What Does Acts 15:20 Mean in the King James?
But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.
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
One verb gathers the whole list: belonging takes shape by actively holding distance from what is named.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks in concrete boundaries: idol pollution, fornication, strangled things, and blood are all named. Its central verb pictures active distance, bringing worship, sexual conduct, and consumption together as parts of embodied life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that inward allegiance can stay separate from what a person joins with the body or takes in.
THE ROOT
ἀπέχεσθαι
apechesthai
GROWS FROM
ἔχω (echō), with ἀπό (apo)
ἔχω means hold or have; ἀπό means away from. Together they form the picture of holding oneself away.
“abstain” in this verse is apechesthai. The verb combines ἀπό (apo, away from) with ἔχω (echō, hold or have): abstention is actively holding oneself at a distance. That makes the four items one kind of boundary, with specified forms of participation kept outside one’s life.
ALSO GROWS
apechō: keep away, hold at a distance
ἀπέχω
This related verb carries the same movement of maintaining distance.
apochē: abstinence, restraint
ἀποχή
This noun gives that act of holding away a name.
echō: have, hold
ἔχω
The underlying image is a kind of holding, which makes abstaining more than mere absence.
εἰδώλων
eidōlōn
GROWS FROM
εἶδος
eidos
Form, appearance; that which is seen.
The word translated “idols” is εἴδωλον (eidōlon, image or likeness), from the family of εἶδος (eidos, form or appearance). The phrase names a visible representation and the concrete practices associated with it, not only an inward belief.
ALSO GROWS
eidōlon: image, likeness, idol
εἴδωλον
This is the singular form behind the verse’s “idols,” making visible representation part of the boundary.
eidos: form, appearance
εἶδος
This related word shows the image’s connection to visible form.
eidōlolatria: idolatry, service of images
εἰδωλολατρία
This compound names the practice organized around the image.
THE PATTERN
The body’s boundaries make allegiance visible in what is worshiped, joined, and consumed.
But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.THE THREAD
For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:The same verb, ἀπέχεσθαι (apechesthai, to hold oneself away), appears here with sexual conduct. In Acts it gathers that boundary with three others, tracing one movement of deliberate distance across worship, sexuality, and consumption.
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