Word studies · Greek · Strong's G1391
δόξα · dóxa · appears 167 times in the New Testament
In one line: God's manifest presence, and the honor it deserves.
The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14
Doxa is the weight of God's worth made visible — His presence showing itself, and the honor that presence deserves.
In the New Testament doxa names both the radiance of God's own presence — at the birth of Christ, on the mountain of transfiguration, in the risen Jesus — and the honor creatures return to Him. Believers are said to behold that glory, be changed by it, and finally to share it.
Doxa derives from the base of dokeō, “to seem” or “to think,” and in classical Greek it meant opinion, and then the reputation an opinion creates. The Septuagint used it to render Hebrew kabod, which literally means “weight,” and the word was permanently deepened: from what people think of you to the substantial presence of God.
Because kabod is literally heaviness, biblical glory is less glitter than gravity — something so real it presses on you. English “glory” drifts toward fame and applause; doxa keeps the older sense of solid worth that is simply there whether or not anyone notices.
Doxa (G1391) appears 167 times in the New Testament, and gives English the word “doxology” — literally a word of glory.
Glory is where God's self-disclosure and human worship meet: He reveals His weight, and creatures respond by acknowledging it. Paul makes it the destination of salvation as well as its source — “beholding the glory of the Lord,” believers are “being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.”
Weigh your choices by whose reputation they add weight to. Name one decision this week where you can let God's worth show rather than your own.
glory (as very apparent), in a wide application (literal or figurative, objective or subjective)
Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.
Matthew 4:8If anyone is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in His Father’s glory with the holy angels.
Mark 8:38Just then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
Luke 2:9And Stephen declared: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,
Acts 7:2and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
Romans 1:23Press and hold glory in any chapter and this study opens on the verse you are reading, with the lexicons, every occurrence and the commentaries beside it. The Bible is free to read.
Scripture quoted from the Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Strong's definitions are public domain. Counts come from The Pillar's own tagged text.