What Does Matthew 10:3 Mean?
Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, who is called Thaddaeus.
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
Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus;THE KEY
The Greek says Lebbaeus is also called Thaddaeus, letting two names belong to one person without one erasing the other.
THE MEANING
This verse holds names beside the descriptions that locate people: Matthew’s work, James’s father, and Lebbaeus’s additional name. Your own name can sit alongside a role or history without being exhausted by either.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a role or one familiar name is the whole of a person: the verse preserves several identifiers side by side.
THE ROOT
ἐπικληθείς
epiklētheis
GROWS FROM
καλέω
καλέω (kaleō): to call, summon, or name.
The phrase rendered “whose surname was” is a passive form of ἐπικαλέω: Lebbaeus is the one additionally called Thaddaeus. The καλέω family also names a calling and an assembly, placing this added name among words for naming, summoning, and gathering.
ALSO GROWS
epikaleō: to call by a name; to invoke
ἐπικαλέω
This compound is the direct source of the form translated “surname”: a person is called by an added name.
klēsis: calling; invitation
κλῆσις
This related form carries the same call-root, showing how naming and calling share a word-family.
ekklēsia: assembly
ἐκκλησία
This word belongs to the καλέω family; here, the roster of named people resonates with the word for an assembly.
τελώνην
telōnēn
GROWS FROM
τέλος
τέλος (telos): an end or outcome; in fiscal usage, a due, tax, or levy.
“tax collector” in this verse is telōnēn. The Greek title τελώνης belongs to the τέλος family, which carries both the sense of an end and the sense of dues or taxes. The KJV’s “publican” names Matthew’s role, while the Greek word also keeps the idea of what is collected or owed in view.
ALSO GROWS
telos: end, outcome; due or tax
τέλος
This base word holds the two senses that illuminate the tax collector’s title: an end or outcome, and a payment owed.
telōnion: tax office; customs house
τελώνιον
This related word names the place of tax collection, extending the same word-family into the setting of Matthew’s role.
THE PATTERN
Scripture places names beside roles, relationships, or additional names that show how a person is known.
No longer shall your name be called Abram, but Abraham, father of multitudes, for I have set you as a father of many nations.And as Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, Follow me. And he rose and followed him.And he led him to Jesus. And Jesus, fixing his gaze on him, said, You are Simon, son of John. You will be called Cephas, the rock.THE THREAD
But go and learn what this means, I desire faithful love and not sacrifice, for I have not come to call the aligned, but those who miss the mark to turning.Matthew 9:13 uses καλέω (kaleō), the same root in the word for Lebbaeus being called Thaddaeus. Here the root names a summons; in the roster it marks an additional name, joining the act of calling with the way a person is named.
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