To battle
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G4754 is a Greek verb for serving as a soldier, making war, fighting, or, metaphorically, engaging in moral and spiritual conflict. Luke 3:14 addresses actual soldiers and commands them not to extort money or make false accusations, but to be content with their wages.
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Full entry for στρατεύομαι (G4754) · Open the biblical lexicon
G4754 is a Greek verb for serving as a soldier, making war, fighting, or, metaphorically, engaging in moral and spiritual conflict. Luke 3:14 addresses actual soldiers and commands them not to extort money or make false accusations, but to be content with their wages.
The BSB source-word alignment has 7 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include [some] soldiers (1), A soldier (1), at war (1), serves as a soldier (1), war (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Luke 3:14. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Corinthians (1), 1 Peter (1), 1 Timothy (1), 2 Corinthians (1).
G4754 is a Greek verb for serving as a soldier, making war, fighting, or, metaphorically, engaging in moral and spiritual conflict. Luke 3:14 addresses actual soldiers and commands them not to extort money or make false accusations, but to be content with their wages. Second Corinthians 10:3 says that although believers live in the flesh, they do not wage war according to the flesh, explicitly limiting the metaphor's methods.
First Peter 2:11 describes disordered desires as warring against the soul, locating one battle within the person rather than against a human enemy. Other texts speak of ministry support, disciplined service, the good fight, and passions that produce communal quarrels. G4754 opens discipline, allegiance, provision, inner conflict, and non-fleshly struggle. It corrects militarized discipleship that turns neighbors into enemies, while also resisting passive language that ignores persistent temptation, exploitative conduct, or the focused endurance required for faithful service.
G4754 can describe literal military service or warfare and can extend metaphorically to ministry, moral struggle, destructive desires, and sustained faithfulness. The object of conflict and the methods explicitly permitted or rejected determine the application.
Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” “Do not take money by force or false accusation,” he said. “Be content with your wages.”
John tells soldiers to reject extortion and false accusation and to be content with their wages.
For though we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh.
Paul acknowledges embodied life while denying that apostolic conflict is waged according to fleshly methods.
Beloved, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from the desires of the flesh, which war against your soul.
Peter urges believers as foreigners and exiles to abstain from desires that wage war against the soul.
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. To serve as a soldier or engage in spiritual warfare; emphasizes active military service under command.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
7 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I wage war, fight
Read verseI wage war, fight
Read verseI wage war, fight
Read verseI wage war, fight
Read verseI wage war, fight
Read verseI wage war, fight
Read verseI wage war, fight
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 mood, tense, and voice shift the force of this verb in context.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
How this verb appears across 7 occurrences in the NT discourse index (MACULA Greek SBLGNT).
Aspect reflects grammatical form — not authorial emphasis. Participles and infinitives are verbal adjectives and nouns respectively.
Clause data: MACULA Greek (Clear Bible, CC BY 4.0) · SBLGNT (Logos/SBL, CC BY 4.0)
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 7 lexical occurrence verses.
στρατεύομαι is built from this root:
Ministry is depicted as active conflict requiring courage, discipline, and perseverance.1 Timothy 1:18-20
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
G4754 uses military experience without surrendering Christian ethics to military logic. John speaks to actual soldiers and addresses conduct inside their vocation: no extortion, no false charges, and no predatory use of institutional power. Paul draws on the expectation that soldiers receive support and that service requires focus, yet he expressly says apostolic warfare is not according to the flesh.
Peter and James turn attention inward, where desires and passions wage war against the soul and generate quarrels. Timothy's good fight concerns faithfulness to entrusted truth, not domination of people. The metaphor therefore names seriousness, endurance, allegiance, and discipline, but it also defines enemies and methods carefully. Churches misuse it when they cultivate aggression, demand unquestioned obedience, glorify weapons, or frame criticism and vulnerable people as hostile forces.
Faithful struggle can include resisting lies, practicing self-control, protecting others, persevering in service, and confronting unjust systems through truthful means. It must remain accountable to love of neighbor and enemy, the dignity of bodies, and the cross-shaped way of Christ. Not every conflict should be intensified; some quarrels must be disarmed by repentance.
2Cor.10.3
G4754 comes from the sphere of an encamped army and can mean serve as a soldier, wage war, or fight. New Testament metaphorical uses retain ideas of discipline and conflict while the surrounding objects and modifiers relocate the struggle to ministry, desires, conscience, and non-fleshly methods.
Old Testament warfare, divine-warrior poetry, wisdom about inner desire, and prophetic demands for justice form a complex background. The New Testament's use of soldier imagery must remain governed by Christ's enemy love and explicit rejection of fleshly warfare.