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Bible Dictionaries
Way
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or (ὁδός)
A striking peculiarity of the Book of the Acts is that in several passages the Christian religion itself is called ‘the Way.’ Saul, if he finds at Damascus ‘any that were of the Way’ (ἐάν τινας εὕρῃ τῆς ὁδοῦ ὄντας), is to bring them to Jerusalem (Acts 9:2). ‘Some were … speaking evil of the Way’; ‘there arose no small stir concerning the Way’; ‘I persecuted this Way unto the death’; ‘Felix, having more exact knowledge concerning the Way’ (Acts 19:9; Acts 19:23, Acts 22:4, Acts 24:22). The idiom, though found only in the Acts, must have been familiar. We do not wonder that a word lending itself so easily to figurative use should be applied to religion as frequently as is the case in Scripture, and that Christianity should be called pre-eminently ‘the Way.’ It is an interesting parallel that in Taoism, the second indigenous religion of China, Tao means ‘Way’; Tao-teh-king = ‘Book of the Way of Virtue.’ In the NT we are familiar with ‘way of the Lord,’ ‘of salvation,’ ‘of God,’ ‘of truth’; ‘I am the way’ (John 14:6); ‘the narrow and the broad way’ (Matthew 7:13 f.). The phrase is even more common in the OT than in the NT, as a reference to the art, in HDB (iv. 899) will show. It is specially frequent in the Psalter: ‘The way of the righteous … the way of the wicked’ (Psalms 1:6). Other notable passages are Isaiah 30:21; Isaiah 35:8. The Didache, an early Christian manual, expatiates on the way of life and the way of death. The phrase seems to suggest the active, practical aspects of religion-God’s dealings with man, man’s conduct towards God and his fellows. The commandments, worship, prayer, holiness, repentance, all have an ethical side and are even ethical in essence. J. Butler’s remark that religion is a practical thing is quite in the spirit of the whole of Scripture, as seen in the Prophets, the Sermon on the Mount, the Parables, and the Epistles, ‘Every one … which heareth these words of mine, and doeth them … and doeth them not’ (Matthew 7:24; Matthew 7:26); ‘Inasmuch as ye did it … did it not’ (Matthew 25:40; Matthew 25:45). The proof of love is keeping the commandments. The teaching of Paul and Peter, John and James is no less practical than that of the Master.
Literature.-Commentaries on Acts 9:2; A. E. Garvie, HDB , art. ‘Way.’
J. S. Banks.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Way'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/w/way.html. 1906-1918.
