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Bible Dictionaries
Right
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or Three terms translated ‘right’ in the English Versions call for notice.
1. εὐθύς (‘straight’) expresses pictorially the simplest notion, which also underlies the Eng. term ‘right,’ being especially used in connexion with ‘way’ or ‘path’ (Acts 13:10, 2 Peter 2:15). A transitional use, carrying an ethical sense, occurs in Acts 8:21 : ‘thy heart is not right’ (εὐθεῖα).
2. δίκαιος comes into use when the notion of ‘right’ emerges on the ethical plane. Whatever accords with established custom (δίκη), with a recognized norm, is δίκαιον. That norm is found in the common ethical judgment of men; but the NT accentuates the norm as fixed by God (Acts 4:19). And ultimately the only true δίκαιον ‘in the sight of men,’ is τὸ δίκαιον, ‘in the sight of God.’ That is the element of truth in ‘vox populi vox Dei.’ In every conceivable position and relation in which a man finds himself there is a course of action or a state of being for him which is as it should be: the one straight line of conduct amongst many more or less crooked. This is τὸ δίκαιον, what it is right for a man to do or be.
3. ἐξουσία (‘a right’).-The idea of ‘a right’ easily grows out of the foregoing. It is the power or liberty to be, do, or possess what it is δίκαιον for a man in such and such circumstances to be, do, or possess (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:12, Hebrews 13:10, Revelation 22:14). (Regarding ἐξουσία as = ‘authority to rule,’ note that all such authority, to be worth anything, must rest on τὸ δίκαιον as its basis.)
Discussions as to the ‘rights’ of Christians as such soon emerged in the primitive Church. In the NT see especially St. Paul’s illuminating treatment in 1 Corinthians 8-10. The widest, boldest claim is made as regards these rights (πάντα ἔξεστιν), only to be qualified immediately by a severe reference to the bearing of their exercise on others. Higher ethical judgments, too, many under certain circumstances demand the waiving of undoubted rights. See e.g., how St. Paul deals with the question of marriage, and especially with that of ministerial stipends (1 Corinthians 9).
J. S. Clemens.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Right'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/r/right.html. 1906-1918.
