What Does Luke 14:12 Mean?
And he also said to the one who had called him, When you make a dinner or a supper, do not call your friends, nor your brothers, nor your kinsmen, nor rich neighbors; lest they also call you back, and a repayment be made to you.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee.THE KEY
An invitation can carry its own invoice: when the guest list is chosen by who can invite you back, the meal already contains its return.
THE MEANING
Your table can open to people whose table is likely to open back to you. The verse names that loop as recompense, so hospitality can function as an exchange while still looking generous. Its measure is visible now in whether the guest matters apart from what can come back.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a generous-looking invitation is automatically a gift: when the guest is chosen for the ability to repay, the invitation already carries a price.
THE ROOT
ἀνταπόδομα
antapódoma
GROWS FROM
δο- (do-, give; present stem διδο- from δίδωμι, didōmi)
Give, or hand something over.
“repayment” in this verse is antapódoma. The noun translated “recompence” comes from the verb for giving back in return. The meal sits inside a giving-and-returning circuit: the invitation starts an exchange whose answer is already anticipated.
ALSO GROWS
didōmi: To give or hand over.
δίδωμι
This is the underlying act of giving that the verse turns into a cycle.
apodídōmi: To give back, render, or repay.
ἀποδίδωμι
The added sense of return makes clear how a meal can become an account to be settled.
antapodídōmi: To repay or return something in kind.
ἀνταποδίδωμι
This verb family names the anticipated invitation back that makes the original invitation reciprocal.
THE PATTERN
A gift opens beyond its recipient when its return is not collected from that person.
Whoever lends to the LORD shows favor to the emptied one, and what his hands have done, he makes whole for him.And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what thanks is that to you? For even those who miss the mark lend to those who miss the mark, to receive back the same.I have pointed out to you all things, that in this way, toiling, you must hold up those without strength, and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, 'It is more flourishing to give than to take.'"THE THREAD
And you will be flourishing, for they cannot repay you; for you will be repaid at the standing up of the aligned.The same word family names the repayment this verse warns about and the recompense named in the next verse. The return shifts away from the guest across the table, opening the meal beyond a settled exchange.
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