Coming
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Παρουσία (parousía) means presence, arrival, or coming. It can describe the welcome arrival of an ordinary person, as when Titus comforts Paul, and it becomes a major term for the future coming of the Lord Jesus.
Reader summary
Full entry for παρουσία (G3952) · Open the biblical lexicon
Παρουσία (parousía) means presence, arrival, or coming. It can describe the welcome arrival of an ordinary person, as when Titus comforts Paul, and it becomes a major term for the future coming of the Lord Jesus.
The BSB source-word alignment has 24 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include coming (17), arrival (3), presence (2), coming [of the lawless one] (1), have arrived (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 24:3. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Thessalonians (4), Matthew (4), 2 Corinthians (3), 2 Peter (3).
Παρουσία (parousía) means presence, arrival, or coming. It can describe the welcome arrival of an ordinary person, as when Titus comforts Paul, and it becomes a major term for the future coming of the Lord Jesus. The disciples ask about the sign of Jesus' coming; Paul prays for holiness at His coming with all His saints; James commands patient endurance until the Lord's coming; John urges believers to remain in Christ so they may stand confident rather than ashamed at His coming.
The ordinary use guards against treating the noun as a coded timetable. The eschatological uses describe personal arrival and resulting presence, not merely an inward idea or a recurring historical influence. Each passage emphasizes a different response: discernment, holiness, patience, steadfast communion, confidence, or warning.
Παρουσία can name an ordinary person's arrival, yet the selected texts chiefly speak of Jesus' promised coming. His arrival calls disciples to truth, holiness, agricultural patience, abiding in Christ, and confident readiness.
While Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?”
The disciples join the question of Jesus' coming to the end of the age, and the discourse answers with warnings against deception before offering signs for faithful endurance.
But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the arrival of Titus,
Titus's arrival comforts a downcast Paul, preserving the noun's ordinary sense of a person's coming and presence within embodied fellowship.
So that He may establish your hearts in blamelessness and holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints. Amen.
Paul prays that believers' hearts be established in holiness before God at Jesus' coming with all His saints, joining future hope to present sanctification.
Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer awaits the precious fruit of the soil—how patient he is for the fall and spring rains.
James compares waiting for the Lord's coming to a farmer's patient dependence on seasonal rain, making steadfastness rather than date-setting the pastoral emphasis.
And now, little children, remain in Christ, so that when He appears, we may be confident and unashamed before Him at His coming.
John tells God's children to remain in Christ so His appearing finds them confident and unashamed, rooting readiness in continued communion and obedience.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Physical presence or arrival; in NT, Christ's future coming as a technical term for royal advent.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 24 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
presence, a coming, arrival, advent
Read versepresence, a coming, arrival, advent
Read versepresence, a coming, arrival, advent
Read versepresence, a coming, arrival, advent
Read versepresence, a coming, arrival, advent
Read versepresence, a coming, arrival, advent
Read versepresence, a coming, arrival, advent
Read versepresence, a coming, arrival, advent
Read versepresence, a coming, arrival, advent
Read versepresence, a coming, arrival, advent
Read versepresence, a coming, arrival, advent
Read versepresence, a coming, arrival, advent
Read versepresence, a coming, arrival, advent
Read versepresence, a coming, arrival, advent
Read versepresence, a coming, arrival, advent
Read versepresence, a coming, arrival, advent
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 4 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 24 lexical occurrence verses.
παρουσία is built from this root:
Refers to Christ’s return and final vindication.James 5:7–11
Christian expectancy is attachment to a coming person, not fascination with a secret calendar. Matthew shows that questions about the παρουσία require protection from deception and sustained obedience through distress. Titus's arrival reminds readers that the word can simply describe the comfort brought when someone comes and is present. Applied to Jesus, that ordinary relational core gains eschatological majesty.
Paul wants hearts established in holiness before God; James wants suffering believers to wait with a farmer's steadiness; John wants children to abide in Christ so they meet Him without shame. The coming therefore searches present discipleship. Hope becomes distorted when it produces speculation without holiness, alarm without patience, or chronology without communion.
Teachers should announce that Jesus Himself will come and let each passage train the church in the form of readiness it names.
Matt.24.3
Παρουσία is formed around the idea of being present and can denote presence after arrival or the arrival itself. The person whose παρουσία is named controls whether the sense is ordinary travel, apostolic presence, or Christ's eschatological coming.
Prophets anticipate the Lord's decisive intervention and the Son of Man's kingdom. The New Testament centers that hope on Jesus' personal return and shapes present holiness, endurance, comfort, and mission around it.