What Does Matthew 25:44 Mean?
Then they also answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungering, or thirsting, or a stranger, or naked, or weak, or in prison, and did not wait on 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 shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?THE KEY
The Greek word for “stranger” also belongs to the language of receiving a guest, so the encounter turns on whether the unfamiliar person is welcomed.
THE MEANING
You can meet a person in need without recognizing who is being met through them. The question names hunger, thirst, unfamiliarity, exposure, illness, and confinement, then asks whether care was given. The speakers remember no such service to the Lord.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that you must recognize the Lord directly before your service can reach him.
THE ROOT
ξένον
xenon
GROWS FROM
ξεν
xen
Stranger, foreigner, or guest.
The word translated “stranger” belongs to a Greek word family that also speaks of receiving someone as a guest. The verse places the unfamiliar person within the language of welcome: the question is whether they were received and served.
ALSO GROWS
xenia: Hospitality toward a stranger or guest.
ξενία
This branch names the welcome that the unfamiliar person in the verse may need.
xenizō: To receive or entertain as a guest; in other uses, to be a stranger.
ξενίζω
The same word family can describe the stranger and the act of receiving one.
THE PATTERN
Receiving the stranger becomes a way of receiving the one whose presence is hidden in the encounter.
But the sojourner who sojourns with you shall be to you as one who springs up among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.Whoever takes you in takes me in, and whoever takes me in takes in the one who sent me.Do not let slip the opening of your home to strangers, for by it some have sheltered messengers without knowing it.THE THREAD
Do not let slip the opening of your home to strangers, for by it some have sheltered messengers without knowing it.The Greek verb translated “entertained” belongs to the ξενίζω word family, linked to the ξεν- root behind “stranger” in Matthew. Both verses hold open the same discovery: a stranger can be received before the person’s hidden identity is known.
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