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| Volume 26 Number 3 March 2024 |
Page 16 |
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| Volume 26 Number 3 March 2024 |
Page 16 |
Louis Rushmore, Editor
The Greek word under consideration only appears three times in the New Testament. The NKJV translates komos as “revelry” (Romans 13:13; Galatians 5:21 NKJV) and “revelries” (1 Peter 4:3 NKJV). Word studies for this word, as well as insights from commentaries, sufficiently describe what it meant when the New Testament was penned. Reflection when comparing revelries to what passes for dancing in our time shows the likeness between then and now; plus, it demonstrates how “rioting” (Romans 13:13 KJV) or “revellings” (Galatians 5:21; 1 Peter 4:3 KJV) is improper conduct for anyone professing Christianity to engage. “It came to mean ‘a carousal’ such as a party of revellers parading the streets… wild, furious, and ecstatic” (Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament).
Liddell and Scott Abridged Greek Lexicon defines “revelries” (komos) as “A revel, carousal, merry-making… it ended in the party parading the streets crowned, bearing torches, singing, dancing, and playing frolics.” Thayer's Greek Lexicon says of the same Greek word, “Properly, a nocturnal and riotous procession of half-drunken and frolicsome fellows who after supper parade through the streets with torches and music in honor of Bacchus or some other deity, and sing and play before the houses of their male and female friends; hence, used generally, of feasts and drinking-parties that are protracted till late at night and indulge in revelry; plural.” Vincent's Word Studies in the New Testament adds:
carouses, in which the party of revellers paraded the streets with torches, singing, dancing, and all kinds of frolics. These revels also entered into religious observances, especially in the worship of Bacchus, Demeter, and the Idaean Zeus in Crete. …The rites grew furious and ecstatic. “Crowds of women, clothed with fawns’ skins, and bearing the sanctified thyrsus (a staff wreathed with vine-leaves)… abandoned themselves to demonstrations of frantic excitement, with dancing and clamorous invocation of the god. They were said to tear animals limb from limb, to devour the raw flesh, and to cut themselves without feeling the wound. The men yielded to a similar impulse by noisy revels in the streets, sounding the cymbals and tambourine, and carrying the image of the god in procession (Grote, ‘History of Greece’).” …wild orgies and hideous mutilations.
A synonym for “Frolic” is “cavort,” which means “to leap or dance about in a lively manner” (Merriam-Webster).
“Komos” “includes riot and revelry, usually as arising from drunkenness” (Berry’s Synonyms of the New Testament). Revelry is the “…consequence of drunkenness, is used in the plural…” (“Komos.” Vine’s). Reveling is associated “…with impurity and obscenity of the grossest kind” (The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament). The Greek-English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domain notes of komos that it includes “drinking parties involving unrestrained indulgence in alcoholic beverages and accompanying immoral behavior - orgy, revelling, carousing.”
The bad behavior connected to komos usually included “…unclean and dissolute [depraved or degenerate] songs…” (Adam Clarke’s Commentary). “Revelling; denoting the licentious conduct, the noisy and obstreperous [surly] mirth, the scenes of disorder and sensuality…” (Barnes’ Notes). “Orgies describes the result of excessive drinking; another way of expressing it is ‘excessive feasting,’ ‘wild parties.’” (UBS New Testament Handbook Series).
“Komos” “…appears in the NT only in a negative sense and in the pl” (Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament). Summarized, the word characterizes sensuality and dancing. Modesty (kosmos) means “well-behaved…discreet, quiet…” exhibiting “decency, order…” (Liddell and Scott Abridged Greek Lexicon). “Kosmos” is everything that “Komos” is not; they’re about opposite of each other. Christians are to display the former of the two words in their lives and not the latter word or any of the things it means.
“Revelry” or “reveling” manifests itself today in a number of ways. “Lewdness” (NKJV) or “lasciviousness” (KJV) in 1 Peter 4:3 is a companion to “revelries,” along with “lusts, drunkenness…and drinking parties” in the same verse. Alcoholic consumption frequently fuels additional vices or sins. “Lewdness” (aselgeia) includes “filthy words, indecent bodily movements, unchaste handling of males and females…” (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon). Slow dancing between unmarried couples fits the description of “unchaste handling of males and females.” Anyone not sure of that merely needs to turn off the music and observe “unchaste handling of males and females.” Modern dancing, from the roaring twenties to what rock and roll introduced through the present, fits the description of “indecent bodily movements.” The music accompanying modern dancing often blasts out “filthy words.” What passes for dancing in our day corresponds to “lewdness” and “revelries.” First Peter 4:3, and other passages, condemn inappropriate touching and gyrations, as well as alcoholic beverages. Modesty (kosmios, related to kosmos), though, would have God’s children to be “…‘well-mannered’ or ‘honorable’” (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament) and “orderly, well arranged, decent, modest” (“kosmois.” Vine’s )
Works Cited
“1 Peter 4:3.” Barnes’ Notes. Electronic Database. Seattle: Biblesoft, 2014.
“1 Peter 4:3.” Liddell and Scott Abridged Greek Lexicon. Electronic Database. Seattle: Biblesoft, 2014.
“1 Peter 4:3.” Thayer’s Greek Lexicon. Electronic Database. Seattle: Biblesoft, 2006.
“1 Peter 4:3.” UBS New Testament Handbook Series. Electronic Database. Miami: United Bible Societies, 1997.
“1 Peter 4:3.” Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament. Electronic Database. Seattle: Biblesoft, 2006.
“1 Peter 4:3.” Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament. Electronic Database. Jeannette I. Wuest, 1973.
“1 Timothy 2:9.” Liddell and Scott Abridged Greek Lexicon. Electronic Database. Seattle: Biblesoft, 2014.
“Cavort.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Electronic Database. 12 Aug 2024. <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cavort>.
“Aselgeia.” Thayer’s Greek Lexicon. Electronic Database. Seattle: Biblesoft, 2006.
“Aselgeia.” Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament. Electronic Database. Jeannette I. Wuest, 1973.
“Komos.” Complete Word Study Dictionary, The: New Testament. Revised Edition. Chattanooga: AMG International, 1993.
“Komos.” Berry’s Synonyms of the New Testament. Electronic Database. Seattle: Biblesoft, 2015.
“Komos.” Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament. Electronic Database. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans P., 1990.
“Komos.” Greek-English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domain. Electronic Database. New York: United Bible Societies, 1988.
“Komos.” Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words. Electronic Database. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1985.
“Kosmios.” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Abridged Edition. Electronic Database. William B. Eerdmans P., 1985.
“Kosmios.” Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words. Electronic Database. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1985.
“Romans 13:13.” Adam Clarke’s Commentary. Electronic Database. Seattle: Biblesoft, 2006.
