What the Greek word for power actually meant to the people who first heard it, why it was never dynamite, and what the Spirit's power looks like in an ordinary believer's week.
Dunamis is the ordinary Greek word for power: strength, ability, the capacity to get something done. In the New Testament it names the power of God that healed people through Jesus, filled the church through the Holy Spirit, and still works in believers today.
It is also the word the Gospels use, in the plural, for miracles. Mighty works are simply God's power made visible.
At Sound of Heaven we believe the gifts and power of the Spirit are active right now. We also believe the word has been oversold in a few popular ways, and a word this important deserves to be handled honestly. So we will do both.
Dunamis was not a religious word invented for the Bible. A Greek speaker used it for the strength of an athlete, the ability of a doctor, the force of an army, even the meaning carried by a word. The standard classical dictionary, Liddell and Scott, lists senses running from bodily strength to capacity to mathematical power, and near the end it records the sense that matters most for us: “manifestation of divine power, miracle”, with Matthew 11:21 as its example.
Being able. It comes from the verb dunamai, to be able, can. Dunamis is the ability itself, the capacity sitting behind an action.
Dunameis, powers, is how the Gospels often name miracles. Matthew 11:21 speaks of the mighty works done in Chorazin and Bethsaida using this word.
Exousia is authority, the right to act. Luke 9:1 says Jesus gave the Twelve both, power and authority. One is the capacity, the other is the permission.
Dynamic, dynamo, dynasty and dynamite all descend from this family of words. They came centuries after the New Testament, which matters for the next section.
Paul has a moment in Ephesians 1:19 to 20 where ordinary vocabulary is not enough for him. In one breath he stacks up dunamis, energeia, kratos and ischus, four different Greek words for power and strength, to describe what God did when He raised Jesus from the dead. Then he says that same power is toward us who believe. It reads like a man running out of words.
Dunamis is the capacity of God to do what He intends. When the New Testament says power, it usually means God's ability reaching into a human situation and changing it.
If you have been in Spirit-filled churches for any length of time, you have heard it. Romans 1:16 says the gospel is the power of God, the Greek word is dunamis, and dunamis is where we get dynamite, so the gospel is God's dynamite. It preaches well. It is also backwards, and I say that as a pastor who loves the power of God.
Dunamis means dynamite. When Paul wrote about the power of God he meant something explosive, a force that blows things apart.
The word dynamite was “coined 1867 by its inventor, Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel”, borrowed from Greek. Paul wrote about eighteen centuries earlier.
The word travels in one direction only. Nobel reached back into Greek to name his explosive. Paul could not reach forward into an invention nobody had made yet.
And the picture itself points the wrong way. Dynamite destroys. It clears a site by blowing up what stands there. The power Paul describes in Romans 1:16 is the power of God that brings salvation. It heals, raises, rebuilds and makes whole. If you want an image from the New Testament itself, Jesus gave one: a woman in a crowd touches His clothes and He knows power has gone out from Him (Mark 5:30). Quiet, personal, and aimed at one hurting person.
When did the English word dynamite first appear?
Nobel named his explosive from the Greek word for power in 1867. Dunamis gave us dynamite, which means dynamite can tell us nothing about what Paul meant by dunamis.
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Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
Luke uses this word more deliberately than any other New Testament writer, and if you follow it through his two volumes you can watch the power of God move from Jesus to His people.
Before Jesus is born, the angel tells Mary the power of the Most High will overshadow her. The story begins with dunamis.
After the wilderness, Jesus goes back to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and the healing ministry begins.
A woman who had bled for twelve years touches Him. He stops the whole crowd because He felt power go out, and He calls her daughter.
Jesus gives His disciples power and authority to heal. The power was never meant to stay with one man.
The risen Jesus tells them they will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on them. What happened next is the story of the Day of Pentecost.
“how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.”
Acts 10:38Look at how Peter sums up the ministry of Jesus in that verse. Anointed with the Spirit and power, the power went around doing good. That is the job description of dunamis. The devil in that verse is the adversary, the lie and the oppression that held people down, and the power of God was the thing that set them free.
Jesus also tied this power to the arrival of the Kingdom. In Mark 9:1 He told the people standing in front of Him that some of them would not taste death before they saw that the kingdom of God has come with power. He meant them. That generation saw it, from Pentecost through the close of the old covenant age in AD 70. We are not waiting for the Kingdom to come with power. It came, and the Kingdom of God is the world we now live in.
This is where Christians honestly disagree, so let me state the other side at its strongest before I tell you where we land.
The cessationist position says the miraculous powers of the New Testament belonged to the apostolic generation. Their job was to confirm a new message and a new covenant, and once Scripture was complete and the church established, that kind of dunamis tapered off. Serious, godly people hold this, and they are right that the first century had a unique role. They are also reacting to real abuses they have seen.
We do not believe the power stopped. Acts 1:8 ties dunamis to the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit did not leave when the last apostle died. The New Testament never says the gifts would expire. It says the Spirit gives them for the common good, and the common good is still here. Healing, prophecy, tongues and miracles are real and active today, and we have seen them in our own church on Long Island.
We also refuse the opposite error. Dunamis is not a force you can switch on with the right words, the right volume or the right offering. Anyone selling it that way has turned the power of God into a product, and that is wrong.
The Spirit is the source. Love is the purpose. Jesus is the pattern. Hold those three and you will not go far wrong in either direction.
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Acts 1:8Notice what Jesus says the power is for. Witness. Not a feeling, not a reputation, not a show. The power of the Spirit makes you a living demonstration of who Jesus is, sometimes through a healing and far more often through a changed life that people cannot explain. If you want to go further into how the Spirit distributes this, our study of spiritual gifts walks through each one.
Prayer for the sick is normal Christian life. We pray expecting God to move, and we trust Him with the outcome.
Prophecy and tongues build people up. Paul's test in 1 Corinthians 14 is simple: does it strengthen, encourage and comfort?
The Spirit renews the mind and breaks lies that have held someone for years. That is freedom, and it is as supernatural as any healing.
Forgiving the person who wronged you is not natural. When it happens, that is dunamis too.
Most of the time the power of God does not look like a stadium. It looks like a nurse in Smithtown praying under her breath on a double shift, or a father on the Southern State deciding not to repeat what was done to him. Paul gives us three ways to recognize it.
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.” Romans 1:16. The good news about Jesus carries its own power. You do not have to dress it up.
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9. The same word, dunamis, and Paul says it shows up best where he is weakest. We wrote more on this in my power is made perfect in weakness.
Ephesians 3:20 speaks of God doing immeasurably more than we ask or imagine, “according to his power that is at work within us.” Within us. The power is already there, working, not waiting for a special occasion.
Some of you have been told that if you had enough faith you would have been healed, or your loved one would have lived. That teaching has been used on the sick and the grieving more than anyone, and it is cruel. Jesus never blamed a hurting person for their own pain.
Unanswered prayer is not a verdict on your faith. Paul himself prayed three times and heard, my power is made perfect in weakness. God is with you in this, and so are we. If you would like someone to pray with you, reach out to our prayer team.
Dunamis is measured by what it produces in people: healing, freedom, courage and love. Noise, volume and spiritual pressure are not the evidence. Changed lives are.
If you want to know what the power of God is like, you do not need a chemistry lesson. You need to look at Jesus.
His power stopped for a bleeding woman in a crowd. It touched lepers nobody else would touch. It fed hungry people and gave a widow her son back. When He had every right to call down fire, He refused. The strongest thing He ever did was lay His life down, and the power that raised Him from that grave is the same power Paul says is at work toward us who believe.
That is dunamis. God's ability, poured into ordinary people by His Spirit, looking like Jesus wherever it goes. You are not waiting for it. If you belong to Him, it is already at work in you.
For related reading, see the power of the Holy Spirit, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, miracles in the Bible, power in the name of Jesus and praying in tongues. And if you are on Long Island, come and worship with us and see what a Spirit-filled church can look like without the hype.
Dunamis is the Greek word for power, never dynamite, and in the New Testament it is God's own ability, seen in Jesus, given by the Spirit, and still at work in believers now for healing, freedom and love.
Whether you need healing, courage, or just someone to stand with you, send it in and our team at Sound of Heaven will pray with you.
Dunamis is the Greek word for power, strength or ability, the capacity to get something done. In the New Testament it describes the power of God at work: in the healing ministry of Jesus, in His resurrection, in the Holy Spirit coming on the church, and in the gospel itself, which Paul calls the power of God that brings salvation. In the plural it is also a common word for miracles, which are simply God's power made visible in a human situation.
Yes, but only in one direction. Alfred Nobel coined the word dynamite in 1867, borrowing it from the Greek word for power. That means dynamite comes from dunamis, and it cannot tell us anything about what Paul meant when he wrote Romans about eighteen centuries earlier. The picture also points the wrong way. Dynamite blows things apart, while the power of God in the New Testament heals, saves, restores and makes people whole.
Dunamis is power, the ability to act. Exousia is authority, the right or permission to act. A police officer has authority to stop traffic, while a truck has the power to keep going. Luke 9:1 says Jesus gave the Twelve both power and authority over sickness and oppression. In Jesus the two always go together. He has the right to heal and the ability to do it, and He shares both with His people.
We believe it is. Acts 1:8 ties this power to the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit has not left the church. Scripture never says the gifts would expire, so at Sound of Heaven we believe healing, prophecy, tongues and miracles are active today. We also reject any version that treats power as a performance, a formula or proof of spiritual rank. The Spirit gives power for witness and for love, and it looks like Jesus.
Jesus said His followers would receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on them, so the power comes with the Spirit rather than with a technique. If you belong to Jesus, the Spirit already lives in you, and Ephesians 3:20 describes His power as already at work within us. Ask for more of Him, stay close to Jesus, pray for others expecting God to move, and walk with a church that makes room for the gifts without hype or pressure.