What Does Acts 15:29 Mean in the King James?
That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.
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
Here, restraint is a way of keeping yourself: the verse moves from holding away from certain things to guarding your own well-being.
THE MEANING
This word addresses you with concrete boundaries around food offered to idols, blood, strangled meat, and sexual immorality. It links keeping yourself from these things with doing well, then closes with a wish for your well-being.
THE ROOT
ἀπέχεσθαι
apechesthai
GROWS FROM
ἔχω (echō), in the compound ἀπό (apo, away from) + ἔχω (echō)
Have, hold; in this compound, hold away from.
“Abstain” carries the image of holding yourself at a distance. The verse’s boundaries are therefore expressed as an active form of keeping yourself, a connection made explicit in its closing phrase.
ALSO GROWS
apechō: Be distant; hold away.
ἀπέχω
This closely related verb makes the spatial sense of abstaining visible: it is a chosen distance.
apochē: Abstinence; holding back.
ἀποχή
The related noun gives a name to the same act of holding away that the verse asks of you.
διατηροῦντες ἑαυτούς
diatērountes heautous
GROWS FROM
τηρέω (tēreō), with διά (dia, through)
Keep, watch, guard; with διά, preserve or keep through.
“keep yourselves” in this verse is diatērountes heautous. The phrase for keeping yourself draws on language of guarding and preserving. Beside “abstain,” it shows restraint not as mere absence, but as maintained self-keeping.
ALSO GROWS
tēreō: Keep, guard, observe.
τηρέω
This base verb brings watchfulness into the verse’s description of keeping yourself.
tērēsis: Keeping; observance.
τήρησις
The related noun carries the idea of guarding into an ongoing practice.
THE PATTERN
Life is guarded through deliberate distance from what threatens its integrity.
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.Abstain from all appearance of evil.Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;THE THREAD
Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;Both verses use ἀπέχομαι (apechomai), meaning to hold oneself away. Acts names concrete boundaries; Peter uses the same verb for desires that war against the soul, revealing abstention as a form of self-keeping.
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