What Does Matthew 10:40 Mean?
Whoever takes you in takes me in, and whoever takes me in takes in the one who sent me.
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
He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.THE KEY
Welcome has a longer reach than the person at the door: it travels through the one sent, to the sender.
THE MEANING
When you receive the one sent to you, your welcome reaches Jesus; receiving Jesus reaches the One who sends him. The verse makes the person standing before you a point of contact with a presence beyond them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that welcome ends with the person who receives it.
THE ROOT
δεχόμενος
dechomenos
GROWS FROM
δέχομαι
dechomai
To receive, accept, welcome, take in.
“takes in” in this verse is dechomenos. The same Greek verb repeats at every step: receiving you is receiving Jesus, and receiving Jesus is receiving the sender. It describes welcome that takes a person in, so its reach follows the one welcomed all the way to the one who sent him.
ALSO GROWS
apodechomai: Welcome, accept.
ἀποδέχομαι
This compound keeps the sense of taking someone in, illuminating the personal welcome at the center of the verse.
paradechomai: Accept, receive.
παραδέχομαι
This related form shows the same receiving family at work when something or someone is accepted.
ἀποστείλαντα
aposteilanta
GROWS FROM
ἀποστέλλω
apostellō
To send out or dispatch.
The one received is also the one sent: reception and sending form a single chain. The word carries the sense of being dispatched, so the welcome offered to the sent one reaches the sender.
ALSO GROWS
apostolos: A sent one, an envoy.
ἀπόστολος
The envoy carries the sender’s presence into the encounter.
apostolē: A sending, a commission.
ἀποστολή
This branch names the act that places someone in the role of the one welcomed.
THE PATTERN
Welcome offered to a person can reach beyond them to the one they represent.
Truly, truly, I say to you, the one who takes hold of whoever I send takes hold of me; and the one who takes me takes hold of the one who sent me.And the King answers and says to them, Truly, I say to you, Whatever you did to one of the least of these my brothers, you did to me.Do not let slip the opening of your home to strangers, for by it some have sheltered messengers without knowing it.THE THREAD
And he said to them, Whoever receives this child in my nature receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. For the smallest among you all, this one shall be great.Luke makes the chain touch a child: welcome given to someone with no status reaches Jesus, then the sender. It uses the same Greek root, δέχομαι (dechomai, to receive or welcome), showing that the person’s smallness does not shorten the welcome’s reach.
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