What Does 1 Peter 5:14 Mean?
Embrace one another with a kiss of love. Wholeness be with all of you who are in the Anointed One. Amen.
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
Greet ye one another with a kiss of charity. Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen.THE KEY
The kiss joins embodied affection to wholeness spoken over everyone in Christ.
THE MEANING
Love takes a tangible form between people, and the closing words speak wholeness over all who are in Christ. The reader stands within that shared circle now: affection is exchanged, and wholeness reaches everyone there.
THE ROOT
εἰρήνη
eirēnē
GROWS FROM
εἰρην-
Greek lexical stem
wholeness, peace
The closing words speak wholeness over the whole group, not merely quiet or an absence of conflict. The phrase reaches all who are in Christ, making wholeness a shared reality.
ALSO GROWS
eirēneuō: be at peace; live peaceably
εἰρηνεύω
The related verb presents peace as a way people live in relation to one another.
eirēnikos: peaceable
εἰρηνικός
This related form carries the same peace-word family into the character of a person or thing.
φιλήματι
philēmati
GROWS FROM
φιλε-
Greek lexical stem
affection, love
The Greek word for kiss belongs to the same word family as the verb for affection. That makes the greeting an embodied expression of relationship, while the following words speak wholeness across the group.
ALSO GROWS
phileō: love; feel affection
φιλέω
This verb shares the stem behind the word for kiss, linking the gesture to affection.
philos: friend; beloved
φίλος
This related word names someone held in affection, bringing the kiss into the language of relationship.
ἀγάπης
agapēs
GROWS FROM
ἀγαπ-
love
The kiss is qualified by ἀγάπη, love: affection gives the gesture its character. The English word “charity” can sound abstract, while the Greek places love directly inside this greeting.
ALSO GROWS
agapaō: love
ἀγαπάω
This verb belongs to the same word family and names the love expressed in the greeting.
agapētos: beloved
ἀγαπητός
This related form describes someone as loved, connecting the word family to a person within the community.
THE PATTERN
Among those joined in Christ, affection is enacted between people and wholeness is spoken over all.
A Song of degrees of David. Look, how good and how sweet it is for brothers to settle also together!Embrace one another with a set-apart kiss. The assemblies of the anointed one embrace you.Wholeness I leave with you; my wholeness I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be stirred, and do not let it shrink.THE THREAD
Wholeness I leave with you; my wholeness I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be stirred, and do not let it shrink.Peter’s closing εἰρήνη (eirēnē, wholeness) is the same Greek word Jesus speaks in John 14:27. Jesus gives that wholeness to his disciples, and Peter speaks it over all in Christ, presenting it as a shared gift.
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