ποίημα

From the study of Ephesians 2:10

Range of meaning

A noun formed from ποιέω ("make, do") with an ending that marks a result: "what has been made or done". So a product, a piece of work, a creation, and sometimes a deed. In classical literary contexts it could mean a poem, the thing a poet (ποιητής, "maker") makes. In Jewish and biblical Greek it means a made thing or a deed in general.

Against the English

"Workmanship" (KJV, ESV, NASB, BSB, WEB) and "handiwork" (NIV) fit well. The NLT's "masterpiece" adds a judgment of supreme quality that the word itself does not carry. Popular teaching that it means "poem" builds on the English sound-alike, not on how Paul and his Bible used the word.

How it drifted

English "poem" comes from this Greek word through Latin poema, so the two look related, and preachers have built on that. But what a word meant in its own setting is not decided by what it later turned into (scholars call this mistake the "etymological fallacy"). In modern English "workmanship" also suggests quality of craft ("fine workmanship"), which nudges readers toward "how well made" instead of "who made it".

Used elsewhere in the period

In the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint, or LXX) it renders Hebrew ma'aseh, "work, deed": Eccl 3:11, "the work (ποίημα) that God has done"; Ps 92:4 (LXX 91:5), "you made me glad by your work (ποίημα); in the works of your hands I rejoice"; Ps 143:5 (LXX 142:5), "the works of your hands". Eccl 1:14 uses it for all the deeds done under the sun. Its only other New Testament use is Rom 1:20, where God's eternal power is seen through "the things made", meaning the created world. Plato and others use ποίημα for poems, but that is the literary-craft sense, not the biblical one.