Spiritual
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Πνευματικός (pneumatikós) means spiritual or pertaining to the Spirit, with context identifying whether the reference is to the Holy Spirit, the unseen order, Spirit-given gifts, or Spirit-shaped worship. Paul longs to impart a spiritual gift that strengthens Roman believers.
Reader summary
Full entry for πνευματικός (G4152) · Open the biblical lexicon
Πνευματικός (pneumatikós) means spiritual or pertaining to the Spirit, with context identifying whether the reference is to the Holy Spirit, the unseen order, Spirit-given gifts, or Spirit-shaped worship. Paul longs to impart a spiritual gift that strengthens Roman believers.
The BSB source-word alignment has 26 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include spiritual (13), a spiritual (2), [and] spiritual (1), [the] spiritual (1), a spiritual [body] (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Romans 1:11. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Corinthians (15), Ephesians (3), Romans (3), 1 Peter (2).
Πνευματικός (pneumatikós) means spiritual or pertaining to the Spirit, with context identifying whether the reference is to the Holy Spirit, the unseen order, Spirit-given gifts, or Spirit-shaped worship. Paul longs to impart a spiritual gift that strengthens Roman believers. He cannot address the Corinthians as spiritual because jealousy and strife reveal flesh-governed immaturity, though they remain “in Christ.
” The same church must pursue love while desiring spiritual gifts, especially intelligible prophecy. Ephesians praises every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms as given in Christ. Peter calls believers a spiritual house offering spiritual sacrifices through Jesus. The adjective does not mean immaterial, elite, or detached from bodies and ordinary obedience.
What is spiritual comes from, belongs to, or is formed by God's Spirit under Christ's lordship.
Πνευματικός describes what pertains to God's Spirit: strengthening gifts, Spirit-shaped maturity, gifts governed by love, blessings in Christ, and a living house offering acceptable sacrifices through Jesus.
For I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you,
Paul desires to share a spiritual gift that strengthens the Roman church, yet immediately speaks of mutual encouragement through one another's faith.
Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly—as infants in Christ.
Corinthian jealousy and quarreling prevent Paul from addressing believers as spiritual, showing that giftedness without mature love can coexist with fleshly behavior.
Earnestly pursue love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.
The church must pursue love and desire spiritual gifts, especially prophecy, so Spirit-given activity serves intelligible edification rather than status.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms.
God has blessed believers in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms, grounding identity in divine election, redemption, and promised inheritance.
You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Living stones are built into a spiritual house and holy priesthood whose sacrifices become acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
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 realities actuated by Divine Spirit, contrasting with fleshly or soulish dimensions of human existence.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 26 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
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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 10 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 5 selected witnesses from 26 lexical occurrence verses.
πνευματικός 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.
Spiritual life is not an escape from creaturely or communal existence. Paul imagines spiritual gift as mutual strengthening, not one-way display. Corinth proves that remarkable gifts do not automatically make people spiritual; jealousy and rivalry expose infancy even among those in Christ. Therefore the command to desire spiritual gifts begins with pursuing love and prioritizes speech that builds others up.
Ephesians locates spiritual blessing in union with Christ and God's redemptive purpose rather than emotional intensity. Peter gives the adjective architectural and priestly force: embodied believers are living stones built together, and their sacrifices are acceptable only through Jesus. Churches should welcome the Spirit's work while refusing elitism, spectacle, and vague spirituality.
The Spirit forms a truthful, holy, loving people whose gifts serve the whole body and whose worship rests on Christ's mediation.
Rom.1.11
Πνευματικός is an adjective related to πνεῦμα and describes what pertains to spirit or the Spirit. The modified noun and broader theology establish whether the focus is Holy-Spirit origin, spiritual realm, gift, person, or worship.
God promises His Spirit to renew hearts, equips His people for service, and dwells among them. New-covenant spirituality is communal, obedient, Christ-mediated, and expressed through embodied worship.
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Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain