What Does Romans 12:18 Mean?
If it is possible, as far as your reach extends, live in wholeness with all people.
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
If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.THE KEY
The verse aims your side toward wholeness with everyone while drawing its limit at what is possible and what lies within you.
THE MEANING
Peace here is wholeness lived in relation: your side of the encounter can move toward it with everyone. The verse also names a limit, possibility and what lies within you, so another person’s choices are not placed in your hands.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that you must control another person’s response to secure peace, or that an outcome you cannot control proves you did not do enough.
THE ROOT
εἰρηνεύοντες
eirēneuontes
GROWS FROM
εἰρήνη
eirēnē
Peace, wholeness
“live in wholeness” in this verse is eirēneuontes. The verse’s word for living peaceably belongs to the same Greek word family as εἰρήνη (eirēnē), meaning peace or wholeness, and εἰρηνοποιός (eirēnopoios), meaning peacemaker. That shared seed makes peace more than the absence of conflict: it is wholeness expressed in relationship, within the reach of what lies in you.
ALSO GROWS
eirēnē: Peace, wholeness
εἰρήνη
This is the noun at the root of the verse’s call to live peaceably; it reveals the quality being pursued.
eirēnopoios: Peacemaker
εἰρηνοποιός
This related word names one who makes peace, showing that the same word family can describe both wholeness and its active expression.
THE PATTERN
Wholeness is pursued through what lies within a person, with peace extended toward others.
Turn aside from evil and do good; seek wholeness and pursue it.Flourishing are the makers of wholeness, for they are called children of God.So then let us pursue the things that move toward wholeness, and the things that build one another up.THE THREAD
So then let us pursue the things that move toward wholeness, and the things that build one another up.This verse shares the Greek word family of εἰρήνη (eirēnē), meaning peace, wholeness, with Romans 12:18. It opens up what peaceable living can look like: pursuing what makes for wholeness and builds another person up.
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