What Does Philippians 2:21 Mean?
For all seek their own, not the things of Jesus the Anointed One.
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
For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.THE KEY
The Greek makes self-seeking a closed loop: people pursue “the things of themselves” while the Anointed One’s concerns remain outside their search.
THE MEANING
This verse names a present pull toward what belongs to the self and away from what belongs to Jesus the Anointed One. The reader stands inside that contrast whenever the self becomes the limit of what is pursued.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that pursuing one’s own interests is automatically the same as pursuing Christ’s.
THE ROOT
ἑαυτῶν
heautōn
GROWS FROM
αὐτ-
aut-
self; oneself
“their own” in this verse is heautōn. The phrase τὰ ἑαυτῶν means “the things of themselves,” making the self both the one who seeks and the center of what is sought. What can sound like a reference to possessions is also a turn of attention back toward oneself.
ALSO GROWS
autos: self; same
αὐτός
This self-reference is the seed carried within the reflexive phrase “their own.”
heautos: oneself
ἑαυτός
The reflexive form makes the search fold back toward the seeker.
ζητοῦσιν
zētousin
GROWS FROM
ζητ-
zēt-
seek; look for; pursue
“seek” in this verse is zētousin. The verse does not condemn seeking itself; it exposes what the search is aimed at. The same verb can point toward God’s governance, so the object of the search reveals its direction.
ALSO GROWS
zēteō: to seek; look for
ζητέω
This is the verb’s dictionary form and appears when the search is directed toward God’s kingdom in Matthew 6:33.
zētēsis: inquiry; question or dispute
ζήτησις
The word family can describe a search that becomes an inquiry, showing how seeking carries attention toward its object.
Χριστοῦ
Christou
GROWS FROM
χρι-
chri-
anoint; apply oil
“Jesus Christ’s” in this verse is Christou. Χριστοῦ means “of the Anointed One.” The contrast is between the self’s concerns and what belongs to the Anointed One, not between ordinary life and a separate set of religious things.
ALSO GROWS
chriō: to anoint
χρίω
This verb is the source of Christos, naming the one marked out by anointing.
chrisma: anointing
χρῖσμα
This related noun carries the same anointing root, keeping the title’s underlying meaning visible.
THE PATTERN
What a person seeks directs attention either back toward the self or outward toward God and others.
The young lions go lacking and go hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.But seek first the governance of God and his alignment; and all these things will be added to you.Each of you, do not fix your eyes on your own things, but also on the things of others.THE THREAD
But seek first the governance of God and his alignment; and all these things will be added to you.Matthew uses the same Greek seeking verb, ζητέω, but gives it a different object: God’s governance and alignment. That makes the contrast in Philippians precise, the question is not whether a person seeks, but where the search is directed.
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