What Does 2 Thessalonians 3:15 Mean in the King James?
Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Correction does not cancel kinship: the one being corrected is still addressed as family, not recast as an enemy.
THE MEANING
The person’s wrongdoing does not erase the relationship in the moment of correction. Truth is spoken while the person remains a brother; the rebuke takes place within kinship rather than replacing it with hostility.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that someone who acts wrongly becomes an enemy, and that correcting them means rejecting them.
THE ROOT
ἀδελφόν
adelphon
GROWS FROM
ἀ- + δελφύς
From the image of sharing a womb: a sibling, one born from the same womb.
The word translated “brother” carries shared origin within it. The correction does not make the person family again; it addresses them as family already.
ALSO GROWS
adelphē: sister
ἀδελφή
The feminine form shares the same kinship word family, showing that the bond is about shared belonging.
adelphotēs: brotherhood or sibling community
ἀδελφότης
The individual word opens into a whole community of siblings, making correction a practice within shared kinship.
νουθετεῖτε
noutheteite
GROWS FROM
νοῦς + τίθημι
To put or set something in the mind; to bring a warning or counsel to someone’s attention.
“admonish” in this verse is noutheteite. The verb pictures correction as placing something before the mind, so the person can face what is wrong. Its force is direct, but the verse places that directness inside the relationship named by “brother.”
ALSO GROWS
nouthesia: admonition or warning
νουθεσία
This noun names the counsel itself, keeping the focus on making a matter clear to the person.
tithēmi: put, set, place
τίθημι
This component of the compound contributes the image of setting something before the mind rather than casting the person away.
ἐχθρόν
echthron
GROWS FROM
ἐχθρ-
Hostility or enmity; an adversary.
The verse names “enemy” as a status the community must not assign to the wrongdoer. The contrast is between holding someone in hostility and addressing them within kinship.
ALSO GROWS
echthra: enmity or hostility
ἔχθρα
This noun names the hostile condition the verse refuses to make the relationship’s defining frame.
echthreuō: be hostile or treat as an enemy
ἐχθρεύω
This verb makes the contrast relational: the issue is whether hostility governs how the person is treated.
THE PATTERN
Correction names what is wrong while keeping the person inside the relationship.
Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him.Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men.THE THREAD
And I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another.Romans 15:14 uses the same verb, νουθετέω (noutheteō), for admonishing one another. It places that shared act within a community named as “my brethren,” opening the correction here as something kin do within their bond.
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