What Does Acts 28:31 Mean?
Heralding the governance of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, with all boldness and with no one hindering him.
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
Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.THE KEY
The verse ends with unhindered: the reach of God’s governance is revealed in the freedom of its proclamation.
THE MEANING
God’s governance is being proclaimed, and the things concerning the Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, are being taught with open confidence. The message goes forward unhindered; no human barrier has the final word over what can be made known.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a human barrier can finally silence the governance of God or prevent its teaching from reaching the hearer.
THE ROOT
ἀκωλύτως
akōlytōs
GROWS FROM
κωλυ-
kōly-
To hinder, prevent, or hold back; the prefix a- negates the restraint.
“with no one hindering him” in this verse is akōlytōs. The Greek sentence closes with the adverb unhindered, making unimpeded proclamation its final note. The English phrase no man forbidding him expresses the same idea through the absence of a blocker; the Greek ending gathers it into a description of how the teaching proceeds.
ALSO GROWS
kōlyō: Hinder, prevent, forbid
κωλύω
This is the verb behind the idea of someone blocking the teaching.
akōlytos: Unhindered, unrestricted
ἀκώλυτος
This adjective shares the same stem with the negating prefix and names the state the verse closes on.
kōlysis: Hindrance, prevention
κώλυσις
This noun names the restraint that the verse says is absent.
παρρησία
parrēsia
GROWS FROM
παρρησι- (parrēsi-), related to πᾶς + ῥῆσις
Full, open speech; frankness and freedom to speak.
“all boldness” in this verse is parrēsia. Confidence here is not only private certainty: the word also carries the sense of speech made openly and plainly. Paired with unhindered, it shows both the manner of speaking and the absence of restraint around that speech.
ALSO GROWS
rhēsis: Speech, utterance
ῥῆσις
It supplies the speech element in the word’s sense of open speaking.
parrēsiazomai: Speak freely or boldly
παρρησιάζομαι
This related verb makes explicit the freedom of speech carried by confidence here.
βασιλεία
basileia
GROWS FROM
βασιλευ-
basileu-
Rule or reign as king; royal governance.
“the governance of God” in this verse is basileia. The Greek word-family connects the kingdom with both the ruler and the act of reigning, opening the phrase as God’s governance being made known. That makes the verse’s proclamation more than information about a place: it announces a rule at work.
ALSO GROWS
basileus: King, ruler
βασιλεύς
The ruler is part of the same word-family as the kingdom being proclaimed.
basileuō: Reign, rule as king
βασιλεύω
The verb makes the active governance within kingdom audible.
THE PATTERN
God’s word remains active and finds expression even where human constraints press against it.
So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.And when they had prayed, the place where they were gathered was shaken, and they were all filled with the Set-Apart Breath and spoke the word of God with boldness.In this I bear ill, even unto bonds, as one who works ill; but the word of God is not bound.THE THREAD
Can anyone hold back the water, so that these should not be immersed, who have taken hold of the Set-Apart Breath just as we have?The verb translated forbid in this question shares its root with the final word unhindered in Acts 28:31. The two verses turn the same idea in opposite directions: can anyone block the way here, while there the proclamation proceeds without being blocked.
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