Behavior
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G391 names a persons manner of life or observable conduct, emphasizing the pattern expressed through choices and relationships rather than a single isolated act. In the letters the noun can describe a former way of life, honorable conduct among neighbors, holy conduct, or behavior watched within a household and community.
Reader summary
Full entry for ἀναστροφή (G391) · Open the biblical lexicon
G391 names a persons manner of life or observable conduct, emphasizing the pattern expressed through choices and relationships rather than a single isolated act. In the letters the noun can describe a former way of life, honorable conduct among neighbors, holy conduct, or behavior watched within a household and community.
The BSB source-word alignment has 13 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include way of life (4), conduct (3), behavior (2), . . . (1), demeanor (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Galatians 1:13. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Peter (6), 2 Peter (2), 1 Timothy (1), Ephesians (1).
G391 names a persons manner of life or observable conduct, emphasizing the pattern expressed through choices and relationships rather than a single isolated act. In the letters the noun can describe a former way of life, honorable conduct among neighbors, holy conduct, or behavior watched within a household and community. In 1Pet. 1. 15, peter calls the redeemed community to become holy in all its conduct because the One who called them is holy.
In 1Pet. 2. 12, honorable conduct among the nations answers slander through visible good deeds that can direct attention to God. G391 opens teaching on discipleship as a visible way of life shaped by holiness, truth, neighbor regard, and sustained transformation. It corrects both private spirituality with no ethical fruit and reputation management that performs respectability while concealing harm or injustice.
G391 moves pastoral attention from slogans to practiced life: Peter calls believers to holiness across their conduct and to honorable behavior among outsiders, while Ephesians names a former way of life that must be put off with the old self. For G391, responsible teaching keeps lexical meaning, passage context, canonical synthesis, and present application distinguishable.
The noun does not make cultural conformity the measure of holiness, nor does it authorize surveillance, perfectionism, or unequal scrutiny of vulnerable people.
G391 appears across passages that develop public conduct, transformed habits, holiness, witness, household relationships, and accountable character. For G391, the immediate setting decides which part of the range is active, so the witnesses must remain distinct rather than being merged into one formula.
But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do,
Peter calls the redeemed community to become holy in all its conduct because the One who called them is holy.
Conduct yourselves with such honor among the Gentiles that, though they slander you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us.
Honorable conduct among the nations answers slander through visible good deeds that can direct attention to God.
To put off your former way of life, your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;
Paul identifies the former way of life with the old self corrupted by deceitful desires.
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. Manner of life encompassing all behavior and conduct; used distinctly for observable Christian witness and example.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
13 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
behavior, manner of life
Read versebehavior, manner of life
Read versebehavior, manner of life
Read versebehavior, manner of life
Read versebehavior, manner of life
Read versebehavior, manner of life
Read versebehavior, manner of life
Read versebehavior, manner of life
Read versebehavior, manner of life
Read versebehavior, manner of life
Read versebehavior, manner of life
Read versebehavior, manner of life
Read versebehavior, manner of life
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.
ἀναστροφή 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.
G391 moves pastoral attention from slogans to practiced life: Peter calls believers to holiness across their conduct and to honorable behavior among outsiders, while Ephesians names a former way of life that must be put off with the old self. G391 names a persons manner of life or observable conduct, emphasizing the pattern expressed through choices and relationships rather than a single isolated act.
The selected witnesses keep the teaching concrete: 1Pet. 1. 15 shows that peter calls the redeemed community to become holy in all its conduct because the One who called them is holy. , while 1Pet. 2. 12 shows that honorable conduct among the nations answers slander through visible good deeds that can direct attention to God.. Eph. 4. 22 adds that paul identifies the former way of life with the old self corrupted by deceitful desires..
G391 opens teaching on discipleship as a visible way of life shaped by holiness, truth, neighbor regard, and sustained transformation. It corrects both private spirituality with no ethical fruit and reputation management that performs respectability while concealing harm or injustice. A church teaching G391 faithfully will name both the promise and the boundary carried by these contexts, attend to vulnerable hearers, and refuse to make the lexical item prove more than its passages support.
The noun does not make cultural conformity the measure of holiness, nor does it authorize surveillance, perfectionism, or unequal scrutiny of vulnerable people.
1Pet.1.15
G391 is a Greek noun for conduct or manner of life, related to the idea of how one moves about in the world; context supplies whether the pattern is former, holy, honorable, or corrupting.
Biblical wisdom repeatedly joins fear of God to a walk visible in ordinary decisions; G391 gives that moral pattern a New Testament focus shaped by Christ, new birth, communal witness, and hope.