribes in the wilderness of Sinai who were twenty years old and upward and able to go to war, arriving at a total of 603,550. The tribe of Levi was excluded from the count and given charge of the tabernacle.
Calvin's Geneva
[History]Calvin's Geneva refers to the period of the Reformation in Geneva from 1536 to 1564, during which John Calvin was active in the city. During these years Geneva established a new church order, church discipline, and system of education, and it became a center of Reformed Protestantism.