What Does Philemon 1:5 Mean?

Hearing of your love and trust, which you have toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all the set-apart ones.

Philemon 1:5 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

Hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints;

THE KEY

Here, devotion to the Lord and regard for all the saints share one relational center.

THE MEANING

Your love and trust are directed toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints. The verse holds devotion to him and connection with people together in one living relationship.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that trust in the Lord can remain detached from love for other people.

THE ROOT

ἀγάπην

agapēn

GROWS FROM

ἀγαπ-

The Greek stem ⁨ἀγαπ-⁩ (agap-) carries the sense of loving or holding dear.

The same stem names both loving and the beloved, joining the bond to the one held dear. Here love appears alongside trust and reaches toward the Lord Jesus and all the saints, holding devotion and regard for people within the same relationship.

ALSO GROWS

agapaō: to love

ἀγαπάω

This verb shares the ⁨ἀγαπ-⁩ stem and shows the same love as an active relation.

agapētos: beloved

ἀγαπητός

This adjective shares the stem and names the one who is held dear, giving love a person toward whom it is directed.

THE PATTERN

Trust and love take shape as one relational life, directed toward God and expressed among people.

And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your living soul, and with all your might.

Deuteronomy 6:5 · SDVLove directed toward God encompasses the whole person, giving the relationship an undivided center.

Remembering without a gap your work of trust, your toil of love, and your remaining under of hope in our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, before the face of God and our Father.

1 Thessalonians 1:3 · SDVFaith and love appear together as lived relationships, each taking visible form.

And we hold this command from him, that the one who loves God should also love his brother.

1 John 4:21 · SDVLove toward God extends into love for another person, joining devotion and human connection.

THE THREAD

For in Jesus, the Anointed One, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any strength, but trust that works through love.

Galatians 5:6 · SDV

Philemon names love and faith together; Galatians shows their relation by describing faith as working through love. What appears as two directions here becomes one movement: trust taking form through love.

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