What “Kyrios” Means in the Bible

The English word church comes from the Greek word kyriakē, which is a form of the noun kyriakos and means, that which is owned or possessed by the kyrios. So then, what does kyrios mean? This is an important word in the New Testament because it is the Greek word for “Lord” and it is the New Testament word that translates the Old Testament covenant name for God—Yahweh—and the Hebrew title adonai. When the psalmist says, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Ps. 8:1), he is saying, “Oh Yahweh, our Adonai, how excellent is thy name in all the earth.” When the Greek translation of the Old Testament rendered the term Adonai, which means “the sovereign one,” it rendered it by the word kyrios.

Kyrios is used in three different ways in the New Testament. In a simple way, the term kyrios is the polite form of address corresponding somewhat to our word sir or mister. But the highest and most exalted use of the term kyrios is what we call the imperial usage of it, and that is the title that ascribes absolute sovereignty to the one who is kyrios. Paul used this form of the word in Philippians 2:10–11 when he writes “that every knee will bow and tongue confess that Jesus is kyrios,” that is, “Lord.”

As important as that title is for Christ in the New Testament, I want to look at how it relates to our understanding of the church. Another meaning of the word kyrios refers to a man in ancient Greek culture who was wealthy enough to own slaves. The slave owner was called a kyrios and those who were slaves of a kyrios were purchased by the kyrios.

I stress that for this reason: kyriakē is the etymological foundation of the word church. In its original meaning, the church referred to people who were owned by a kyrios, who were owned and possessed by a lord. In the New Testament, we find this imagery frequently used with respect to the relationship between believers—individually and corporately—and Christ. Paul, for example, calls himself a doulos, or slave. He uses this metaphor of one who has been purchased. He applies it not only to himself but also to all of the people of God when he says, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body”(1 Cor. 6:19–20). We are God’s possession because He has redeemed us.

The New Testament speaks frequently about Christians as being people who are in Christ Jesus. When evangelism takes place, the call to people is not simply to believe in Jesus but to believe into Him. The Greek word there is eis, which means “into.” Eis and its meaning can be illustrated thus: if I’m outside the city, I have to first move into the city through the city gates before I can be inside the city. That’s the idea that we have in the New Testament when we are called to believe into Christ. And when we do have authentic faith, we are in Christ Jesus, and He is in us. This is the mystical union of the believer and Christ.

Now if I have a mystical union with Christ and you have a mystical union with Christ, that means we have a particular communion, a co-fellowship in Christ. This has all kinds of practical ramifications in the New Testament. For example, Paul tells us that the spirit by which we are to relate to one another in the church is the spirit of charity that covers a multitude of sins. Furthermore, we are called to respect one another’s Christian liberty in the Lord. We are to refrain from harsh judgments of each other. We are always to remember that we are relating to people who have been purchased by Christ.

In order to exhibit that kind of attitude toward the people of God and towards the church as an institution, we have to look past the individuals who are plaguing us and who are thorns in our side and look to the One whose church it is. If I am a member of a group of servants and I have conflict with the servants, that conflict must never cause me to speak against the owner of the servants. We are all servants under one Lord.

The hardest and most radical command of Jesus is the command to love our enemies. I can’t think of anything more unnatural. If someone is our enemy, the last thing we want to do is promote his welfare and to do good to him. And yet, our Lord said that this is our duty. We must do good to those who spitefully use us and who persecute us. We need to hear this over and over again because to pray for the well-being of those who are at enmity against us is foreign to our basic human nature. And yet, we have the supreme example of Jesus, who laid down His life for the very people who despised Him even unto death. I don’t think that we can love our enemies by nature. The only way we can possibly hope to do it is by grace and by looking beyond the enemy to Christ. We are to love our enemies for Christ’s sake.

Though fellow Christians cannot ultimately be our enemies, we can still apply Jesus’ teaching to church life. If we are to love our enemies, how much more are we to love everyone in the body of Christ?