to be missing: for something needed to be absent, so that a person, a supply, or a piece of work falls short of complete
This is the plain Greek word for something not being there when it should be. It is not about wishing or craving; it measures a gap. A whole is in view, the parts are counted, and one of them is not on the list. The things it says are missing are strikingly varied:
- one last thing in a wealthy man's otherwise blameless life
- the wisdom a believer needs and can simply ask God for
- clothing and a day's food for a brother or sister in the church
- travel supplies for two men being sent on their way
- the unfinished church business Titus was left behind to put right
Greek can state the shortfall from either end, and both ways of saying it turn up here. Jesus tells a rich ruler that one thing is still missing from him, and Paul asks that two travelers be sent off with nothing missing. James flips it around and makes the needy person the subject: the believer who is short of wisdom, the brother or sister who is short of the day's food, the mature Christian who is short of nothing at all. English collapses both into "lack," so in a translation the two look identical.
Titus 1:5 stretches the word one step further. Paul says he left Titus behind on Crete, using a related verb (ἀπολείπω), so that Titus could set right "the things lacking" there. Nothing has gone missing from a shelf. What is missing is finished work: elders not yet appointed, matters not yet settled.
The nearest Greek neighbor is ὑστερέω, which pictures falling behind, coming up short of a mark or of other people. Mark tells the story of the rich ruler with that verb where Luke uses this one. This word is quieter. It draws no race and sets no standard, and only reports that a needed item is not there.