law, as cited on the US Citizenship and Immigration Services website: “Under U.S. Yet another modern day definition comes from U.S. These fit with the biblical definition, as the word fatherless in scripture – particularly the Old Testament – often meant the vulnerable children whose fathers were dead or absent and whose mothers were limited in their ability to provide for the family because women didn’t traditionally work or own property or have independent wealth then. Meanwhile, a social orphan is one who loses parents due to poverty or mental illness or some other hard reality with one or both parents are still alive. This kind of orphan is the typical dictionary definition of the word too. Nowadays, the words double orphan or true orphan describe a child who had lost both biological parents to death. How do those compare to our current day use of the words? For some, it’s close. Meanwhile, another Greek word, huiothesia (meaning to place or adopt as a son, as a combination of two Greek words: huios, meaning son, and tithemi, meaning to place or ordain) is used for adoption five times in Paul’s epistles but never paired with orphanos. Orphanos is only used twice, in John 14:18 (“I will not leave you as orphans,” also translated as “I will not leave you comfortless”) and James 1:27 (“Pure and undefiled religion is… to visit widows and orphans in their affliction”), while yathom is used 42 times, usually translated as fatherless, though sometimes as orphan, in the context of calling for justice and charity.

Yathom is more simplistic, used to mean a child who is fatherless or who has lost both parents, but Strong’s concordance point out that it comes from an unused root meaning to be lonely. Orphanos mean orphaned or without a father or lacking a guide or teacher. The Greek word orphanos and the Hebrew word yathom are the original words used for these biblical terms. I’m not a biblical scholar, but I am resourceful, so I brushed off some books and checked some proven websites (like Blue Letter Bible) for a word study. Since our use of them originates in the Bible, let’s start there. And I’m concerned about our nonchalance and even carelessness in the church with the words orphan and fatherless. Our Lord is even identified as the Word who became flesh.

The Bible is clear again and again that our words should be chosen with care. Air Force via Wikimedia CommonsĮditor’s note: Today’s post is the first in a three-part series from Shannon.

The orphans mike evans