Search the encyclopedia

Search the Bible

1000 articles found for “God”

• Abraham

  [People]

  Abraham is the ancestor of the people of Israel described in the Book of Genesis. He left his homeland in response to God's call, and Christians often call him "the father of faith."

• Zechariah

  [Bible]

  Zechariah is the thirty-eighth book of the Old Testament. This prophetic book encourages the people of Judah who had returned from the Babylonian exile to rebuild the Temple, and it prophesies concerning the Messiah and the restoration of the kingdom of God.

• Obadiah

  [Bible]

  Obadiah is one of the Minor Prophets of the Old Testament and, with a single chapter of twenty-one verses, the shortest book in the Old Testament. It prophesies God's judgment on Edom and the restoration of Zion.

• The Fall

  [Doctrine & Theology]

  The Fall is the Christian doctrine concerning the event in which the first humans, Adam and Eve, disobeyed God's command, so that sin and death entered the human race, and concerning the condition into which humanity came as a result.

• 1 John

  [Bible]

  First John is one of the General Epistles of the New Testament and consists of five chapters. With its declarations that "God is light" and "God is love," it sets out criteria for discerning genuine faith.

• Parable

  [Bible]

  A parable is a form of speech that conveys spiritual truth through comparison with everyday objects or stories familiar to the listener. In the church the term usually refers to the parables of Jesus recorded in the Gospels, which deal chiefly with the kingdom of God.

• Trinity Sunday

  [Feasts & Seasons]

  Trinity Sunday, the Sunday after Pentecost, is a feast of the Western church year commemorating the doctrine of the Trinity, which confesses one God in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

• Hansei University

  [Institutions]

  Hansei University is a private Christian comprehensive university in Gunpo, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. It began in 1953 as Full Gospel Theological Seminary, a Pentecostal theological school, and has close ties to the Korea Assemblies of God and Yoido Full Gospel Church.

• Marcionism

  [Heresies & Cults]

  Marcionism is the teaching of the second-century teacher Marcion and his followers. It held that the Creator God of the Old Testament and the God who sent Jesus Christ were distinct beings, rejected the Old Testament, and established its own canon of Scripture. The early Church Fathers repudiated it as a heresy.

• Modalism

  [Heresies & Cults]

  Modalism, also known as Sabellianism, is the view that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not three distinct persons. On this view, they are three modes, or manifestations, in which the one God has revealed himself in different ages and roles. The church rejected modalism in the third century.

• Romans 9:20-21

  [Bible Verses]

  A passage asserting the potter's authority over the clay, declaring that the thing formed cannot say to him that formed it, "Why hast thou made me thus?" As the heart of Romans 9, which addresses God's sovereign election, it carries more weight than perhaps any other text in debates over predestination.

• Romans 10:9-10

  [Bible Verses]

  Romans 10:9–10 teaches that "if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." The passage preserves one of the oldest confessions of faith of the early church and is widely used in evangelism and in the sinner's prayer.

• 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18

  [Bible Verses]

  A passage containing three exhortations, "Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks," together with the statement that "this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." It is among the shortest and most widely memorized passages of Scripture and serves as a foundational text for teaching on prayer and thanksgiving.

• 1 John 1:9

  [Bible Verses]

  "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." This verse is a leading text on the repentance and forgiveness of believers. It figures in discussions of the sacrament of penance, the Protestant practice of direct confession to God, and the question of whether saved believers must repent repeatedly.

• Revelation 22:18–19

  [Bible Verses]

  A warning that if any man shall add to or take away from the words of the prophecy of this book, God shall add to him the plagues written in it and take away his part out of the book of life. Although it originally concerns keeping the Book of Revelation itself intact, the passage is widely cited in support of the completeness of the whole Bible and the closure of the canon, and in refutation of claims to new revelation.

• John 3:3–5

  [Bible Verses]

  John 3:3–5 is the passage in which Jesus tells the Pharisee Nicodemus, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." It is the source of the expression "born again" (regeneration). Denominations differ over whether being "born of water and of the Spirit" refers to baptism.

• Ezekiel 37:4–5

  [Bible Verses]

  Ezekiel 37:4–5 is the command, given in a vision, to prophesy the word of the LORD to dry bones, with God's promise: "Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live." The passage envisions Israel's restoration and is also widely used as a symbol of resurrection and spiritual revival. Interpreters differ over what the vision's fulfillment is.

• Matthew 22:37–40

  [Bible Verses]

  In this passage Jesus, asked which is the greatest commandment, names love for God and love for neighbor and declares that all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. It is accepted across denominational lines as a summary of biblical ethics.

• Leviticus 19:18

  [Bible Verses]

  Leviticus 19:18 is a precept of the Mosaic Law: "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Jesus named it, together with the command to love God, as the greatest of the commandments, and both Paul and James cited it as a summary of the Law.

• Deuteronomy 6:4–5

  [Bible Verses]

  Known as the Shema, this passage begins, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD." It is the central confession of faith in Judaism, was cited by Jesus as the greatest commandment, and serves as the starting point for discussions of the relationship between monotheism and the doctrine of the Trinity.