Time
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Χρόνος is the ordinary NT word for time understood as duration — the span in which events occur, the period that things take, the length of ages. It is distinct from καιρός (G2540), which emphasizes the significant moment, the appointed time, the opportunity that arrives.
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Full entry for χρόνος (G5550) · Open the biblical lexicon
Χρόνος is the ordinary NT word for time understood as duration — the span in which events occur, the period that things take, the length of ages. It is distinct from καιρός (G2540), which emphasizes the significant moment, the appointed time, the opportunity that arrives.
The BSB source-word alignment has 54 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include time (23), . . . (7), times (5), [earlier] times (1), [the] time [comes] (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 2:7. Its strongest book concentrations include Acts (17), Luke (7), 1 Peter (4), John (4).
Χρόνος is the ordinary NT word for time understood as duration — the span in which events occur, the period that things take, the length of ages. It is distinct from καιρός (G2540), which emphasizes the significant moment, the appointed time, the opportunity that arrives. Χρόνος asks 'how long?' ; καιρός asks 'which moment?' Both words are needed, and the NT uses them together with precision.
The most theologically charged χρόνος statement in the NT may be the one that qualifies how much is hidden in it: Romans 16:25-26 describes the mystery 'kept secret for long ages (χρόνοις αἰωνίοις)' but now revealed. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not an improvisation; it is the disclosure of God's saving purpose, concealed through the long span of time preceding Christ's coming and revealed in him.
The word thus becomes a container for divine patience and hiddenness — God working across chronological stretches that exceed human sight. Galatians 4:4 gives χρόνος its most precise theological use: 'when the time (χρόνος) had fully come, God sent His Son.' The fullness of time is χρόνος reaching its divinely appointed completion — the entire stretch of history from creation to the incarnation is the span that was 'full' at the moment of Christ's coming.
The word is paired with the coordinate clause 'born of a woman, born under the law,' which grounds the incarnation in the historical and legal conditions of the moment. God acted at the precise point when χρόνος had run its course to fullness. Acts 1:7 places χρόνος under divine authority: 'It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority.'
The disciples' question about the restoration of the kingdom is redirected not with a refusal but with a placement: the times are the Father's to set, not the disciples' to calculate. Χρόνος here is not opaque but sovereign — held in the Father's own authority, which is the ground for trusting it rather than computing it. First Peter 1:17 uses χρόνος for the span of the believer's earthly life: 'conduct yourselves in reverent fear during your stay as foreigners.'
The 'stay' (paroikia) is a χρόνος — a period of sojourn in a land that is not one's permanent home. The word thus carries the pilgrim note: the time of this life is genuine duration, to be lived with reverence and intentionality, but it is not the whole story. Revelation 6:11 then speaks of the χρόνος still remaining for the martyrs: 'rest a little while longer until the full number of their fellow servants...
Were killed.' Even in martyrdom, there is a χρόνος — a determined span that God holds.
χρόνος is indexed at about 53 NT occurrences in the local Greek artifact, distributed across the Gospels, Acts, the Pauline letters, Hebrews, 1 Peter, and Revelation.
But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
The fullness of χρόνος as the moment of incarnation: the entire span of history from creation forward was 'full' at precisely the point when God sent his Son. The word does not describe an accidental timing but a divinely completed duration — χρόνος running to its appointed fullness. This verse frames the entire OT period as a χρόνος of preparation, patient and purposeful, that reaches its completion in Christ's coming.
Jesus replied, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority.
Χρόνος under divine authority: the Father holds the times in his own right (exousia). The disciples' desire to know 'when' is not wrong — it reflects genuine hope for the kingdom's restoration. But Jesus redirects it: knowing the χρόνος is not the disciples' task; their task is witness (1:8). This places all end-time calculation in the category of things that belong to the Father's prerogative alone, while freeing the community for its actual mission.
Now to Him who is able to strengthen you by my gospel and by the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery concealed for ages past
Χρόνος as the vessel of divine hiddenness: the mystery was kept secret 'for long ages' (χρόνοις αἰωνίοις) and is now revealed. The long span of time in which the mystery was concealed was not absence of divine activity but patient concealment before disclosure. God's saving purpose was not improvised; it was hidden through chronos until its revelation in Christ and the preaching of the apostolic word.
And what more shall I say? Time will not allow me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets,
Χρόνος as the limit of narration: even within the sermon's space, χρόνος runs short. The writer's point is that the cloud of witnesses is too vast for any single telling — faith's history overflows the time available to recount it. This use humanizes the word: χρόνος is not only theological duration but the practical experience of time pressing against what needs to be said.
Since you call on a Father who judges each one’s work impartially, conduct yourselves in reverent fear during your stay as foreigners.
Χρόνος as the believer's earthly sojourn: the 'time of your stay as foreigners' (chronon tēs paroikias) frames the believer's earthly life as a pilgrim duration — genuine, significant, to be lived with reverent fear, but not the permanent home. The Father who is called upon is also the Judge; the χρόνος of sojourn is therefore a span of accountability, not of carelessness.
Then each of them was given a white robe and told to rest a little while longer until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers, were killed, just as they had been killed.
Χρόνος remaining for the martyrs: even the deaths of the saints are held within a determined χρόνος — 'a little while longer,' until the full number is complete. The word here is comfort rather than calculation: the sovereignty of God over the span of suffering means that martyrdom has a χρόνος, a bounded duration, not an endless open-endedness. The martyrs rest in God's keeping while the span completes.
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. Measured duration of time; contrasts with καιρός which emphasizes the right or appointed moment.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 53 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
time, a particular time, season
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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 7 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 53 lexical occurrence verses.
χρόνος 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.
Χρόνος gives the preacher vocabulary for the pastoral experience of waiting — and the NT's most important thing to say about waiting is that the χρόνος is God's to hold. Acts 1:7 does not give the disciples a timeline; it gives them a task. The Father holds the times; the disciples receive the Spirit and bear witness. That redistribution of concern — from calculating when to faithfully doing what — is one of the NT's most important pastoral moves.
It frees the congregation from the anxiety of eschatological prediction and reorients them toward missional presence in the time they have been given. Galatians 4:4 ('when the time had fully come') teaches the congregation that God's timing is precise without being early. The whole stretch of OT history was not wasted waiting — it was a χρόνος running to fullness.
That means the spans of time that feel too long to the congregation (waiting for a promise, waiting for the kingdom, waiting for relief) are χρόνοι that God is holding toward their appointed fullness. Romans 16:25 names the deepest χρόνος of all: the ages in which the mystery was hidden before it was revealed. If God can hold the gospel in hiddenness across 'long ages' and then disclose it in Christ at the right moment, no experience of divine hiddenness or delay in the believer's life is outside the same sovereign patience.
Revelation 6:11 applies this to the hardest case: the span of martyrdom has a limit — 'a little while longer.' God does not hold χρόνος arbitrarily but purposefully, until the full number is completed and the accounting is done.
Gal.4.4
Χρόνος derives from an Indo-European root for 'to wait, linger.' Abbott-Smith notes the consistent NT use for time as an extent or period of time, contrasted with καιρός (the right moment, the appointed opportunity). Both words appear together in Acts 1:7 and 1 Thessalonians 5:1 ('Now concerning times (chronōn) and seasons (kairōn)'). English 'chronology,' 'chronicle,' and 'anachronism' all derive from χρόνος.
The word's range in the NT moves from short periods ('a little while longer,' Revelation 6:11) to geological ages ('long ages,' Romans 16:25), unified by the sense of duration — a span with a beginning and end, held within the purposes of the God who inhabits eternity.
The OT background of χρόνος runs through the wisdom literature's meditation on time (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 — 'a time for everything under heaven') and the prophetic perspective on the long arc of God's purposes across history. Daniel's visions of 'times and seasons' (Daniel 2:21 — 'He changes times and seasons; He removes kings and sets up kings') establish the sovereignty of God over the entire span of human history.
The NT inherits this perspective: the Father has fixed the χρόνοι by his own authority (Acts 1:7), just as Daniel's God sets the times of the kingdoms. What the NT adds is the disclosure of the telos toward which the χρόνοι are moving: the fullness of Galatians 4:4 is the Christ who was promised in the OT, and the χρόνοι of Romans 16:25 that concealed the mystery are now the time of revelation and proclamation.
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