An image- (servant or) worshipper (literally or figuratively)
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Εἰδωλολάτρης means an idolater, a person characterized in context by idolatrous worship or allegiance. The local artifact records seven New Testament uses, five in Paul's letters and two in Revelation.
Reader summary
Full entry for εἰδωλολάτρης (G1496) · Open the biblical lexicon
Εἰδωλολάτρης means an idolater, a person characterized in context by idolatrous worship or allegiance. The local artifact records seven New Testament uses, five in Paul's letters and two in Revelation.
The BSB source-word alignment has 7 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include idolaters (5), an idolater (1), an idolater) (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at 1 Corinthians 5:10. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Corinthians (4), Revelation (2), Ephesians (1).
This entry includes 1 verse guide that explain exact original-language forms in context.
Εἰδωλολάτρης means an idolater, a person characterized in context by idolatrous worship or allegiance. The local artifact records seven New Testament uses, five in Paul's letters and two in Revelation. First Corinthians 10:7 applies the plural to Israel's golden-calf revelry and leads into the command to flee idolatry. First Corinthians 5 distinguishes people outside the church from a professing believer whose conduct requires accountable church action.
First Corinthians 6:9 includes idolaters in a kingdom warning, then verse 11 immediately says that some in the church had been such people but were washed, sanctified, and justified. Ephesians 5:5 calls the greedy person an idolater. Revelation 21:8 and 22:15 place idolaters within final-warning lists. The noun is morally serious, but it must not become a dehumanizing label, a pretext for hostility, or a claim that one accusation reveals a person's final state.
G1496 has seven local uses across First Corinthians, Ephesians, and Revelation. Its passages address actual idolatrous worship, accountable boundaries within the church, greed identified as idolatry, gospel transformation, and final judgment.
Do not be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.”
1Cor.10.7 anchors G1496 in a local Pauline context where idolater must be read from the argument of the passage rather than from a bare word list.
For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure, or greedy person (that is, an idolater) has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
Eph.5.5 shows another Pauline setting for the same term, helping teachers compare usage without forcing every occurrence to carry the same emphasis.
I was not including the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.
1Cor.5.10 gives a further control text so doctrine and application remain passage-governed and not driven by the gloss alone.
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.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Greek word. Idolater: one who gives ultimate allegiance and worship to created things rather than God
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
7 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a worshipper of an image
Read versea worshipper of an image
Read versea worshipper of an image
Read versea worshipper of an image
Read versea worshipper of an image
Read versea worshipper of an image
Read versea worshipper of an image
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 3 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.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 7 lexical occurrence verses.
εἰδωλολάτρης is built from these roots:
G1496 names a person in relation to idolatry, but each passage controls how that moral description functions. First Corinthians 10 warns the church through Israel's golden-calf failure and calls believers to flee idolatry. First Corinthians 5 refuses withdrawal from society while requiring truth and accountability within the professing church. First Corinthians 6 gives a kingdom warning and then interrupts any fixed identity of despair with washing, sanctification, and justification in Christ.
Ephesians exposes greed as idolatrous allegiance, while Revelation preserves the seriousness of final judgment. Teaching must keep warning and gospel hope together. It should examine rival loyalties without pretending every strong desire is worship, and it must never use the noun to harass religious minorities, demean cultures, destroy art indiscriminately, or declare an accused person's final destiny.
1Cor.10.7
The local artifact counts seven noun forms: five in Pauline letters and two in Revelation. Singular and plural forms identify people in their respective arguments. Grammar marks number and case; it does not prove the permanence of the description or the person's final state.
First Corinthians 10 explicitly invokes Israel's wilderness and golden-calf history. The law and prophets condemn rival worship and also expose trust in wealth, power, and human works. Those themes illuminate the New Testament uses when their distinct contexts are preserved.