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RELIGION, RELIGIOUS The definition of the words religion and religious in the Scripture is as follows:
threskeia - Religion in
the Greek is defined as:
threskos -
Religious in the Greek is defined
as:
sebomai - Religious in
the Greek is defined as: Since today the words “religion” and “religious” have such a strong connotation that man needs to perform good deeds in order to please his god, it makes it difficult, if not impossible, to use these words in defining a relationship with God through Christ as we know and experience it. Thus, as with other commonly used “religious words,” such a “pastor,” “baptism,” “church,” etc., it can be more beneficial to use other terms that are not as familiar to the hearer, such as “shepherd or one who tends sheep,” or “a placing into,” or “ekklesia, called out ones,” etc. One of the primary differences in being a disciple of Jesus as compared to other “religions,” is that being a follower of Christ involves a personal relationship with God made possible by His sovereign initiative to send His Son, Jesus our Savior and Lord to be our only “Way, Truth and Life,”...being and doing for us what we could not and cannot do for ourselves as “religious people,” who attempt to work or do good deeds in order to gain God's favor or acceptance. Scripture References: 1. Acts 13:43 “Now when the congregations was broken up, many of the Jews and religious (sebomai) proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas who, speaking to them, persuade them to continue in the grace of God.” 2. 2. Acts 26:5 “After the most strictest sect of our religion (threskeia), I lived a Pharisee.” 3. James 1:26 “If any man among you seem to be religious (threskos), and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion (threskeia) is in vain.” 4. James 1:27 “Pure religion (threskeia)and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
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