What Does 1 Thessalonians 5:13 Mean?
And to hold them very high in love because of their work. Live in wholeness among yourselves.
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
And to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. And be at peace among yourselves.THE KEY
The verse makes shared wholeness inseparable from lavish love toward those who labor among you.
THE MEANING
The people laboring among you are regarded with abundant love because of their work. Wholeness is a shared condition of life among you.
THE ROOT
εἰρηνεύετε
eirēneuete
GROWS FROM
εἰρην-
eirēn-
Peace, concord, wholeness.
“live in wholeness” in this verse is eirēneuete. The verb and its related noun keep peace and living peaceably within one word family. The phrase places that wholeness “among yourselves,” presenting it as a shared condition of life in the community.
ALSO GROWS
eirēnē: Peace, wholeness.
εἰρήνη
The related noun shows the shared condition toward which the verse’s call to live peaceably points.
eirēnikos: Peaceable; conducive to peace.
εἰρηνικός
This branch connects peace with the quality that shapes how people live together.
ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ
hyperekperissou
GROWS FROM
περισσ-
periss-
Abundance, excess beyond the ordinary.
The phrase translated “very highly” is built on a word family for excess and abundance, so esteem carries a sense of overflowing measure. That abundance is placed in love and tied directly to work that serves the community.
ALSO GROWS
perisseuō: Abound, overflow.
περισσεύω
Its sense of overflow illuminates the unusually abundant measure of esteem in this verse.
perissos: Abundant, exceeding the ordinary.
περισσός
This related word shows the abundance beneath the verse’s intensified regard.
THE PATTERN
Communal wholeness takes shape as people live toward one another in shared peace.
A Song of degrees of David. Look, how good and how sweet it is for brothers to settle also together!If it is possible, as far as your reach extends, live in wholeness with all people.pressing to keep the oneness of the breath in the binding of wholeness.THE THREAD
For he is our wholeness, the one who made both one and loosed the middle wall of the fence.The Greek verb translated “be at peace” belongs to the same word family as “peace” in Ephesians 2:14. There, wholeness takes form as people become one and the wall between them comes down.
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