παράπτωμα

Two Lutheran families are at the same Christmas Eve service in a community that doesn’t usually mix them. The Smiths are AFLC. The Joneses are LCMS. The service includes the Lord’s Prayer. The Smiths say “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The Joneses say the same thing. So far, so good.

The next week the Smiths visit relatives at a Presbyterian church. The service includes the Lord’s Prayer. The relatives say “forgive us our debts, as we ourselves have forgiven our debtors.” The Smiths’ children look up from the pew, confused. Who’s right? Are some Christians using the wrong words? Has the Smith family been praying it wrong, or are the Presbyterians?

The answer is in the Greek, and it’s more interesting than either side of the debate usually realizes.

When Jesus teaches the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, He uses one word for “what we owe God.” But when He immediately follows the prayer with His own commentary in verses 14-15, He uses a different word for the same idea. The petition in verse 12 uses ὀφειλήματα (opheilēmata) — debts. The commentary in verses 14-15 uses παραπτώματα (paraptōmata) — trespasses. Same passage. Same prayer. Two Greek words.

The English Bible has to pick one or the other for the petition. Different translation traditions picked differently. The King James (and many earlier English versions) followed the commentary verb and rendered the petition “trespasses.” The American Revised Version (and most modern translations) followed the petition verb and rendered it “debts.” Both renderings are biblical, because both Greek words appear in the same passage referring to the same reality.

This entry is about the second of those Greek words: paraptōma, the New Testament’s vocabulary for the specific false step, the particular stumbling, the individual instance of falling off God’s path.

The Word

The Greek word is παράπτωμα (paraptōma), pronounced in the Erasmian convention as pa-RAP-tō-ma, with the accent on the second syllable. The word is a third-declension neuter noun and appears in all standard inflected forms in the New Testament: nominative singular paraptōma, genitive paraptōmatos, dative paraptōmati, accusative paraptōma; plural paraptōmata, paraptōmatōn, paraptōmasi(n).

The etymology is transparent in the Greek and theologically suggestive. Paraptōma is a compound built from the preposition para- and the verb piptō (to fall), with the -ma suffix that produces result-nouns. The preposition para- carries a range of senses: alongside, beside, past, contrary to, deviating from. The verb piptō is the standard Greek verb for falling — a body falling to the ground, a leaf falling from a tree, a person falling from a height. Combined with para-, the resulting verb parapiptō means “to fall beside” or “to fall away” or “to fall off the path.”

So paraptōma, the result-noun, captures the image of a misstep. A person is walking the path God has marked out; the person’s foot goes wrong; the person falls beside the path or stumbles off it. Paraptōma names that fall — not catastrophic ruin (the person is not destroyed) but a specific instance of going wrong, a particular stumbling, a false step that requires correction.

The word family is closely linked to the Greek verb for falling:

Piptō (πίπτω) — to fall. The base verb. Used throughout the New Testament for literal and metaphorical falling. Matthew 7:25, 27 — the house that fell because it was built on sand. Luke 10:18 — Satan falling from heaven. Romans 11:11 — “they did not stumble into an irrevocable fall, did they? Absolutely not!”

Parapiptō (παραπίπτω) — the compound verb that produces paraptōma. Used at Hebrews 6:6 — those who “have fallen away” (parapesontas). The verb form is rare in the New Testament; the noun is much more common.

Ptōma (πτῶμα) — a fall, but also a fallen body, a corpse. Used at Matthew 24:28 (“Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.”) and Mark 15:45 (Joseph of Arimathea asking for Jesus’s body). The noun stresses the result of falling — the body now lying on the ground.

Ekpiptō (ἐκπίπτω) — to fall out, to fall from. Used at Galatians 5:4 — those who would be justified by the law “have fallen away from grace.”

Katapiptō (καταπίπτω) — to fall down. Used at Acts 26:14 — Paul recounting his Damascus road experience: “we had all fallen to the ground.”

The whole family carries the image of falling — physical, spatial, or metaphorical. Paraptōma fits within this family by adding the para- dimension: not just falling, but falling off — deviating from the path that should have been followed.

The English word “trespass” preserves something of this spatial imagery. The English comes through Old French trespasser (to pass across or over), from Latin trans (across) + passare (to pass). The original English sense was a crossing over of boundaries — a physical or legal violation of someone else’s property. The theological use extended this: to trespass against God or against a neighbor is to violate the boundary that God has set.

The English word “transgression” carries similar baggage. From Latin trans (across) + gradi (to step), a transgression is literally a stepping-across. The Greek New Testament has a related word, parabasis (παράβασις), built from para- + bainō (to step). Parabasis and paraptōma are close kin: both name boundary-crossing or path-leaving violations, with parabasis emphasizing the active crossing and paraptōma emphasizing the falling step. Romans 5:14 uses parabasis (Adam’s transgression) and Romans 5:15 uses paraptōma (Adam’s trespass) within two verses for the same primal disobedience.

The Septuagint background is moderately developed. Paraptōma in the LXX typically translates Hebrew ma’al — treachery, unfaithfulness, the breaking of trust. The Hebrew ma’al carries strong covenantal weight: it names the unfaithfulness of a covenant partner, the violation of relational trust. Ezekiel uses ma’al repeatedly for Israel’s covenant unfaithfulness; the LXX often renders it paraptōma. The Greek word inherits the covenant-violation dimension from the Hebrew background.

A few Old Testament passages show the connection:

Ezekiel 14:13 — “Son of man, suppose a country sins against me by being unfaithful and I stretch out my hand against it, cut off its bread supply, cause famine to come on it, and kill both people and animals.” The covenant unfaithfulness of a nation is named paraptōma in the LXX.

Daniel 9:7-8 — “You are righteous, O Lord, but we are humiliated this day—the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far away in all the countries in which you have scattered them because they have behaved unfaithfully toward you. O Lord, we have been humiliated—our kings, our leaders, and our ancestors—because we have sinned against you.” Daniel’s penitential prayer uses paraptōma for Israel’s covenant violations.

Psalm 19:12 (LXX 18:13) — “Who can know all his errors? Please do not punish me for sins I am unaware of.” The penitential awareness of unseen paraptōmata — false steps the person himself may not have noticed.

Range of Meaning

Paraptōma in the New Testament covers a meaningful range:

A false step, a specific stumbling. The base sense. An individual instance of going wrong, a particular deviation from the path. Galatians 6:1 — “if a person is discovered in some sin.” Here paraptōma names a specific incident of going wrong, the kind of fall a brother might be caught in.

A trespass against God’s commands. The most common sense. A specific violation of God’s law, a particular instance of disobedience. Matthew 6:14-15, Ephesians 1:7, Colossians 2:13 — all use paraptōma (or its plural) for specific violations the believer needs forgiven.

An offense against another person. The horizontal dimension. Matthew 6:14-15 names paraptōmata both as what we have committed against God and as what others have committed against us. The believer is to forgive what others have paraptōma-ed against him.

Adam’s primal disobedience. The theological loaded sense. Romans 5:15-20 uses paraptōma repeatedly for Adam’s act of disobedience in the garden — the one trespass through which condemnation came to all. The same word covers a child’s lie and Adam’s eating of the fruit; the New Testament uses the term across a range of severity because the underlying reality is the same.

The state of being dead in trespasses. The Pauline sense. Ephesians 2:1, 5; Colossians 2:13. Paraptōmata in these passages names not just specific acts but the condition produced by them — the death that the accumulated trespasses produce in the unregenerate person.

The first four uses are dominant. The fifth (the state-of-being-dead use) is a Pauline development that builds on the act-sense by treating the cumulative effect of trespasses as a state of spiritual death.

Where You’ll Meet It

Romans 5:15-20. The most concentrated paraptōma passage in the New Testament. The Greek uses the word repeatedly — six times in six verses — in the great Adam-Christ comparison:

“But the gracious gift is not like the transgression. For if the many died through the transgression of the one man, how much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ multiply to the many! And the gift is not like the one who sinned. For judgment, resulting from the one transgression, led to condemnation, but the gracious gift from the many failures led to justification. For if, by the transgression of the one man, death reigned through the one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ! Consequently, just as condemnation for all people came through one transgression, so too through the one righteous act came righteousness leading to life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man many were constituted sinners, so also through the obedience of one man many will be constituted righteous. Now the law came in so that the transgression may increase, but where sin increased, grace multiplied all the more,”

The passage is dense, and it could sustain a separate study. The structural argument is the parallel between two single acts: Adam’s paraptōma (one trespass), which brought condemnation and death to all humanity, and Christ’s dikaiōma (one act of righteousness), which brings justification and life to all who believe.

Paul’s logic depends on two affirmations. First, Adam’s paraptōma was a single historical act with universal consequences — the one trespass that brought the many to condemnation. Second, Christ’s act of righteousness (His obedient life and substitutionary death) was a single historical act with universal effect — the one act of righteousness that brings the many to justification. The parallel collapses if either side becomes a generic principle rather than a specific historical event.

This is the New Testament’s foundational text for the doctrine of original sin and the corresponding doctrine of imputed righteousness. Adam’s paraptōma was imputed to humanity in the sense that the consequences (death, condemnation, the corrupted nature) flowed from his act to all his descendants. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to the believer in the sense that the benefits (justification, life, the new nature) flow from His act to all who receive Him by faith. The paraptōma vocabulary is at the center of this argument.

Ephesians 2:1-5. “And although you were dead in your offenses and sins, in which you formerly lived according to this world’s present path, according to the ruler of the domain of the air, the ruler of the spirit that is now energizing the sons of disobedience, among whom all of us also formerly lived out our lives in the cravings of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest… But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even though we were dead in offenses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you are saved!—” The Greek: kai hymas ontas nekrous tois paraptōmasin kai tais hamartiais hymōn.

The passage was treated in Thanatos for the death-language. Here it deserves attention for the paraptōma language. The unregenerate person is dead “in your offenses and sins” — paraptōmata and hamartiai together. The two terms are not mere synonyms; Paul uses them in apposition to give the fuller picture. The trespasses are the specific false steps; the sins are the deeper missing-the-mark. Together they characterize the condition in which the unregenerate person walks.

The verse is also one of the foundational New Testament texts for the doctrine of regeneration. The person dead in paraptōmata does not contribute to his own raising. God, “rich in mercy,” makes him alive together with Christ. The action is monergistic — God’s alone. The recipient is passive. The result is new life produced from spiritual death. The pattern recapitulates Christ’s own resurrection: God raised Christ from physical death; God raises the believer from spiritual death.

Matthew 6:14-15. “For if you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive you your sins.” The Greek: ean gar aphēte tois anthrōpois ta paraptōmata autōn, aphēsei kai hymin ho patēr hymōn ho ouranios.

This is the commentary verse that produced the “trespasses” tradition in the English rendering of the Lord’s Prayer. The petition in 6:12 uses opheilēmata (debts); the commentary in 6:14-15 uses paraptōmata (trespasses). Both terms describe what the believer needs forgiven and what the believer must forgive in others. The two Greek words sit in the same passage referring to the same theological reality.

The structure of 6:14-15 is significant. Forgiveness of others’ paraptōmata is treated as the sign of having received God’s forgiveness. The text does not say “if you forgive others, you earn God’s forgiveness” — that would reverse the gospel logic. The text says that the believer’s forgiveness of others is the consequence and sign of God’s prior forgiveness of him. The Christian who refuses to forgive others’ paraptōmata shows that he has not understood the paraptōmata God has forgiven him. The Lord’s Prayer ties the two together pastorally and theologically.

2 Corinthians 5:19. “In other words, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s trespasses against them, and he has given us the message of reconciliation.” The Greek: mē logizomenos autois ta paraptōmata autōn.

The reconciliation of the kosmos in Christ (treated in Kosmos) is here named in the paraptōma vocabulary. God reconciles the world by not counting the world’s trespasses against it. The verb logizomai (to count, to reckon, to impute) is the same verb Paul uses in Romans 4 for the imputation of Abraham’s faith as righteousness. In 2 Corinthians 5:19 the imputation is negative: God does not count paraptōmata against the kosmos He is reconciling. The atonement is the basis for the non-counting; the message of reconciliation is the announcement.

Galatians 6:1. “Brothers and sisters, if a person is discovered in some sin, you who are spiritual restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness. Pay close attention to yourselves, so that you are not tempted too.” The Greek: ean kai prolēmphthē anthrōpos en tini paraptōmati.

The Christian community’s response to a brother’s paraptōma. The verb katartizō (restore) is the same verb used for mending fishing nets (Matthew 4:21) and for the restoration of broken things to their proper function. The believer who is caught in a paraptōma — a specific false step — is to be restored. The restoration is to be carried out by “you who are spiritual” — those who walk by the Spirit (Galatians 5:25). The manner is “a spirit of gentleness” — not harshness, not minimization, but the gentleness that the Spirit produces (Galatians 5:23 — prautēs, meekness or gentleness, is part of the fruit of the Spirit).

The verse is one of the most important practical applications of the paraptōma doctrine. The Christian community does not ignore paraptōmata; the community addresses them. But the address is restoration in gentleness, not condemnation in harshness. The Christian who has been caught in a paraptōma is to be brought back to the path, not punished or excluded.

What Confessional Lutherans Hear

Three emphases repay attention.

The Adam-Christ paraptōma parallel grounds the doctrines of original sin and atonement. Romans 5:15-20 is one of the most theologically dense passages in the New Testament, and its argument depends on the paraptōma vocabulary. Adam’s one paraptōma brought condemnation to the many; Christ’s one act of righteousness brings justification to the many. The parallel structure is the gospel’s logic in one passage.

Confessional Lutheran teaching takes this parallel with full seriousness. The doctrine of original sin (Augsburg Confession Article II) rests on Adam’s paraptōma having real consequences for his descendants. The doctrine of justification by faith (Augsburg Confession Article IV) rests on Christ’s act of righteousness being imputed to those who believe. The two doctrines together — original sin and justification — form the central frame of Lutheran soteriology, and the paraptōma vocabulary of Romans 5 is at the heart of both.

The Lutheran tradition has historically held that Adam was a real historical person whose primal paraptōma was a real historical act. This is not a peripheral question. Paul’s argument requires it. If Adam’s paraptōma was not historical, Christ’s act of righteousness becomes correspondingly less than historical, and the doctrine of justification by faith loses its grounding. Confessional Lutherans hold the historicity of Adam because they hold the historicity of Christ, and the two are connected through the paraptōma parallel of Romans 5.

Regeneration is the raising of the dead in trespasses. Ephesians 2:1-5. The unregenerate person is nekros (dead) in paraptōmata and hamartiai. The action of God in regeneration is the making-alive of the dead — synezōopoiēsen (Ephesians 2:5), with the same root as zōē (life, Zōē). The believer does not contribute to his own raising any more than a corpse contributes to its own resurrection.

This emphasis grounds the Lutheran doctrine of monergistic regeneration. The believer is passive in the act of being raised from spiritual death; God is the sole agent. This is one of the points of significant difference between confessional Lutheran teaching and various forms of synergistic theology (Arminian, semi-Pelagian, decision-theology) that give the unbeliever a contributory role in his own conversion. The paraptōma vocabulary of Ephesians 2 is one of the lexical anchors of the Lutheran insistence.

The Christian community responds to paraptōmata with forgiveness, restoration, and gentleness. Matthew 6:14-15 and Galatians 6:1. The believer who has been forgiven paraptōmata by the Father forgives the paraptōmata committed against him by others; the believer who walks in the Spirit restores a brother caught in paraptōma with the gentleness the Spirit produces.

This emphasis distinguishes Lutheran practical theology from two opposite errors. The first error is the harshness that treats a brother’s paraptōma as occasion for severity, censure, or exclusion. The second error is the laxity that treats a brother’s paraptōma as something to be ignored or minimized. Lutheran practice holds both: the paraptōma is real and needs addressing (against laxity), and the addressing is to be done in gentleness for the brother’s restoration (against harshness).

The pastoral payoff is substantial.

The believer who confesses sin can name specific paraptōmata — the daily false steps, the particular violations, the individual stumbles off the path God has marked out. The confession is concrete; the absolution is concrete; the gospel addresses what the believer has actually done.

The believer who has been forgiven much knows what paraptōma costs. Adam’s first one cost the human race death and condemnation. The believer’s daily ones cost Christ His blood. The believer who knows what paraptōma costs does not minimize his own and does not minimize the cost of forgiving others'.

The Christian community’s response to a brother in paraptōma embodies the gospel. The brother is not condemned and excluded; the brother is restored in gentleness. The community demonstrates, in its practical handling of paraptōmata, what the gospel has done for each of its members.

Where People Get It Wrong

The “debts vs. trespasses” division as a sectarian marker. Some Christians treat the difference between the “debts” tradition (Presbyterian, Reformed) and the “trespasses” tradition (Lutheran, Anglican, Catholic, Methodist) as if one were right and the other wrong. The Greek text of Matthew 6 uses both words: opheilēmata in verse 12 (the petition), paraptōmata in verses 14-15 (the commentary). Both English renderings have biblical grounding in the same passage. The choice of which to use in the liturgical Lord’s Prayer is a matter of tradition, not of biblical correctness. Confessional Lutherans pray “trespasses” because the tradition follows the commentary verb, but a Lutheran could in good conscience pray “debts” because the petition verb itself is opheilēmata.

The reduction of paraptōma to “minor” sins. Some popular Christian teaching has tried to make paraptōma the category of lesser offenses — the small daily slips — while reserving hamartia for more serious sins. The New Testament does not support this scheme. Adam’s paraptōma in Romans 5 — the single act that brought death to humanity — is not a minor offense. The Christian’s paraptōmata in Ephesians 2:1 that produced spiritual death are not minor offenses. Both paraptōma and hamartia can name serious sins; both can name daily slips. The terms emphasize different angles (false step vs. missing the mark), not different magnitudes.

The trespass / transgression / sin synonymity collapse. The opposite error: treating paraptōma, parabasis, hamartia, and anomia as full synonyms with no theological difference. Each carries its own nuance. Hamartia — missing the mark. Anomia — lawlessness. Paraptōma — false step, fall beside the path. Parabasis — transgression, stepping across the boundary. The New Testament uses these terms with care, and the careful reader attends to which one is being used in which context. The Lutheran lay reader benefits from knowing the distinctions even when the English Bible cannot easily mark them.

The “dead in trespasses” softened to “wounded by trespasses.” Some progressive theology has softened the Ephesians 2:1 language: instead of “dead in trespasses,” “wounded by trespasses” or “struggling because of trespasses.” The Greek nekros will not bear this softening. The pre-regenerate person is dead — incapable of producing the spiritual response that regeneration requires. The softening is theologically consequential. If the unbeliever is only wounded, he can be helped to recover by good teaching, kind support, persuasive argument; the gospel becomes one resource among several. If the unbeliever is dead, only God’s act of raising can produce life; the gospel is a unique act of resurrection. Lutheran teaching insists on the latter because the Greek requires it.

The Romans 5 Adam-Christ parallel weakened by denial of Adam’s historicity. Some recent theology has tried to read Romans 5:15-20 without affirming the historicity of Adam’s paraptōma — Adam as a symbol or representative figure, not a historical person whose act had historical consequences. The argument structurally cannot bear this. Paul’s logic depends on Adam being a real person whose specific act had real universal consequences; the parallel with Christ requires Christ being a real person whose specific act has real universal effects. Weakening Adam weakens Christ. Confessional Lutherans have historically held Adam’s historicity because they have held Christ’s historicity, and the two are exegetically linked.

Forgiveness of others’ trespasses as the basis for receiving God’s forgiveness. A misreading of Matthew 6:14-15. The text does not say “if you forgive others, that earns God’s forgiveness” — that would reverse the gospel logic, making the believer’s act of forgiveness the prior cause of God’s act. The text says that forgiveness of others is the sign and consequence of having received God’s prior forgiveness. The believer who has been forgiven much forgives much; the believer who refuses to forgive shows that he has not received what he claims. The verse is descriptive of the gospel’s effect, not prescriptive of a condition the gospel requires.

The “spirit of gentleness” in Galatians 6:1 collapsed into accommodation. Some readings of Galatians 6:1 treat “Brothers and sisters, if a person is discovered in some sin, you who are spiritual restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness.” as meaning “don’t really name his trespass as a trespass.” The Greek verb katartizō (restore) presupposes that the trespass is real and that something is broken that needs mending. The gentleness is about the manner of restoration, not about the content of what is being restored. The brother in paraptōma needs his paraptōma named, not denied; what he needs is to have it named in the gentle, restorative, non-condemning manner that the Spirit produces.

So What

The Sunday school teacher angle is direct: teach the Lord’s Prayer “debts vs. trespasses” question. Many adults have wondered about it without ever getting an answer, and the answer is in the Greek. The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 uses two words: the petition in verse 12 uses opheilēmata (debts), the commentary in verses 14-15 uses paraptōmata (trespasses). Both refer to the same reality — what we owe God because of our violations, and what others owe us because of theirs. Different translation traditions picked differently: the Lutheran tradition (with Anglican, Catholic, and Methodist) followed the commentary verb and prays “trespasses”; the Reformed tradition followed the petition verb and prays “debts.” Both are biblically grounded. The point for the lay reader is that the differences between Christian traditions, on matters like this, often have biblical foundations on both sides — Lutheran confidence in our practice does not require treating the Reformed practice as wrong.

For Bible study leaders, the application extends to Romans 5:15-20, one of the most concentrated theological passages in the New Testament. The Adam-Christ parallel uses paraptōma repeatedly; the doctrines of original sin, atonement, and justification all rest on the argument Paul is making there. The lay reader who has worked through Romans 5:15-20 with care has worked through the heart of the Pauline gospel.

For pastoral application, the doctrine shapes confession, restoration, and forgiveness. In confession, the believer names specific paraptōmata — particular stumblings off the path — so the absolution he hears is concrete: what he has actually done has been forgiven. In restoration, the Christian community handles a brother’s paraptōma with the gentleness Galatians 6:1 requires — not minimization, not harshness, but the work of bringing him back to the path; Lutheran pastoral care, congregational discipline, and brotherly admonition all flow from this. In forgiveness, the believer forgives others’ paraptōmata as the Father has forgiven him — the horizontal forgiveness flowing from the vertical, not because forgiving earns grace, but because received grace produces it.

This entry has named paraptōma — the specific false steps that work out the rebellion daily. The related entry on Planaō treats the deception by which sinners are led off the path: the false guidance that turns footsteps astray.¹