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Study Resources :: Dictionaries :: Dispensation

Dictionaries :: Dispensation

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Easton's Bible Dictionary

Dispensation:

(Gr. oikonomia, "management," "economy"). (1.) The method or scheme according to which God carries out his purposes towards men is called a dispensation. There are usually reckoned three dispensations, the Patriarchal, the Mosaic or Jewish, and the Christian. (See COVENANT, Administration of.) These were so many stages in God's unfolding of his purpose of grace toward men. The word is not found with this meaning in Scripture.

(2.) A commission to preach the gospel (1Cr 9:17; Eph 1:10; 3:2; Col 1:25).

Dispensations of Providence are providential events which affect men either in the way of mercy or of judgement.

International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia

Dispensation:

dis-pen-sa'-shun: The Greek word (oikonomia) so translated signifies primarily, a stewardship, the management or disposition of affairs entrusted to one. Thus 1Co 9:17, the King James Version "A dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me," the Revised Version (British and American) "I have stewardship entrusted to me." The idea is similar in Eph 3:2 parallel Col 1:25 (the Revised Version, margin "stewardship"). In Eph 1:10 God's own working is spoken of as "dispensation."

King James Dictionary

Dispensation: An Arrangement of Things; a Scheme.

Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: that in the DISPENSATION of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him. (Ephesians 1:9-10)

Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words
1 Strong's Number: g3622 Greek: oikonomia

Dispensation:

primarily signifies "the management of a household or of household affairs" (oikos, "a house," nomos, "a law"); then the management or administration of the property of others, and so "a stewardship," Luk 16:2-4; elsewhere only in the Epistles of Paul, who applies it

(a) to the responsibility entrusted to him of preaching the Gospel, 1Cr 9:17 (RV, "stewardship," AV, "dispensation");

(b) to the stewardship committed to him "to fulfill the Word of God," the fulfillment being the unfolding of the completion of the Divinely arranged and imparted cycle of truths which are consummated in the truth relating to the Church as the Body of Christ, Col 1:25 (RV and AV, "dispensation"); so in Eph 3:2, of the grace of God given him as a stewardship ("dispensation") in regard to the same "mystery;"

(c) in Eph 1:10; 3:9, it is used of the arrangement or administration by God, by which in "the fullness of the times" (or seasons) God will sum up all things in the heavens and on earth in Christ. In Eph 3:9 some mss. have koinonia, "fellowship," for oikonomia, "dispensation." In 1Ti 1:4 oikonomia may mean either a stewardship in the sense of (a) above, or a "dispensation" in the sense of (c). The reading oikodomia, "edifying," in some mss., is not to be accepted.
See STEWARDSHIP.

Note: A "dispensation" is not a period or epoch (a common, but erroneous, use of the word), but a mode of dealing, an arrangement, or administration of affairs. Cp. oikonomos, "a steward," and oikonomeo, "to be a steward."

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