What Does Ephesians 1:15 Mean?
For this, I also, having heard of your trust in the Lord Jesus and of the love you have for all the set-apart ones,
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
Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,THE KEY
The verse holds trust in Jesus and love for every saint as one reality seen in two directions.
THE MEANING
Your trust in Jesus reaches beyond inward conviction into love for the whole company set apart to God. The verse holds these together as one lived bond, directed toward Jesus and toward every saint. “All” leaves no favored subset outside that love.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that trust in Jesus can be complete while love is withheld from some of the people who belong to God.
THE ROOT
πίστιν
pistin
GROWS FROM
πιστ-
Trust and reliability; the ground on which one can lean.
Here πίστις is trust, a leaning of your full weight, and its word family also names what is trustworthy. The verse pairs trust directed toward Jesus with love extending toward every saint, joining the inward lean to an outward reach.
ALSO GROWS
pistos: trustworthy, reliable
πιστός
It shares the πιστ- stem and names the reliability on which trust can rest.
pisteuō: to trust, rely on
πιστεύω
It shares the πιστ- stem and expresses trust as an active relation.
יֵשׁוּעַ
Yēshūaʿ
GROWS FROM
ישע
To deliver, bringing someone from constriction into spaciousness.
The name rendered Jesus carries the nature of deliverance: being brought from constriction into spaciousness. Trust in this name rests in deliverance itself, and the verse’s accompanying love shows that life opening toward the whole community.
ALSO GROWS
yasha: to deliver
יָשַׁע
It shares the root consonants ישע and names the action carried in the name.
yeshuah: deliverance
יְשׁוּעָה
It shares the root consonants ישע and names the deliverance associated with Yeshua.
ἀγάπην
agapēn
GROWS FROM
ἀγαπ-
Love, regard directed toward another.
The verse gives love a clear direction: it reaches unto all the saints. The word family links loving with being beloved, showing that every saint is included as a recipient of that regard.
ALSO GROWS
agapaō: to love
ἀγαπάω
It shares the ἀγαπ- stem and names the act of loving.
agapētos: beloved
ἀγαπητός
It shares the ἀγαπ- stem and names one who is loved.
THE PATTERN
Trust and belonging to God become visible in love that crosses the boundary of one’s own circle.
So love the sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar. For the one who does not love his brother, whom he has perceived, cannot love God, whom he has not perceived.THE THREAD
For in Jesus, the Anointed One, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any strength, but trust that works through love.Galatians places the same Greek pair, πίστις and ἀγάπη, together and says trust works through love. That makes the connection precise: love is trust’s outward movement, not a separate reality.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us