Hypomone #53

Hypomone is formed from words meaning “under” and “remain,” and describes staying put under a load rather than escaping it. The King James Version usually translates it “patience,” but “endurance,” “steadfastness,” or “perseverance” better convey a word about holding firm in hard circumstances. It is often distinguished from makrothumia, which more often describes patience with other people.

Biblical Usage

Paul writes that “tribulation worketh patience,” and patience produces experience and hope (Romans 5:3-4), so endurance forms character. James makes a parallel claim: the testing of faith produces it, and it should be allowed to complete its work so that believers may be “perfect and entire, wanting nothing” (James 1:3-4). Elsewhere James points to the “patience of Job” as an example (James 5:11).

In the parable of the sower the good soil represents those who hold the word in an honest and good heart and bring forth fruit “with patience” (Luke 8:15). Hebrews 12:1 calls believers to run “with patience the race that is set before us,” surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, and in Revelation 3:10 Christ commends the church at Philadelphia for having kept the word of his patience.

Theological Significance

Hypomone is a companion of hope: hope gives believers something to endure toward, and endurance shows that the hope is real. The New Testament is clear that it is not passive resignation, since the word describes active faithfulness under pressure, in persecution, illness, or temptation. Christians have generally read it as one of the ways God matures believers, with Jesus’s own endurance of the cross as the pattern (Hebrews 12:2). Traditions differ on how it bears on assurance, that is, whether perseverance is a sign that a person truly belongs to God or a condition that must be maintained to stay in that relationship.