Can someone help me understand who is referred to when the Bible speaks of a Greek and Gentile? For instance, Timothy’s father was Greek. Does that mean he was a Gentile? And Paul said in Romans 1, “It is the power of God … to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Is the Greek here a Gentile? Are all Greeks Gentiles?<\/p>\n\t
The word “Gentile” sometimes translates the Greek word\u00a0ethnos<\/em>, which means a nation or people, specifically someone who is not Jewish and thus could be used in the sense of a foreigner. In classic Greek, “Ethnos<\/em>\u00a0is a rather broad term for any group of people, a nation, a tribe or caste, or a group of animals (as in a swarm of insects) …” [The Complete Biblical Library<\/em>]. Since the New Testament refers to Christians as spiritual Israel, it also uses Gentiles as a synonym for non-Christians (I Thessalonians 4:5; I Peter 4:3).<\/p>\n The word “Greek” can refer to either someone from the nation of Greece or who speaks the language Greek (Acts 21:37). Prior to the Roman Empire, Alexander the Great created a Greek empire that stretched far across the known world at that time. Greek became the language of trade between the various nations. To the Jews, who were conquered by Alexander, a Greek was then any foreigner because almost all foreigners spoke Greek. Thus you see “The woman was a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter<\/em>” (Mark 7:26). Though she was a Phoenician born in Syria, she was considered to be a Greek. When it states that Timothy’s father was a Greek, it most likely means he was of the Greek nationality (Acts 16:1,3). When used in contrast to “Jew,” Greek means a non-Jew, such as, “tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek<\/em>” (Romans 2:9-10).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: Can someone help me understand who is referred to when the Bible speaks of a Greek and Gentile? For instance, Timothy’s father was Greek. Does that mean he was a Gentile? And Paul said in Romans 1, “It is the power of God … to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[76],"class_list":["post-13364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-terminology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1324,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/could-cornelius-have-been-an-israelite-of-foreign-birth\/","url_meta":{"origin":13364,"position":0},"title":"Could Cornelius have been an Israelite of foreign birth?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 7, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: This man is used by many as an example of a so-called \"Gentile\" non-Israelite being saved. The place of birth, or citizenship tells us nothing about race. But this man's race can be determined by Scripture, even if he is not described as a \"Jew\" [or \"Judean\"]. In the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":90889,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-race-exist\/","url_meta":{"origin":13364,"position":1},"title":"Does “race” exist?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 30, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: In Mark 7:26, Mark mentions that the mother of the daughter who had the unclean spirit was a member of the Syrophoenician race. Don't races not exist, as stated in Galatians 3:28 and Acts 17:24-26? Answer: The Greek word\u00a0genos has several meanings. It can refer to a race, a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36005,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/am-i-jewish-hebrew-or-gentile\/","url_meta":{"origin":13364,"position":2},"title":"Am I Jewish, Hebrew, or Gentile?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 28, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Am I Jewish, Hebrew, or a Gentile? My mother was a German Christian. Her grandparents immigrated and were from Germany. What is known is that my father the son of his mother, who was the daughter of her mother, who was the daughter of her father, an Orthodox German\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":50907,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-paul-bring-alms-to-all-jews-or-just-christians\/","url_meta":{"origin":13364,"position":3},"title":"Did Paul bring alms to all Jews or just Christians?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 27, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello Jeffrey, The Apostle Paul in Acts 24:17 shows that he brought alms, supplied by churches, to his nation.\u00a0Alms would be mercy benevolence to the poor of that region.\u00a0The New Testament Greek word for \"nation\" in this passage is ethnos.\u00a0Thayer defines this word as a multitude associated or living\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37668,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-is-meant-by-handwriting-of-ordinances\/","url_meta":{"origin":13364,"position":4},"title":"What is meant by “handwriting of ordinances”?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 4, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What is meant by the \"handwriting of ordinances\" that Paul says was against \"us\" (including himself along with his audience)? Was the church at Colosse Jewish, Gentile or both? Answer: Colosse is located in the area that we now know as Turkey. The city was located in a valley\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14214,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-new-testament-was-written-in-hebrew-not-greek\/","url_meta":{"origin":13364,"position":5},"title":"The New Testament was written in Hebrew, not Greek!","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: You seem to teach that the original New Testament was originally written in Greek. I hate to differ with you. Nowhere is that fact proven. I believe that Luke may have written his manuscript in Greek, since he was of Syrian descent and also perhaps the books of Acts,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/John-Rylands-Fragment-300x169.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}