Bible word study

Apistos (Strong’s G571): Meaning in the Bible

Apistos (ἄπιστος) is the Greek word numbered G571 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as (actively) disbelieving, i.e. without Christian faith (specially, a heathen); (passively) untrustworthy (person), or incredible (thing). In the King James Bible it is translated that believeth not, faithless, incredible thing, infidel, unbeliever(-ing)..

• Original wordἄπιστος
• Transliterationápistos
• Pronunciationap'-is-tos
• Strong’s numberG571
• LanguageGreek

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. from G1 (as a negative particle) and G4103;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Apistos appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Apistos (G571) stands behind 23 English renderings in 21 verses across 10 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in 1 Corinthians (11), 2 Corinthians (3), Luke (2).

How the King James Bible renders Apistos, by count

• not7 of 23 (30 percent)
• unbelieving5 of 23 (22 percent)
• faithless4 of 23 (17 percent)
• unbelievers3 of 23 (13 percent)
• infidel2 of 23 (9 percent)
• incredible1 of 23 (4 percent)

Three places to read Apistos

• Matthew 17:17 Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me.
• 1 Corinthians 7:12 But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.
• 1 Corinthians 14:24 But if all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all:

Counts are made at build time from the King James text tagged with Strong’s numbers (eBible.org, public domain). Verses are read from the stored King James text, never typed.

Why the word matters

Every word the biblical writers chose carries weight. Studying Apistos in the original Greek lets you read the passages where it appears more carefully, closer to what the first hearers understood, so the meaning is drawn from the text itself rather than from the English alone.

The lexical data on this page comes from the public-domain Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890), a Hebrew and Greek dictionary keyed to the King James Bible. It is a reference tool, not a settled verdict: no single word decides a doctrine, and meaning is finally shaped by how a word is used in its sentences. Read the passages themselves, prayerfully, and in full.

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