What Does Acts 9:16 Mean?
For I will show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake.
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
For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.THE KEY
His name is his nature, so suffering for it is the lived cost of bearing what that name represents.
THE MEANING
The verse names suffering plainly as part of the path tied to his nature. The cost is bound to what the name represents, not merely to repeating a label.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a divine calling guarantees a painless path; here, suffering is part of the calling.
THE ROOT
ὄνομα
onoma
GROWS FROM
ὀνοματ-
onoma-
Name, designation, or recognized character.
“For my name’s sake” can sound like suffering for a label, but ὄνομα (onoma, name) also holds the nature and character represented by that name. The verse links what he undergoes to the nature he bears.
ALSO GROWS
onomazō: To name, designate, or invoke by name.
ὀνομάζω
Naming identifies what a person or thing is known as, bringing the represented character into view.
eponomazō: To name or designate someone by a title.
ἐπονομάζω
This branch shows how a name can mark the identity someone is recognized by, clarifying what it means to bear a name.
παθεῖν
pathein
GROWS FROM
πάσχω
paschō
To undergo or experience something; by extension, to suffer.
“suffer” in this verse is pathein. The Greek verb carries the sense of undergoing an experience, not a vague idea of hardship. Its connection to πάθημα (pathēma, suffering) keeps the cost concrete: what is borne is real and felt.
ALSO GROWS
pathēma: What is undergone; suffering or affliction.
πάθημα
This noun makes visible the concrete experience held within the verb “suffer.”
sympaschō: To suffer with or share in suffering.
συμπάσχω
The shared root shows that suffering can be an experience borne in relation to another, not an abstract label.
THE PATTERN
Those who bear the name meet the consequences of what that name represents.
So they went from the face of the council, rejoicing that they were weighed worthy to be dishonored for his nature.But all these things they will do to you for my nature's sake, because they do not know him who sent me.If you are reviled in the nature of the Anointed One, flourishing are you, for the breath of weight and of God rests upon you. On their side he is spoken against, but on your side he is given weight.THE THREAD
So they went from the face of the council, rejoicing that they were weighed worthy to be dishonored for his nature.The same Greek word ὄνομα (onoma, name) links the verses, and both place suffering beside that name. Acts 5:41 makes the cost specific: bearing it can mean being shamed for what it represents.
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