What Does Acts 15:23 Mean?
They wrote through their hand these words, The sent ones and elders and brethren send joy to the brethren who are from the nations in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia.
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 they wrote letters by them after this manner; The apostles and elders and brethren send greeting unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia:THE KEY
The verse names people from the nations as siblings, making kinship larger than shared ancestry.
THE MEANING
You are named as kin within a community that reaches across places and peoples. The word translated “greeting” carries the sound of rejoicing, so welcome arrives with gladness. The verse addresses you through a belonging that crosses inherited origin.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
You must share ancestry or culture before you can truly belong as family.
THE ROOT
ἀδελφοῖς
adelphois
GROWS FROM
ἀδελφ-
adelph-
Sibling or kin; the word’s traditional formation evokes people from one womb.
The Gentile recipients are already called siblings; their different origin is named within a frame of shared kinship. English “brethren” preserves the family sense, while the Greek word also carries the image of kin from one womb.
ALSO GROWS
adelphē: Sister
ἀδελφή
It belongs to the same sibling word family and shows the kinship term extending across gender.
adelphotēs: Brotherhood or siblinghood
ἀδελφότης
It names a community through the same kinship idea used for the letter’s recipients.
χαίρειν
chairein
GROWS FROM
χαιρ-
chair-
Rejoice or be glad.
“send joy” in this verse is chairein. The Greek letter greeting is a conventional salutation, and its word belongs to the family of rejoicing and joy. English keeps the social welcome while leaving that note of gladness less visible.
ALSO GROWS
chairō: Rejoice or be glad
χαίρω
This verb shares the word family behind the greeting.
chara: Joy
χαρά
This related noun makes the gladness carried by the salutation easier to hear.
ἀπόστολοι
apostoloi
GROWS FROM
ἀπό + στέλλω (apo + stellō)
Send or dispatch outward; ἀπό (apo) adds the sense of away or forth.
“apostles” in this verse is apostoloi. The title means people who are sent. Their role in the verse is framed by outward movement: a message carried from one community to others.
ALSO GROWS
apostellō: Send out or dispatch
ἀποστέλλω
This verb gives the title its sense of being sent forth.
apostolē: Sending or commission
ἀποστολή
This noun carries the same idea of a message or task sent outward.
THE PATTERN
Belonging is named across inherited divisions through shared kinship.
Them also will I bring to my set-apart mountain, and gladden them in my house of prayer. Their ascending offerings and their sacrifices shall be received with favor upon my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens of the set-apart ones, and of the household of God.There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither servant nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus the Anointed One.THE THREAD
Be tender toward one another with the affection of kin. Go before one another in honor.Acts names the recipients ἀδελφοῖς (adelphois), brothers; Romans uses φιλαδελφία (philadelphia), brotherly love, from the same ἀδελφ- (adelph-) sibling word family. The shared root makes the welcome sound like a bond that continues as mutual affection.
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