Times and Seasons



There are two Greek words in the New Testament that are interpreted as 'time'. Kairos is translated as 'time' 64 times. 13 other places, it is translated 'seasons'. Chronos occurs 33 times and is mostly rendered as 'time'.

Two interesting words with different nuances of meaning. Chronos is the root of our English word chronology and denotes the passage of minutes. Kairos seems to focus not on the passage of minutes but on the value of them.

When I consider kairos, I remember that life is all about making time count. There are seasons of our life that pass and never come again. The clock still ticks but seasons of young children and youthful bliss pass on to new things.

It reminds me to make this season of my life count because it will never come again. Instead of counting the minutes I am encouraged to live fully into, and get the most out of, each hour. It is what Jesus did when he entered earth's time.


... excerpted from my series on words in the bible at With Devotion

6 comments:

  1. Short; and sweet on at least two levels. 1) an interesting lesson in NT Greek; 2) a reminder and encouragement to make the most of the seasons of our lives. May you be blessed this day.

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    1. Thanks vanilla. Most of my devotions are fairly short but maybe not always sweet. :)

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  2. Very good reminder. I try and life in what I call "Day tight segments". Truly focusing on TODAY period.

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  3. I always have a problem with time. When I need it I don't have it and when I don't I want it, there's so much of it to pass and how extremely slow they do that. So I treat it more as seasons than time :) you have a great thought there--to make it count because when the season is over, it's gone. So make the most out of it like you said.

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    1. Thanks for that Pearlie. In the end I think that we all wish we had more time. :)

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