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Minjung Church
[Organization & Polity]A minjung church is a church that regards workers, the urban poor, and other socially marginalized people as the "minjung" (the people) and makes standing with them, in the places where they live, the center of its mission. Minjung churches took shape in South Korea in the 1970s and 1980s alongside minjung theology.
Cornerstone Laying Ceremony
[Worship & Rites]A cornerstone laying ceremony is a service held during the construction of a new sanctuary or church building, in which the cornerstone, or foundation stone, is set upon the foundation and the building work is committed to God.
Deaconess
[Church Offices]A deaconess is a woman church member who holds the office of deacon. Whether women may be ordained as deacons, and how church offices are structured, varies by denomination. In Korean Protestant churches, deaconesses usually serve as acting deacons appointed on a yearly basis.
Targum
[Bible]A Targum is one of the ancient Jewish translations and paraphrases of the Hebrew Old Testament into Aramaic. The Targums are generally understood to have originated as oral explanations given when Scripture was read aloud in the synagogue.
Holy War
[Bible]A scholarly term for the Old Testament wars portrayed as fought by God himself on Israel's behalf. The term does not appear as such in the Bible; these conflicts are also called "Yahweh war" or "the wars of the LORD."
Holy Convocation
[Bible]A holy convocation was a sacred assembly in which the people of Israel were called together on days appointed by God to rest from work and to worship. Leviticus 23 sets out the holy convocations of the Sabbath and of the annual feasts.
Fishers of Men
[Bible]A phrase Jesus used when He called disciples who were fishermen on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. It likens the work of bringing people to God to catching fish and appears in Matthew 4:19 and Mark 1:17.
Captain of Fifty
[Bible]A captain of fifty is an Old Testament title for a person who governed or commanded a unit of fifty people. The title appears in passages such as Exodus 18 and 2 Kings 1.
Donatist Controversy
[History]A schism and controversy in the North African church of the early fourth century over whether sacraments administered by clergy who had renounced the faith during persecution were valid, and over how pure the church must be.
Midwife
[Bible]A midwife is a woman who assists another woman in childbirth. In the Bible, midwives appear in Genesis and Exodus. They are best known through the account of Shiphrah and Puah, who defied Pharaoh's order and saved the lives of Hebrew baby boys.
Ruler of Tens
[Bible]A ruler of tens was a leader placed over a unit of ten Israelites who governed them and judged minor disputes. The office appears in Exodus 18 and Deuteronomy 1.
Juridical Parable
[Bible]A juridical parable is a biblical narrative form in which a seemingly unrelated case is presented so that the hearer pronounces judgment, only for that judgment to turn back upon the hearer. Nathan's parable to David is the best-known example.
Wadi
[Bible]A wadi is a valley watercourse that flows only during the rainy season and lies dry during the dry season. The term, of Arabic origin, is used in biblical commentary to describe the landform the Hebrew Bible calls a nahal.
Christmas Tree
[Feasts & Seasons]A Christmas tree is a decoration set up in the days before Christmas, consisting of an evergreen or a tree of similar shape adorned with a star, lights, and ornaments. Although it is not a rite grounded in Scripture, most churches in Korea set one up inside and outside their sanctuaries during Advent and the Christmas season.
Sign
[Bible]A sign is a mark that reveals God's will or shows in advance what is to come. In the Old Testament the term refers to signs of the covenant and to the symbolic acts of the prophets; in the New Testament it extends to the signs performed by Jesus and to the signs of the end times.
Hermit
[Christian Life]A hermit is a person who lives alone in a remote place apart from the world, cultivating faith through prayer and ascetic discipline. The tradition originated with the monks of the Egyptian desert in the third and fourth centuries.
Relic
[Doctrine & Theology]A relic is the preserved remains of a saint or martyr, an object that a saint or martyr used, or an object associated with the life of Jesus, kept as an object of veneration. The Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church venerate relics, while Protestants generally reject the practice.
Eunuch
[Bible]A eunuch was an official who served the king and the royal household closely in ancient palaces; in many cases he was a castrated man. The Hebrew and Greek terms appear across both Testaments, and the Korean Revised Version renders the same original term with several different words depending on context.
Measuring Line
[Bible]A measuring line is a cord used to measure length and area. In the Bible it appears chiefly in visions that anticipate the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple, and it also expresses the standard of divine judgment.
Proverbs 11:26
[Bible Verses]A proverb teaching that whoever hoards grain in a time of famine and refuses to release it will be cursed by the people, while whoever sells it will be blessed. The verse rebukes the hoarding of goods for profit and is cited in discussions of sharing and the social responsibility of wealth.