What Does Romans 14:3 Mean?
Let not the one who eats make nothing of the one who does not eat, and let not the one who does not eat judge the one who eats, for God has taken him in.
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
Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him.THE KEY
God’s welcome makes eating or abstaining too small to decide who belongs to him.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you on either side of the table: eating and abstaining do not set the measure of another person’s standing. God has already welcomed that person to himself, and this welcome remains real while your practices differ. The difference stays, but it does not become a verdict on belonging.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a difference in food practice makes another person beneath you, or puts their place with God in your hands.
THE ROOT
προσελάβετο
proselabeto
GROWS FROM
λαμβάνω
lambanō
take, receive
“taken him in” in this verse is proselabeto. Under “received” is the image of taking someone to oneself: προσλαμβάνω (proslambanō, receive or welcome to oneself) joins πρός (pros, toward or to) with λαμβάνω (lambanō, take or receive). God’s action is a welcome that takes the person in, so another person’s food practice cannot decide whether that person belongs.
ALSO GROWS
lambanō: take, receive
λαμβάνω
This is the seed inside the verb in the verse: the action is to take or receive a person.
paralambanō: receive, take along
παραλαμβάνω
It carries the same λαμβάνω (lambanō, take or receive) seed in another compound, showing reception as taking someone into relation.
THE PATTERN
God’s welcome displaces the human categories that turn difference into a reason to exclude.
So love the sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.Then Peter opened his mouth and said, In truth I have laid hold of this, that God lifts no one's face. But in every nation the one who lives in awe of him and works alignment is received by him.My brothers, do not hold the trust of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, the Lord of weight, by receiving faces.THE THREAD
Therefore take hold of one another, as the Anointed One also took hold of us, to the end that God is given weight.Romans 15:7 uses the same verb, προσλαμβάνω (proslambanō, receive or welcome to oneself), for receiving one another as Christ receives you. The shared word links God’s welcome here with the welcome extended between people.
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