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Promised Land
[Bible]The Promised Land is the land of Canaan, which God promised to give to Abraham and his descendants. In the New Testament, the idea extends to the heavenly homeland and the kingdom of God that believers will receive.
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.
Kyrios
[Bible]Kyrios (κύριος) is a Greek word meaning "lord" or "master." The Septuagint used it to render the name of God, and in the New Testament it is the principal title for Jesus Christ.
Limited Atonement
[Doctrine & Theology]Limited atonement is the Reformed doctrine that Christ's substitutionary death was intended for the salvation of those whom God has chosen and is certainly effective for them. Also called particular redemption or definite atonement, it stands in contrast to universal atonement.
Eirene
[Bible]Eirene (εἰρήνη) is the Greek word for "peace." In the New Testament it refers to reconciliation with God, peace between people, and inner peace of heart. Through the Septuagint it also came to carry the broad meanings of the Hebrew shalom.
Prophetic Symbolic Actions
[Bible]"Prophetic symbolic action" is a descriptive term for actions by which the Old Testament prophets made God's message visible through gestures, objects, and their own lives, alongside their spoken words.
Biblical Inspiration
[Doctrine & Theology]Biblical inspiration is the Christian doctrine that the Bible was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God. Denominations and scholars differ in their understanding of the extent and mode of inspiration.
Redemptive History
[Doctrine & Theology]Redemptive history refers both to the theological perspective that reads the whole of Scripture as a single history in which God saves humanity and the world fallen into sin, and to the history that this perspective describes.
Adoption
[Doctrine & Theology]Adoption is a theological term for the grace by which people who were not by nature children of God are received as God's children through Jesus Christ and obtain the rights of heirs.
Twenty-Four Elders
[Bible]The twenty-four elders are heavenly elders in the Book of Revelation who sit on twenty-four thrones surrounding the throne of God and, together with the four living creatures, worship God and the Lamb.
Sea of Glass
[Bible]The sea of glass is the sea "like unto crystal" that the Book of Revelation describes as spread before the throne of God in heaven. In chapter 15, those who have overcome the beast stand beside it and sing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb.
Active Obedience
[Doctrine & Theology]Active obedience is a theological term for the obedience by which Jesus Christ perfectly kept the law of God throughout His entire life. It is used chiefly in Reformed accounts of justification, where it is paired with passive obedience, which refers to His suffering on the cross.
Three Uses of the Law
[Doctrine & Theology]The three uses of the law is a teaching of Reformation theology that organizes the work of God's law into three functions: restraining evil in society, bringing people to recognize their sin, and guiding the life of the believer.
Burning Bush
[Bible]The burning bush is the thornbush in Exodus 3 that burned with fire yet was not consumed when Moses first encountered God at Mount Horeb. The scene is read as a sign of God's presence and of Moses' call.
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.
Penitential Psalms
[Bible]The Penitential Psalms are seven psalms (Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143) that church tradition groups together because they give prominent expression to the confession of sin and the plea for God's forgiveness.
Gog and Magog
[Bible]Gog and Magog are names that appear in Ezekiel 38–39 and Revelation 20 for hostile forces that come against the people of God in the last days. Magog also appears in Genesis 10 as a son of Japheth.
Brook Cherith
[Bible]The Brook Cherith is a brook near the Jordan River where the prophet Elijah hid at God's command when a drought began during the reign of King Ahab of the northern kingdom of Israel. There he was sustained by food that ravens brought him. The account appears in 1 Kings 17.
Problem of Evil
[Doctrine & Theology]The problem of evil is the theological and philosophical question of why evil and suffering exist in the world if God is omnipotent and perfectly good.
Lament Psalms
[Bible]Lament psalms are a type of psalm in which the psalmist cries out and appeals to God amid suffering, illness, persecution, or national disaster. They are among the most common types in the Book of Psalms.