What Does Philemon 1:1 Mean in the King James?
Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellowlabourer,
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
The opening sets a prisoner beside a brother, a beloved one, and a co-worker, showing that confinement is not the only name a life can carry.
THE MEANING
The verse holds confinement and belonging in one frame: the bound person is named in relation to Jesus, while Timothy is brother and Philemon is beloved and a partner in the work. Kinship and shared labor remain visible alongside circumstance and function. You are met here through relationship before role.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that confinement or usefulness defines a person’s whole identity. This line names the bound one through his relation to Jesus and the others through kinship, love, and shared work.
THE ROOT
δέσμιος
desmios
GROWS FROM
δέω (deō), through δεσμός (desmos)
To bind or fasten; a δεσμός is a bond or tie.
“prisoner” in this verse is desmios. The word carries the image of a person held in bonds, while the phrase links that condition to Jesus Christ. Jesus (Ἰησοῦς, Iēsous, Greek form of Yeshua, deliverance) and Christ (Χριστός, Christos, the anointed one) keep the name’s nature in view: Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ, Yēshūaʿ) is linked to yasha (יָשַׁע, yāshaʿ, deliver), the movement from constriction into spaciousness; the bonds remain real, but they are not the whole frame.
ALSO GROWS
desmos: Bond, tie, or fetter.
δεσμός
It names the concrete bond behind the word for prisoner.
desmōtērion: Prison, a place of bonds.
δεσμωτήριον
The same word family names both the bound person and the place that holds people in bonds.
ἀγαπητῷ
agapētō
GROWS FROM
ἀγαπάω
agapaō
To love or cherish; the related noun ἀγάπη names love.
“dearly beloved” in this verse is agapētō. English can make this sound like an ornamental courtesy. The Greek family keeps love and the loved person visibly related: Philemon is introduced as one held in love before he is named as a co-worker.
ALSO GROWS
agapē: Love.
ἀγάπη
The noun names the love that the adjective makes personal.
agapaō: To love, cherish, or hold dear.
ἀγαπάω
This verb is the action behind calling someone beloved.
συνεργῷ
synergō
GROWS FROM
ἔργον (ergon), joined to σύν (syn, with)
Work or action; the compound means one who works with another.
“fellowlabourer” in this verse is synergō. English makes this sound like a role label; the Greek makes the relation audible: work done with another. Shared labor is part of the bond among the people named here.
ALSO GROWS
ergazomai: To work or labor.
ἐργάζομαι
It carries the work at the center of the compound.
synergeō: To work together or cooperate.
συνεργέω
It makes explicit the shared action contained in fellow-worker.
THE PATTERN
Scripture presents shared labor as a form of belonging, carried by people who work alongside one another.
Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour.For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.Greet Priscilla and Aquila my helpers in Christ Jesus:THE THREAD
Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh, and in the Lord?The phrase translated dearly beloved in verse 1 and brother beloved here uses the same Greek word, ἀγαπητός (agapētos, beloved). The one described as a servant is also named as a beloved brother, extending the opening’s language of belonging.
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