Quarrel
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Eris means strife, rivalry, contentious conflict, or quarrelsome competition. Paul places it among deeds of darkness and works of the flesh, and he points to jealousy and strife as evidence that the Corinthian church remains fleshly and immature.
Reader summary
Full entry for ἔρις (G2054) · Open the biblical lexicon
Eris means strife, rivalry, contentious conflict, or quarrelsome competition. Paul places it among deeds of darkness and works of the flesh, and he points to jealousy and strife as evidence that the Corinthian church remains fleshly and immature.
The BSB source-word alignment has 9 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include strife (2), arguments (1), discord (1), dissension (1), in dissension (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Romans 1:29. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Corinthians (2), Romans (2), 1 Timothy (1), 2 Corinthians (1).
Eris means strife, rivalry, contentious conflict, or quarrelsome competition. Paul places it among deeds of darkness and works of the flesh, and he points to jealousy and strife as evidence that the Corinthian church remains fleshly and immature. In 1 Timothy, unhealthy controversy produces strife along with slander and suspicion. The noun does not condemn every conflict, debate, protest, or forceful defense of truth.
Biblical ministry sometimes confronts error and injustice directly. Eris names conflict energized by rivalry, envy, faction, or self-assertion and known by corrosive fruit. Churches should not preserve a false peace by silencing harmed people; they should address underlying wrongs, examine power, and pursue truthful reconciliation without rewarding competitive hostility.
Eris names rivalry-shaped strife. Its Pauline settings connect it with darkness, fleshly immaturity, jealousy, false teaching, and relational corruption rather than with faithful disagreement itself.
Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.
Romans 13:13 says believers should walk properly as in the day, not in revelry, drunkenness, sexual immorality, strife, and jealousy. The coming day governs present conduct.
For you are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and dissension among you, are you not worldly? Are you not walking in the way of man?
First Corinthians 3:3 says jealousy and strife demonstrate that the church remains fleshly and behaves by merely human patterns, especially in leader-centered factions.
Idolatry and sorcery; hatred, discord, jealousy, and rage; rivalries, divisions, factions,
Galatians 5:20 lists strife among the works of the flesh beside hostility, jealousy, rage, rivalries, divisions, and factions, contrasting them with the Spirit's fruit.
He is conceited and understands nothing. Instead, he has an unhealthy interest in controversies and disputes about words, out of which come envy, strife, abusive talk, evil suspicions,
First Timothy 6:4 says conceited false teaching produces envy, strife, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction. Argument's fruit reveals its unhealthy source.
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. Contentious strife arising from rivalry and self-interest rather than principled disagreement.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
9 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
contention, strife
Read versecontention, strife
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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 6 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 4 selected witnesses from 9 lexical occurrence verses.
ἔρις is of uncertain origin - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Eris is conflict bent by competition. Corinthian believers organize around admired leaders, and jealousy and strife reveal that their spiritual claims outrun their maturity. Galatians locates the same rivalry in fleshly life, not in the Spirit's harvest. First Timothy shows unhealthy teaching creating an ecosystem of envy, slander, suspicion, and friction. Churches should therefore examine what disputes reward: truth and repair, or status and factional victory.
They must not demand quiet from victims while leaving injustice untouched, since concealed wrong will not become peace. Faithful conflict names concrete issues, hears evidence, restrains retaliation, seeks repentance, and accepts accountable resolution. Eris persists when winning, belonging, or humiliating opponents becomes more important than Christ, truth, and neighbor love.
1Cor.3.3
Eris denotes strife, quarrel, rivalry, or contentious conflict. Its semantic focus often includes competitive hostility, while context distinguishes it from neutral difference or necessary confrontation.
Cain's jealousy, Korah's rivalry, divided kingdoms, and wisdom's warnings about quarrels display conflict fed by pride. Prophets also confront injustice, showing that peace is not silence.