StrongerBible

apeithēs

ἀπειθής

GreekG0545disobedient

Appears 6 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Luk 1:17Act 26:19Rom 1:302Ti 3:2Tit 1:16Tit 3:3
Compound of
Root family
Word studyah-pay-THACEadjective

What apeithēs means

disobedient: describing a person who has been addressed, will not be won over, and so refuses to comply

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is the adjective of a small family built on the ordinary Greek verb for persuading someone and winning them over, with a prefix that cancels it. The verb of the family (ἀπειθέω) names the act of refusing, the noun (ἀπείθεια) names the refusal itself, and this word describes the person. So it is a label for character rather than for one bad moment: someone has heard, and will not be moved.

Because it describes people, the New Testament mostly uses it as a tag in a list. Paul drops it into two catalogues of what human life looks like once it turns from God, where the specific charge is being ungovernable toward one's own parents (Romans 1:30 and 2 Timothy 3:2). Titus uses it of people whose daily lives contradict what they claim about God, and then of himself and his readers before they were changed. Luke uses it as a bare name for a whole group, "the disobedient," the very people John the Baptist is sent to turn.

The one place the thing refused is actually named is Paul standing before Agrippa, saying he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision (Acts 26:19). That negative is a good test of the word: what he did not do was refuse to be persuaded by something God had shown him. The word never says a person failed to understand or was honestly unsure. It says they were addressed, and said no.

One difference from the rest of the family is worth noticing. The verb is so close to unbelief that English Bibles sometimes render it "do not believe," but this adjective is never treated that way, and it is never set opposite the word for trusting. For the missing trust itself the New Testament reaches instead for a different adjective (ἄπιστος).

Nuances

1adescribing people as set against God: the disobedient, those who will not be won over by him
Luk 1:17Tit 1:16Tit 3:3
1brefusing to yield to a particular thing God has said or shown, with that thing named
Act 26:19
1cungovernable toward one's own parents, in lists of what a life turned from God looks like
TranslatabilityDirect
Rom 1:302Ti 3:2

What scholars say about apeithēs

ἀπειθής is the verbal adjective of the πείθω group, formed with the alpha-privative: not to be persuaded, and therefore not obedient. LSJ (s.v.) records both an active use, of a person who will not comply, and a passive use, of something that will not yield to treatment; the New Testament retains only the personal, active sense. BDAG glosses it "disobedient" and distinguishes the three constructions attested in the New Testament: absolute (Luke 1:17; Titus 1:16; 3:3), with the dative of what is refused (Acts 26:19, τῇ οὐρανίῳ ὀπτασίᾳ), and in the fixed vice-list collocation γονεῦσιν ἀπειθεῖς (Romans 1:30; 2 Timothy 3:2). Bultmann (TDNT 6:1-11, s.v. πείθω κτλ.) argues that the group as a whole fuses Ungehorsam and Unglaube, though the fusion is far more visible in the verb ἀπειθέω, which is set opposite πιστεύω in John 3:36, than in this adjective, which the New Testament never opposes to πιστεύω or πιστός. Louw and Nida place it in the domain of obedience and disobedience (domain 36). On Luke 1:17 interpreters divide over whether ἀπειθεῖς continues the Malachi 4:5-6 promise concerning fathers and children, so that the disobedient are wayward offspring, or widens the reference to an unresponsive people; Fitzmyer (Luke I-IX, AB 28) and Nolland (Luke 1-9:20, WBC 35A) take the wider reading, which is followed here. Marshall (The Pastoral Epistles, ICC) observes that in Titus 1:16 the adjective stands in a triad describing those whose works deny their profession, and that in Titus 3:3 it belongs to a conventional catalogue of the pre-Christian life.

Sources

  • BDAG, s.v. ἀπειθήςlexicon
  • LSJ, s.v. ἀπειθήςlexicon
  • R. Bultmann, "πείθω, πεποίθησις, πειθαρχέω, ἀπειθής, ἀπειθέω, ἀπείθεια," TDNT 6:1-11dictionary
  • J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, domain 36lexicon
  • J. A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke I-IX, AB 28 (Doubleday, 1981)commentary
  • J. Nolland, Luke 1-9:20, WBC 35A (Word, 1989)commentary
  • I. H. Marshall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, ICC (T&T Clark, 1999)commentary

All attested forms of ἀπειθής

nominative m p

ἀπειθεῖς

2Ti 3:2, Tit 1:16, Tit 3:3

accusative m p

ἀπειθεῖς

Luk 1:17, Rom 1:30

nominative m s

ἀπειθὴς

Act 26:19