What Does Acts 20:2 Mean?
And when he had passed through those regions, and had urged them with many words, he came into Greece.
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 he had gone over those parts, and had given them much exhortation, he came into Greece,THE KEY
The word translated “exhortation” can also mean comfort: the same speech steadies you and urges you onward.
THE MEANING
You can receive words that both comfort and move you forward; this verse holds those together. Reassurance is not a pause from movement, it can be part of how you continue.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that comfort means being left undisturbed: the word that comforts can also urge you forward.
THE ROOT
παρακαλέσας
parakalesas
GROWS FROM
παρακαλέω
parakaleō
To comfort, appeal, or urge.
“urged” in this verse is parakalesas. The Greek word translated “exhortation” can carry both comfort and urging. The verse presents the words that strengthen people as words that also press them onward.
ALSO GROWS
paraklēsis: Comfort, consolation, or appeal.
παράκλησις
This related noun shows that the same word family can name consolation as well as exhortation.
paraklētos: Comforter or advocate.
παράκλητος
This related word names one who brings support, extending the verse’s sense of encouragement beyond a bare demand.
THE PATTERN
Words that comfort can also urge people onward; consolation and appeal belong to the same work of strengthening.
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.Who comforts us in all our pressure, so that we are able to comfort those in every pressure, through the same comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.And I urge you, brothers. Bear up under the word of urging, for I have written to you in a few words.THE THREAD
And I urge you, brothers. Bear up under the word of urging, for I have written to you in a few words.Acts uses παρακαλέω (parakaleō, to comfort, appeal, or urge); Hebrews uses a related form for “exhortation.” The shared root reveals how a word can console and urge a response at once.
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