What Does John 15:17 Mean?
These things I command you, that you love one another.
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
These things I command you, that ye love one another.THE KEY
The command takes its full shape in the space where love passes between people.
THE MEANING
This command reaches you in the relationships you inhabit now: love is shared from one person to another. Its reciprocal wording places your life with others at the center of the command.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that love is complete as a private feeling; here it takes form between people.
THE ROOT
ἀγαπᾶτε
agapate agapaō
GROWS FROM
ἀγαπ-
agap-
to love
The verb ἀγαπᾶτε (agapate, “you love”) belongs to the same word family as ἀγάπη (agapē, “love”) and ἀγαπητός (agapētos, “beloved”). Here, love is spoken as something enacted among people, not just a feeling held within one person.
ALSO GROWS
agapē: love
ἀγάπη
The noun names the same love that the verse calls people to enact toward one another.
agapētos: beloved
ἀγαπητός
This related word describes someone as receiving or being held in love, echoing the shared relationship in the command.
ἀλλήλους
allēlous
GROWS FROM
ἄλλ-
all-
other, another
The word ἀλλήλους (allēlous, “one another”) comes from the word family of ἄλλος (allos, “another”). Its reciprocal form makes the other person part of the meaning: the love named here moves between people.
ALSO GROWS
allos: another, other
ἄλλος
This is the root word behind the verse’s focus on a person beyond oneself.
allēlōn: one another
ἀλλήλων
This reciprocal form shows the relationship running in both directions among people.
THE PATTERN
Love becomes visible as a reciprocal practice among people.
You shall not avenge, nor hold a grudge against the children of your people; but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.A new command I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, so also you love one another.Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also owe one another love.THE THREAD
This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you.John 15:12 repeats the same Greek words for “love” and “one another” found here. It adds “as I have loved you,” showing the pattern of love that John 15:17 names as the command’s aim.
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