What Does Romans 1:13 Mean?
I would not have you unaware, brothers, that I often set myself to come to you, but I was held back until now, so that I might have some fruit among you as well, just as among the rest of the nations.
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
Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.THE KEY
The blocked visit still carries a living aim: fruit appearing among you.
THE MEANING
A real purpose can meet repeated delay and remain alive. Its aim is fruit among you too, something that takes form in shared life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A delay does not prove the purpose was false or that nothing can grow before the expected arrival.
THE ROOT
καρπόν
karpon
GROWS FROM
καρπ
karp
fruit, produce, yield
“fruit” in this verse is karpon. The Greek stem links fruitfulness and fruitlessness through the same seed. Paul’s hope is more than making a visit: he seeks a yield that appears among the people themselves.
ALSO GROWS
karpophoreō: to bear fruit
καρποφορέω
This branch makes explicit the growing and producing contained in the fruit Paul hopes to find among them.
akarpos: fruitless, unproductive
ἄκαρπος
Its shared stem shows the opposite possibility: the same measure of life can appear as fruit or as its absence.
προεθέμην
proethemēn
GROWS FROM
τίθημι
tithēmi
to put, place, set
“set myself” in this verse is proethemēn. The verb pictures purpose as something set before oneself as an intended direction. Beside the word for hindrance, that image lets the aim remain visible even when movement toward it is blocked.
ALSO GROWS
tithēmi: to put or set
τίθημι
This is the underlying verb: purpose carries the sense of setting an intended course before oneself.
prothesis: a setting forth; purpose
πρόθεσις
This noun preserves the same image of an intention set forth, clarifying the kind of purpose named here.
protithēmi: to set before; propose
προτίθημι
This related verb makes the underlying picture of setting an aim before oneself especially clear.
ἐκωλύθην
ekōlythēn
GROWS FROM
κωλύω
kōlyō
to hinder, prevent, hold back
“held back” in this verse is ekōlythēn. Here the KJV’s “let” carries its older sense of being hindered. The Greek names an actual obstruction to the visit, while the stated aim of finding fruit among the readers remains beside it.
ALSO GROWS
kōlyō: to hinder or prevent
κωλύω
This is the verb behind the passage’s statement that the speaker was held back.
akōlytōs: without hindrance, unhindered
ἀκωλύτως
The negative form makes the shared idea visible by naming movement free of the obstruction present here.
THE PATTERN
Fruit can emerge through a process whose visible arrival is delayed.
Those who sow in tears reap in a ringing cry.So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.I am the vine, and you are the branches. The one who remains in me, and I in him, this one bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.THE THREAD
So then, my brothers, you also have been put to death to the instruction through the body of the Anointed One, so that you might be married to another, to the one raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God.Romans 1:13 hopes for καρπόν, fruit, among the readers; Romans 7:4 uses the same Greek root in “bring forth fruit.” The repeated word opens the aim further: this fruit among you is also fruit unto God.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us