What Does Philemon 1:25 Mean?
The favor of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, be with your breath. Amen.
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
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.THE KEY
The closing blessing asks that Christ’s favor accompany the reader’s own breathing life, joining charis (favor) to pneuma (breath, spirit).
THE MEANING
The verse asks that the favor of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Its closing words reach the reader’s inward life now: the word translated “spirit” also names breath, so the blessing is spoken close to the life within.
THE ROOT
χάρις
charis
GROWS FROM
χαρ-
Favor; gracious giving.
The word translated “grace” belongs to a family that also names favoring and freely given gifts. The blessing is not an abstract quality: it asks for Christ’s favor to be with the reader.
ALSO GROWS
charizomai: To grant freely; to show favor.
χαρίζομαι
This verb makes favor an act of giving, showing the active sense carried by the blessing.
charisma: A gift; a gracious gift.
χάρισμα
This noun names a gift that comes from favor, opening the word beyond an abstract status.
πνεύματι
pneumati
GROWS FROM
πνευ-
To breathe or blow; breath.
The word’s family connects breathing and blowing with what is called spirit. Greek holds breath, wind, and spirit together here, while the blessing locates its companionship with the reader’s inward life.
ALSO GROWS
pneō: To blow; to breathe.
πνέω
This verb names the action in the same word family, keeping “spirit” connected to breathing.
pneumatikos: Pertaining to spirit or breath; spiritual.
πνευματικός
This adjective carries the same stem into what is spirit-related, showing the connection remains present in related Greek words.
Χριστοῦ
Christou
GROWS FROM
χρισ-
To anoint.
Christos is a title meaning “the anointed one,” formed from the verb for anointing; it carries a nature, not merely a surname. The favor in this blessing is named as the favor of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Anointed One.
ALSO GROWS
chriō: To anoint.
χρίω
This verb is the action named by the title Christos.
chrisma: Anointing; an anointing substance.
χρῖσμα
This noun shares the root and makes the title’s anointing language visible.
THE PATTERN
The closing blessing places favor alongside the reader’s inward spirit, making companionship the shape of its final words.
Brothers, the favor of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, be with your breath. Amen.The Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, be with your breath. Favor be with you. Amen.The breath itself testifies together with our breath, that we are children of God.THE THREAD
Brothers, the favor of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, be with your breath. Amen.Galatians uses the same Greek pair, χάρις (charis, favor) and πνεῦμα (pneuma, breath or spirit), in the same closing wish. Their pairing makes the link clear: favor is asked to accompany the reader’s inward life.
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