Is Religion Mentioned in the Bible?

Yes. The word “religion” appears five times in the King James Version, the ESV and the NIV, always in the New Testament. James defines it: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27).

How many times does “religion” appear in the Bible?

The count depends on the translation, because translators choose different English words for the same Greek. None of the translations below uses “religion” in the Old Testament.

The King James Version also uses “religious” twice, in Acts 13:43 and James 1:26.

What Greek words are translated “religion”?

The main word is thrēskeia, worship with the stress on its outward practice; the Blue Letter Bible lexicon glosses it “religious worship esp. external, that which consists of ceremonies.” It occurs four times. Paul uses it of the Judaism he was raised in: “according to the strictest party of our religion I have lived as a Pharisee” (Acts 26:5). Colossians 2:18 uses it for the “worship of angels,” and James uses it twice, with the related adjective thrēskos, “religious,” in James 1:26.

The other verses in the table translate different Greek words. In Galatians 1:13–14 the King James Version’s “the Jews’ religion” renders Ioudaismos, which the ESV and NIV translate “Judaism.” In Acts 25:19 the governor Festus says Paul’s accusers disputed with him “about their own religion” (ESV); the word there, deisidaimonia, is “superstition” in the King James Version. A related word appears in Acts 17:22, where Paul tells the Athenians, “I perceive that in every way you are very religious” (ESV), or “too superstitious” (KJV). Colossians 2:23 has ethelothrēskia, self-chosen worship, which the ESV renders “self-made religion,” and 1 Timothy 5:4 has a verb meaning to show piety, which the NIV renders “put their religion into practice.”

Biblical Hebrew has no word that these translations render “religion.” The Hebrew dat, the ordinary word for religion in modern Hebrew, appears 22 times in the Old Testament, mostly in Esther, in the sense of a royal decree or law. It is a Persian loanword, and it came to mean “religion” in the Hebrew of the Mishnah, about AD 200. The Old Testament describes the thing itself in other words: “what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 10:12).

Where does the word “religion” come from?

English “religion” comes from the Latin religio, and ancient writers disagreed about its root. The Roman orator Cicero traced it to relegere, to go over again: people were called religiosi because they diligently went over again everything that related to the worship of the gods (On the Nature of the Gods 2.72). Lactantius, a Christian writer who advised the emperor Constantine, rejected that explanation in his Divine Institutes: “We are bound and tied to God by this chain of piety; from which religion itself received its name, not, as Cicero explained it, from carefully gathering” (4.28).

Augustine noticed that the Latin word did not match the Greek exactly. Latin translators, he wrote, “have used this word to represent θρησκεία,” yet people also “use the word religion to express human ties, and relationships, and affinities” (The City of God 10.1).

How does the Bible define true religion?

James gives the definition in two verses: “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:26–27, ESV). A few verses earlier he tells his readers to “be doers of the word, and not hearers only” (1:22).

The prophets had judged worship the same way. Micah asked, “what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8). Through Amos God said, “I hate, I despise your feasts … But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:21, 24). Isaiah told Jerusalem to “seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause” (Isaiah 1:17), the same people James names. Hosea wrote, “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6), and Jesus quoted the line twice, in Matthew 9:13 and 12:7. He also faulted leaders who tithed their herbs and “neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness” (Matthew 23:23).

Does the Bible call Christianity a religion?

Not by that name. The word “Christian” appears three times in the New Testament. “In Antioch the disciples were first called Christians” (Acts 11:26); King Agrippa asked Paul, “In a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?” (Acts 26:28); and Peter wrote, “if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed” (1 Peter 4:16). Believers called their movement “the Way” (Acts 9:2), and outsiders called it a sect. Paul told the governor Felix, “according to the Way, which they call a sect, I worship the God of our fathers” (Acts 24:14).

The word “Christianity” first appears in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, about AD 100: “For Christianity did not embrace Judaism, but Judaism Christianity” (To the Magnesians 10). Early Christian writers also used other categories. Justin Martyr said of his conversion, “I found this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable” (Dialogue with Trypho 8), and Lactantius held that the truth is found only “where wisdom is joined by an inseparable connection with religion” (Divine Institutes 4.3).

The popular saying that Christianity is “a relationship, not a religion” is not a biblical phrase, and the King James Version never uses the word “relationship.” The idea it draws on is in Scripture: “this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

What other religions does the Bible mention?

The Old Testament condemns the worship of the Baals and the Asheroth (Judges 3:7) and of Chemosh and Molech (1 Kings 11:7). Acts records the Jewish parties of the Pharisees and Sadducees, who disagreed over resurrection and angels (Acts 23:8); the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers of Athens (Acts 17:18) and the city’s altar “To the unknown god” (17:23); and the crowd at Ephesus who shouted, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (19:28).

Which religion’s book is the Bible?

It belongs to both Judaism and Christianity. The Jewish Bible, the Tanakh, contains 24 books in three parts: the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings. The Christian canon includes those books as its Old Testament, divided into 39 books in Protestant Bibles and, with the deuterocanonical books, 46 in Catholic Bibles. Eastern Orthodox Bibles add a few more, such as 3 Maccabees and Psalm 151. The New Testament, with 27 books, is Scripture for Christians only.

Does the Bible say there will be no religion?

No verse says so. Revelation describes the new Jerusalem without a temple: “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” (Revelation 21:22). Worship goes on there: “the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him” (Revelation 22:3).

Related reading

• Bible verses about religion
• What religion was Jesus?
• Is Catholicism a religion or a denomination?