What Does Acts 10:31 Mean?
And said, Cornelius, your prayer has been heard, and your acts of compassion have been remembered before the eyes of God.
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 said, Cornelius, thy prayer is heard, and thine alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God.THE KEY
What you say in prayer and what you give in generosity are both already present in God’s sight.
THE MEANING
Your prayer is heard, and your generosity remains before God as a memorial. The verse places inward words and outward giving together in God’s attention.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a private prayer or a small act of generosity disappears unseen does not hold here.
THE ROOT
μνημόσυνον
mnēmosynon
GROWS FROM
μνη-
mnē-
Memory, remembrance; keeping in mind.
The word translated “remembrance” also means a memorial: something that stands as a reminder. Your giving is not merely recalled later; it is pictured as present before God. That same word appears when the angel says the prayers and alms have come up before God.
ALSO GROWS
mnēmē: Memory, remembrance.
μνήμη
It shares the memory-root and shows that “remembrance” concerns what is held in mind.
mnēmoneuō: Remember, call to mind.
μνημονεύω
This verb makes the same root active: what is remembered is brought to mind.
ἐλεημοσύνη
eleēmosynē
GROWS FROM
ἐλεε-
elee-
Mercy, compassion expressed toward another.
“Alms” belongs to the Greek word-family for mercy, so the giving carries compassion in concrete form. The verse holds that merciful giving alongside prayer as something God sees.
ALSO GROWS
eleos: Mercy.
ἔλεος
It names the compassion at the heart of the word for alms.
eleeō: Show mercy, act compassionately.
ἐλεέω
It shows the family moving from mercy as a quality to mercy expressed in action.
THE PATTERN
What is offered in prayer or mercy is held in God’s sight rather than lost.
May he remember all your offerings, and make your rising offering rich. Selah.So that your compassion may be in the hidden; and your Father, who sees in the hidden, himself will give it back to you in the open.For God is not out of alignment to forget your work and the toil of love, which you have shown toward his nature, in that you have served the set-apart ones, and still serve.THE THREAD
And when he stretched his gaze upon him, he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? And he said to him, Your prayers and your acts of compassion have come up as a memorial before God.The angel’s message uses the same Greek word for “remembrance” and “memorial.” Here, the prayers and alms are pictured as coming up before God, opening the image of remembrance as what stands in God’s presence.
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