World
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Kosmos is the Greek word for world, and the New Testament uses it with a range that must be kept together. It can name the created order God made, the inhabited human world, fallen humanity in its estrangement from God, or the present order of desires and values that resists Him.
Reader summary
Full entry for κόσμος (G2889) · Open the biblical lexicon
Kosmos is the Greek word for world, and the New Testament uses it with a range that must be kept together. It can name the created order God made, the inhabited human world, fallen humanity in its estrangement from God, or the present order of desires and values that resists Him.
The BSB source-word alignment has 186 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include world (149), of [the] world (12), [the] world (9), [of the] world (2), whole world (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 4:8. Its strongest book concentrations include John (78), 1 John (23), 1 Corinthians (21), Matthew (9).
This entry includes 8 verse guides that explain exact original-language forms in context.
Kosmos is the Greek word for world, and the New Testament uses it with a range that must be kept together. It can name the created order God made, the inhabited human world, fallen humanity in its estrangement from God, or the present order of desires and values that resists Him. John 1:10 holds the tension in one verse: the world was made through the Word, yet the world did not recognize Him.
John 3:16 intensifies the wonder: God loved that world and gave His Son. First John 2:15 warns believers not to love the world or the things in it. The word therefore does not let teachers choose between mission and holiness. God loves the world in saving mercy, Christ enters the world to redeem, and believers must not be shaped by the world's rebellion.
Kosmos is one of the New Testament's central words for the arena of redemption and resistance. It can describe creation, humanity, or the fallen order opposed to God, so each passage must decide whether the emphasis is creational, missionary, ethical, or judicial.
He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him.
The Word made the world, entered the world, and was not recognized by the world, so the term holds creation and culpable blindness together.
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
God's love is directed toward the world in its need, and the giving of the Son defines that love as saving action rather than vague approval.
I have given them Your word and the world has hated them. For they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
Jesus' disciples are not of the world and are hated by it, but the prayer keeps them in mission rather than removing them from the field.
That God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s trespasses against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
Paul announces that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, giving the word a vast gospel scope without denying human trespass.
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
John warns against loving the world as a desire-forming order, not against loving the people God sent His Son to save.
But as for me, may I never boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
The cross crucifies Paul to the world and the world to Paul, breaking the old system of boasting and worth.
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. The world as an ordered system, but especially the realm of human affairs hostile to God's kingdom.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 187 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
the world, universe
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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 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.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 8 selected witnesses from 185 lexical occurrence verses.
κόσμος is built from this root:
Represents organized rebellion against Christ. 1 John 2:1-2
Sphere of hostility from which believers are distinct. 1 John 2:15-17
Identifies the source of hostility toward believers. 1 John 5:1-5
Expands the scope of salvation beyond Israel. 1 John 5:18-21
Represents the hostile fallen order opposed to Christ. James 4:1–6
Clarifies that worldliness reflects alignment with values contrary to God. John 15:18–27
Represents the fallen value structure that competes with loyalty to the Father.
John highlights the expansive sufficiency of Christ’s atoning work, guarding against a narrow or ethnically restricted understanding of the gospel.
Understanding this term prevents confusion between rejecting sinful systems and rejecting God’s good creation.
Faith empowers believers to resist and overcome worldly opposition and values.
Believers’ identity contrasts sharply with the world’s spiritual condition.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
The central pastoral insight in kosmos is tension without contradiction. John can say God loved the world and also say do not love the world because the word is doing different work in different passages. In John 3:16, the world is the guilty and needy object of divine saving love. In 1 John 2:15, the world is the rival order of desires that competes with love for the Father.
In John 17, the disciples are sent into the world while not belonging to it. A congregation needs all of that. If a teacher only stresses love for the world, holiness disappears. If a teacher only stresses separation from the world, mission and mercy shrink. Kosmos keeps the church in the world as witnesses and out of the world as worshipers.
John.3.16
Kosmos can mean order, adornment, the created universe, the inhabited earth, humanity, or the fallen moral order. The exegetical dividend is not to choose one gloss everywhere, but to ask whether the passage emphasizes creation, people, rebellion, desire, mission, or judgment.
The Old Testament presents creation as God's good world and the nations as the field of His saving purpose, while also exposing human rebellion across the earth. The New Testament gathers that tension around Christ: the world made through Him rejects Him, the Father gives Him for the world, and His people are sent into the world without belonging to its desires.
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Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain