What Does Acts 28:22 Mean?
But we desire to hear from you what you think, for concerning this sect we know that it is spoken against everywhere.
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
But we desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest: for as concerning this sect, we know that every where it is spoken against.THE KEY
The Greek word for hearing can also mean a report, and this verse distinguishes what is said about a group from hearing the person directly.
THE MEANING
Your way of seeing can already be spoken against before anyone hears it from you. Yet the verse holds that public talk beside a real desire to hear what you think; the talk around you does not exhaust your voice.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that widespread opposition makes direct listening impossible: even knowing the group is spoken against, they still want to hear what you think.
THE ROOT
ἀκοῦσαι
akousai
GROWS FROM
ἀκου-
akou-
Hear, listen, receive what is said.
“hear” in this verse is akousai. The related noun ἀκοή (akoē) can mean both hearing and a report or message. The verse places hearing directly from you beside what is already being said about the group, exposing the difference between a person’s voice and their public reputation.
ALSO GROWS
akoē: hearing; report or news
ἀκοή
The same word family can describe both listening and what circulates as a report, bringing the verse’s contrast into focus.
hypakouō: listen to; heed or obey
ὑπακούω
It shows hearing as attention that can become a response, rather than merely receiving talk about someone.
αἵρεσις
hairesis
GROWS FROM
αἱρ-
hair-
Choose or take; by extension, a choice or a group organized around a position.
The word translated “sect” carries the sense of a chosen position or party. That shade makes the public label feel less like a complete account of a person and more like a name given to a particular way or grouping.
ALSO GROWS
haireomai: choose; take
αἱρέομαι
This verb gives the noun its seed sense: a sect is associated with a choice or position taken.
hairetikos: factious; causing division
αἱρετικός
This related word shows how a chosen position can be viewed through the divisions surrounding it.
ἀντιλέγεται
antilegetai
GROWS FROM
λεγ-
leg-
Say or speak; with ἀντί (anti), speak against or contradict.
“spoken against” in this verse is antilegetai. The phrase describes active opposition in speech, not mere obscurity: this way is being contradicted wherever it is known. Set beside the desire to hear what you think, that public opposition does not have the final word in the encounter.
ALSO GROWS
legō: say; speak
λέγω
The base verb makes clear that the opposition is voiced.
antilogia: contradiction; opposition in words
ἀντιλογία
This related noun carries the same pattern of speech turned against a claim or person.
THE PATTERN
Direct hearing keeps a public report from becoming the whole judgment.
The one who returns a word before he hears it, folly and shame are his.Does our instruction judge a man before it hears him, and know what he does?Know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to swell.THE THREAD
But this I say to you, that according to the Way they call a division, so I serve the God of my fathers, leaning my weight upon all that is written in the instruction and in the prophets.This verse uses the same Greek word, αἵρεσις (hairesis, sect or chosen position), rendered “heresy” here. It sets the disputed label beside a lived description of the way, showing that what a group is called does not, by itself, disclose what that way means.
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