Akatastasia names disorder, instability or tumult, but its moral significance depends on the setting. In the Corinthian assembly, Paul contrasts disorder with God's peace while directing people to speak in ways that build up others.
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Full entry for ἀκαταστασία (G181) · Open the biblical lexicon
Akatastasia names disorder, instability or tumult, but its moral significance depends on the setting. In the Corinthian assembly, Paul contrasts disorder with God's peace while directing people to speak in ways that build up others.
The BSB source-word alignment has 5 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include [and] disorder (1), [and] riots (1), disorder (1), of disorder (1), rebellions (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Luke 21:9. Its strongest book concentrations include 2 Corinthians (2), 1 Corinthians (1), James (1), Luke (1).
Akatastasia names disorder, instability or tumult, but its moral significance depends on the setting. In the Corinthian assembly, Paul contrasts disorder with God's peace while directing people to speak in ways that build up others. James links disorder to jealousy and selfish ambition and contrasts that pattern with gentle, merciful wisdom. Paul also fears disorder among the Corinthians alongside rivalry, slander and arrogance.
Yet his ministry hardship list includes riots that he endures, and Jesus tells His disciples not to panic when they hear of wars and rebellions. The noun therefore cannot make every unsettled circumstance proof of personal wrongdoing. It asks readers to distinguish turmoil that people create through selfish conduct from turmoil they suffer, and to pursue peace that serves truthful, considerate life together.
Five direct BSB witnesses range from assembly disorder and jealous communal conflict to riots endured by an apostle and rebellions heard about by disciples. Mutual edification, humility and patient witness provide the governing responses in their respective units.
For God is not a God of disorder, but of peace—as in all the churches of the saints.
Paul's peace contrast follows directions about taking turns, interpretation and weighing speech, with the shared aim of building the church.
For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every evil practice.
Jealousy and selfish ambition produce disorder; James contrasts them with humble conduct and wisdom that is gentle, merciful and sincere.
For I am afraid that when I come, I may not find you as I wish, and you may not find me as you wish. I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, rage, rivalry, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorder.
Paul fears destructive relational conduct in the community while insisting that his speech and ministry aim to build them up.
In beatings, imprisonments, and riots; in labor, sleepless nights, and hunger;
Riots appear among hardships endured in ministry; their presence does not establish that Paul caused disorder or lacked God's care.
When you hear of wars and rebellions, do not be alarmed. These things must happen first, but the end is not imminent.”
Jesus warns against alarm at wars and rebellions and explicitly says the end is not imminent, opposing a confident crisis timetable.
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. Spiritual and social chaos resulting from lack of orderly control or proper authority structure
Spiritual and social chaos resulting from lack of orderly control or proper authority structure
instability (MM, VGT, see word); hence, confusion, tumult: 1Co.14:33, Jas.3:16; pl. (Bl., §32, 6), Luk.21:9, 2Co.6:5, 12:20 (Polyb., al.; see Cremer, 739).
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
5 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
disturbance, upheaval, revolution
Read versedisturbance, upheaval, revolution
Read versedisturbance, upheaval, revolution
Read versedisturbance, upheaval, revolution
Read versedisturbance, upheaval, revolution
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 5 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 1 selected witness from 5 lexical occurrence verses.
ἀκαταστασία is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
First Corinthians 14 gives order a purpose before it gives readers a slogan. The gathered contributions are to build up the church, speakers take turns, interpretation makes speech intelligible and others weigh what is said. God's peace therefore serves shared understanding and encouragement. James supplies a related test of motives: jealousy and selfish ambition produce disorder, whereas wisdom from above shows humility, mercy and sincerity.
Neither passage makes institutional control the measure of faithfulness. The remaining witnesses guard against that mistake from another direction. Paul endures riots while serving God, and Jesus prepares His disciples for unrest without panic. A community should examine its own selfish conduct and make room for accountable speech while offering care, rather than blame, to those caught in turmoil they did not create.
1Cor.14.33
Akatastasia is a noun for instability, disorder or tumult. Its singular and plural forms appear in communal and public settings. The range explains the BSB's disorder, riots and rebellions renderings; surrounding causes and participants determine what responsibility the passage assigns.
Psalm 46 places raging nations and crumbling kingdoms beside God's refuge and the call to recognize His rule. It supports trust amid public upheaval without being another Greek noun occurrence. Its assurance should not erase the Corinthian duty of considerate speech or James' call to abandon jealous ambition.