What Does Philippians 2:29 Mean?
Take him in, therefore, in the Lord, with all joy; and hold such people as precious.
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
Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness; and hold such in reputation:THE KEY
The verse makes a full welcome two things at once: receiving a person with gladness and recognizing their worth.
THE MEANING
You receive him in the Lord with complete gladness, and you regard people like him as worthy of honor. Welcome and esteem belong together here: he is not merely admitted; he is treated as valuable.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that someone can be welcomed in name while still being treated as insignificant.
THE ROOT
προσδέχεσθε
prosdechesthe
GROWS FROM
δέχομαι
dechomai
Receive, accept, welcome.
“take in” in this verse is prosdechesthe. The word carries the sense of welcoming someone into reception, not merely registering that they have arrived. Its root family links receiving with active acceptance, giving the verse’s gladness a concrete shape.
ALSO GROWS
dechomai: Receive, accept, welcome.
δέχομαι
This is the root’s basic act of taking someone in, which gives the verse’s welcome more depth than a polite greeting.
apodechomai: Welcome, accept, receive favorably.
ἀποδέχομαι
This related form makes the favorable welcome explicit: reception here carries glad acceptance.
ἐντίμους
entimous
GROWS FROM
τιμή
timē
Value, worth, honor.
“as precious” in this verse is entimous. The word rendered “reputation” names being valued and held in honor. Its word family also describes what is precious, so the verse’s esteem reaches beyond public opinion to the worth assigned to a person.
ALSO GROWS
timios: Precious, valuable, honorable.
τίμιος
This branch shows that honor is tied to recognizing what is valuable, not just to someone’s standing in others’ eyes.
atimazō: Dishonor, treat as having no honor.
ἀτιμάζω
Its opposite exposes what the verse resists: receiving a person while withholding the honor that recognizes their worth.
THE PATTERN
A community’s welcome becomes whole when it receives people gladly and treats them as worthy of honor.
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.Be tender toward one another with the affection of kin. Go before one another in honor.Welcome strangers among one another, without muttering.THE THREAD
Be tender toward one another with the affection of kin. Go before one another in honor.The same Greek noun τιμή (timē, value or honor) appears as “honour” in Romans 12:10. Philippians joins that recognition of worth to glad reception, showing that welcome includes how a person is valued.
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