The verb enistemi literally means 'to stand in' or 'place within,' but in its NT usage it has narrowed to two temporal senses that together frame the biblical understanding of present and impending time. Most commonly, its perfect participle forms (enestosa, enestotos) function adjectivally to describe what is 'present' — the present distress (1 Cor 7:26), the present evil age (Gal 1:4), present things in Paul's great rhetorical catalogue of what cannot separate us from Christ's love (Rom 8:38; 1 Cor 3:22). Spanish presente, French present, and German gegenwaertig all render this with straightforward present-tense vocabulary. But in two passages the future tense introduces an arrival nuance: 'difficult times will come' (2 Tim 3:1) and the alarmed Thessalonians fearing 'the day of the Lord has come' (2 Thess 2:2). Here enistemi shifts from static presence to dynamic onset — not what already stands, but what is breaking in.