What Does Acts 1:13 Mean?
And when they had entered, they went up into the upper room, where they were staying, Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Burning One, and Judas the brother of James.
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 when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James.THE KEY
Their first shared place is a room where they continue to remain together.
THE MEANING
The verse places you among a named community whose shared presence begins in one room. They enter, go up, and stay there together. Here, remaining together is already part of what comes next.
THE ROOT
καταμένοντες
katamenontes
GROWS FROM
μένω
remain, stay, continue
“where they were staying” in this verse is katamenontes. The Greek verb καταμένω is built on μένω, meaning to remain. Alongside the room itself, the word carries their continued presence there together: they have come in, and they stay.
ALSO GROWS
monē: dwelling place, abode
μονή
The same root can name a place to dwell, linking their continued staying with the room that holds them.
paramenō: remain, continue
παραμένω
This related form makes the continuing sense explicit: the verse describes a community that stays together.
THE PATTERN
Shared presence gives a gathered community its shape before it moves outward.
A Song of degrees of David. Look, how good and how sweet it is for brothers to settle also together!When the day of Pentecost was fully filled, they were all together in one place.THE THREAD
Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it stays in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.Acts uses καταμένω, built on μένω, the same Greek root rendered abide here. The room gives that continuing presence a physical setting; John extends the same word to continuing in relation.
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