What Does Romans 16:23 Mean in the King James?
Gaius mine host, and of the whole church, saluteth you. Erastus the chamberlain of the city saluteth you, and Quartus 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
“Host” is xenos, a word that can also name a guest or stranger, so the one who welcomes and the one who needs welcome share the same word family.
THE MEANING
You are met by a picture of community whose welcome has room for an entire assembly, not only one favored guest. A city officer and a man named only as “a brother” share the same greeting, with public standing and kinship held side by side.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that welcome is only a private courtesy between two people dissolves here: the host’s welcome reaches Paul and the whole assembly.
THE ROOT
ξένος
xenos
GROWS FROM
ξεν-
xen-
Stranger or foreigner; in a relationship of welcome, guest or host.
The word translated “host” belongs to the same family that names the stranger received. The role is relational: the one making room and the one needing welcome are joined in one word family, and here that welcome extends to the whole assembly.
ALSO GROWS
philoxenia: Hospitality; love and welcome of strangers.
φιλοξενία
Romans 12:13 uses this word for hospitality, naming the welcome that Gaius embodies.
philoxenos: Hospitable; welcoming toward strangers.
φιλόξενος
The word carries xenos into a description of a person whose welcome makes room for others.
ἐκκλησία
ekklēsia
GROWS FROM
καλέω
kaleō
To call or summon; in ἐκκλησία, the sense is a gathered assembly.
Alongside the familiar rendering “church,” the Greek word carries the concrete sense of a gathered assembly. Set beside xenos, it makes the scale of welcome visible: a gathered people are received as a whole.
ALSO GROWS
klētos: Called or invited.
κλητός
This related word shows the call or invitation within the same Greek word family.
klēsis: A calling or invitation.
κλῆσις
The assembly’s word family connects gathering with a summons or invitation.
ἀδελφός
adelphos
GROWS FROM
ἀδελφ- (adelph-), linked to δελφύς (delphys)
Kinship associated with sharing a womb.
The word for brother carries an image of shared origin and kinship. Quartus is named simply through that belonging, alongside the host and the city official.
ALSO GROWS
adelphē: Sister; a female sibling.
ἀδελφή
The feminine form shares the same family word for sibling kinship.
adelphotēs: Brotherhood; a community of siblings.
ἀδελφότης
The word extends sibling kinship to a whole community.
THE PATTERN
Welcome turns private space into a place where others can be received and gathered.
Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick: and it shall be, when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither.And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us.Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.THE THREAD
Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.The Greek word for hospitality here is φιλοξενία (philoxenia), formed around xenos, the guest or stranger. Romans 16:23 makes that welcome concrete: Gaius receives Paul and the entire assembly.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us