What Does Colossians 4:17 Mean?
And say to Archippus, "Look to the service you took from another's hand in the Lord, so that you fill it."
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 say to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it.THE KEY
What you receive as service in the Lord is not just a title; it is work meant to be filled out to its full measure.
THE MEANING
The verse holds together an entrusted service and its completion: what is received in the Lord has a measure that can be filled out. Attention and completion belong to the same work.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Receiving a calling is not the same as bringing it to fullness; this verse names both the gift and its completion.
THE ROOT
πληρώσῃς
plērōsēs
GROWS FROM
πληρ-
plēr-
to fill, make full, bring to fullness
“fill” in this verse is plērōsēs. The word translated “fulfil” carries the image of filling something to its full measure. The service is received, but its completion is the work of bringing that service into fullness.
ALSO GROWS
plēroō: fill, make full, bring to completion
πληρόω
This is the verb’s base form and shows the concrete image beneath “fulfil.”
plērōma: fullness, that which fills
πλήρωμα
This related word makes the goal visible: the work reaches its fullness.
plērēs: full, complete
πλήρης
This related form describes the state toward which the service is brought.
διακονίαν
diakonian
GROWS FROM
διακον-
diakon-
service, attendance, practical ministry
English “ministry” can sound like an office or title; διακονία (diakonia, “service”) also names work actually carried out. The verse joins receiving that service with filling it out, so the emphasis falls on the entrusted work itself.
ALSO GROWS
diakonos: servant, minister
διάκονος
The related noun names the person carrying out the service.
diakoneō: serve, attend to
διακονέω
The related verb shows the service as an action, not merely a role.
Ἄρχιππος
Archippos
GROWS FROM
ἀρχι- + ἵππο- (archi- + hippo-)
chief or leader + horse; the name is commonly understood as “horse-chief” or “master of horses”
Archippus’s name carries the sense of a horse-chief, though this sentence develops no horse image. Its explicit focus is the service he has received in the Lord and is charged to bring to fullness.
ALSO GROWS
archōn: ruler, chief
ἄρχων
This related form reflects the chief or leading element in the name.
hippos: horse
ἵππος
This is the horse element that completes the name’s compound sense.
THE PATTERN
What is entrusted from God reaches its purpose through the filling out of concrete work.
And he has filled him with the breath of God, in wisdom, in discernment, and in knowledge, and in all manner of work.For we are his making, created in the Anointed One, Jesus, for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that in them we might walk.Moreover, it is sought among portioners that someone be found steady.THE THREAD
Of which I became a servant, according to the household charge of God given to me for you, to fill the word of God.Colossians 1:25 uses the same Greek root πληρ- (plēr-, “fill, bring to fullness”) as “fulfil” here. The shared root links the ministry received in the Lord with the work of bringing that ministry to its full measure.
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