What Does 1 Corinthians 16:19 Mean?
The assemblies of Asia embrace you. Aquila and Priscilla embrace you much in the Lord, with the assembly in their house.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
The churches of Asia salute you. Aquila and Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, with the church that is in their house.THE KEY
The same word names both the assemblies across Asia and the gathering in Aquila and Priscilla’s house: an assembly is the people gathered, wherever they meet.
THE MEANING
You are met by greetings from assemblies across Asia and from Aquila and Priscilla’s household gathering, all joined in the Lord. A wide community and a gathering around one household belong to the same living network of welcome.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This dissolves the belief that a gathering in a home is too small or private to count as an assembly: the verse names it with the same word used for the assemblies of Asia.
THE ROOT
ἐκκλησία
ekklēsia
GROWS FROM
καλέω
kaleō
to call or summon
“assemblies” in this verse is ekklēsia. The Greek ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia, assembly) belongs to the call-and-summon family of καλέω (kaleō, to call). That family keeps attention on the people gathered: the verse uses the same assembly word for regional groups and for the gathering in a home.
ALSO GROWS
klēsis: calling, invitation
κλῆσις
This related word keeps the sense of a summons in view: an assembly is people gathered into a shared relation.
klētos: called, invited
κλητός
The same word family describes people as called; here, the assembly is recognized in the people who gather, not in a particular venue.
οἶκος
oikos
GROWS FROM
οἰκ-
oik-
dwelling, household
The Greek οἶκος (oikos, house or household) carries both the place and the life within it. The verse places a household gathering beside the assemblies of Asia, holding intimate and regional community together.
ALSO GROWS
oikia: house, household
οἰκία
This related word also names a home or household, keeping the gathering rooted in an inhabited place.
oikeō: dwell, live in
οἰκέω
The dwelling family of words points to a house as a lived-in setting, where an assembly can gather.
THE PATTERN
A wider people becomes tangible through local households and greetings that carry welcome between them.
Speak to all the assembly of Israel, saying, “On the tenth day of this month each man will take for himself a lamb according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for each house.”And they, holding fast day by day with one passion in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, took their food with gladness and singleness of heart.Embrace one another with a kiss of love. Wholeness be with all of you who are in the Anointed One. Amen.THE THREAD
Embrace also the assembly in their house. Embrace my beloved Epenetus, who is the first fruit of Achaia into the anointed one.Romans uses the same Greek word, ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia, assembly), for a gathering in a house. The repeated house-and-assembly language makes clear that household gathering belongs to the wider life of the assembly.
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