What Does Colossians 4:10 Mean?
Aristarchus, my fellow captive, embraces you, and so does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, concerning whom you received commands; if he comes to you, take him in.
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
Aristarchus my fellowprisoner saluteth you, and Marcus, sister’s son to Barnabas, (touching whom ye received commandments: if he come unto you, receive him;)THE KEY
English repeats “receive,” but the Greek shifts from taking in instructions to welcoming a person.
THE MEANING
Aristarchus’s greeting reaches you from shared confinement, while Marcus is named for welcome when he arrives. The verse distinguishes taking in instructions from opening to a person, giving hospitality a human form.
THE ROOT
δέξασθε
déxasthe from déchomai
GROWS FROM
δέχομαι
déchomai
To receive, accept, or welcome.
“take him in” in this verse is déxasthe from déchomai. The earlier “received” is ἐλάβετε (elábete, “you received or took”), from λαμβάνω (lambánō, “take or receive”); English repeats the word while Greek changes verbs. Here déchomai gives receiving a relational force: Marcus is to be welcomed as a person.
ALSO GROWS
apodéchomai: To welcome or receive gladly.
ἀποδέχομαι
This related verb makes the welcoming shade of the shared receiving root especially clear.
dektós: Acceptable; welcome.
δεκτός
The same word family can describe someone as welcome, linking the act of receiving with the welcome a person experiences.
συναιχμάλωτος
synaichmálōtos
GROWS FROM
αἰχμαλωτ- (aichmalōt-), with σύν (syn, “together”)
Captive or taken prisoner; σύν makes this one held alongside another.
“fellow captive” in this verse is synaichmálōtos. The word names shared captivity, not just companionship. Aristarchus’s greeting comes from someone bound in the same condition, while the verse also speaks of welcoming a person who comes to the community.
ALSO GROWS
aichmalōtízō: To take captive.
αἰχμαλωτίζω
The related verb names the act behind the shared condition described by “fellowprisoner.”
aichmalōsía: Captivity.
αἰχμαλωσία
This related noun names the condition they share, giving “fellowprisoner” its weight.
THE PATTERN
Welcoming a person gives tangible form to the truth or work they carry.
Let us make a little upper room on the wall, I pray you, and let us set there for him a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a lampstand. And it shall be, when he comes to us, that he shall turn aside there.Whoever takes you in takes me in, and whoever takes me in takes in the one who sent me.Therefore we are bound to take up such as these, that we may become fellow workers in the truth.THE THREAD
Whoever takes you in takes me in, and whoever takes me in takes in the one who sent me.The Greek verb for “receive” here is the same verb as Colossians 4:10 uses for welcoming Marcus. Matthew opens that welcome outward: receiving the person can also mean receiving the one who sent them.
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