What Does 2 Thessalonians 3:1 Mean?
Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run and be clothed in weight, just as it is with you.
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
Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you:THE KEY
The word does not merely get shared; it runs, and where it is received, it carries weight.
THE MEANING
The word of the Lord moves through the reader and beyond, rather than remaining in one place. Where it is received, it carries weight, as it already does among those who hold it. The reader is part of this shared movement of the word.
THE ROOT
τρέχῃ
trechē
GROWS FROM
τρεχ-
Run; move forward swiftly.
“may run” in this verse is trechē. The phrase pictures the Lord’s word as moving under its own momentum, not as a message held still. English “free course” can conceal this vivid image of the word running from one person to another.
ALSO GROWS
trechō: Run.
τρέχω
This is the verb behind “have free course”: the word moves forward.
syntrechō: Run together.
συντρέχω
The same root can describe people moving together, bringing out the shared movement implied by the word’s spread.
protrechō: Run ahead.
προτρέχω
This compound shows the root’s forward motion: the word can go ahead into places it has not yet reached.
δοξάζηται
doxazētai
GROWS FROM
δοξ-
Esteem; recognize as carrying weight.
“be clothed in weight” in this verse is doxazētai. The word’s movement and its weight belong together: it runs outward and is recognized as weighty where it arrives. Its weight is not merely praise spoken about it; it is the significance it carries among those who receive it.
ALSO GROWS
doxa: Weight, honor, glory.
δόξα
This noun gives the verse’s “glorified” its sense of the word being recognized as weighty.
endoxos: Honored, held in high regard.
ἔνδοξος
This related form shows how weight becomes visible in the regard something receives.
THE PATTERN
When the word is received, it moves outward through people and gains weight among them.
He sends his utterance upon the earth; his word runs very swiftly.But the word of God kept growing and multiplying.For from you the word of the Lord has echoed out, not only in Macedonia and in Achaia, but in every place your full weight leaning toward God has gone out, so that we have no need to speak anything.THE THREAD
Therefore, since we also have so great a cloud of witnesses lying around us, setting down every weight and falling short that so easily wraps around us, let us run the race lying before us, remaining under it.The same Greek verb, τρέχω (trechō, “run”), appears here in the call to run the course set before the reader. In 2 Thessalonians the word runs outward; here the reader is also shown moving along a course, making the movement shared rather than abstract.
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