What Does Romans 15:7 Mean?
Therefore take hold of one another, as the Anointed One also took hold of us, to the end that God is given weight.
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
Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God.THE KEY
God’s weight becomes visible in the welcome that passes from the one who received you to the next person.
THE MEANING
You are met with a welcome that draws you near, and that welcome becomes the measure of how others are received. God’s presence carries weight where people make room for one another.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that you can honor God’s presence while withholding welcome from the people God has received.
THE ROOT
προσλαμβάνεσθε
proslambanesthe
GROWS FROM
λαμβάνω (lambanō), in προσλαμβάνομαι (proslambanomai)
Take or receive; the compound adds pros, meaning toward or to oneself.
“take hold of” in this verse is proslambanesthe. The word reaches beyond a polite acknowledgment: it carries the sense of drawing someone toward oneself. The welcome Christ gives becomes a welcome that moves between people.
ALSO GROWS
lambanō: The core action of taking or receiving.
λαμβάνω
It is the shared seed in the compound used for receiving one another.
paralambanō: To receive or take someone along, using the same lambanō stem with para, beside or alongside.
παραλαμβάνω
The shared stem makes room for the sense of drawing someone alongside.
katalambanō: To take hold of or grasp, formed with the same lambanō stem.
καταλαμβάνω
The family shows the force of taking hold; here that force is directed toward welcome.
δόξαν
doxan
GROWS FROM
δοξ-
dox-
Esteem and honor; the weight carried by what is honored.
“given weight” in this verse is doxan. “Glory” can sound like an abstraction, while doxa carries the sense of honor with weight. Here, receiving one another gives that weight a visible form in human relationship.
ALSO GROWS
doxazō: To give honor or glory.
δοξάζω
It shares the dox- family and makes the relation between honor and recognized weight clearer.
endoxos: Held in honor or repute.
ἔνδοξος
It shows dox- language describing the standing or weight something carries.
Χριστός
Christos
GROWS FROM
χρίω
chriō
To anoint.
Christos means “the anointed one,” a title rather than a surname. The verse points to the anointed one’s welcome as the pattern by which you receive others.
ALSO GROWS
chriō: To anoint.
χρίω
This is the verb from which Christos is formed.
chrisma: An anointing or anointing oil.
χρῖσμα
It shares the same root and makes the title’s connection to anointing visible.
THE PATTERN
God’s welcome becomes visible as people make room for the forsaken, the sinner, and the stranger.
When my father and my mother let go of me, then the LORD gathers me in.And the separated ones and the writers murmured, saying, "This man receives those who miss the mark, and eats with them."Do not let slip the opening of your home to strangers, for by it some have sheltered messengers without knowing it.THE THREAD
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.“Received” here is the same Greek word family as “receive” in Romans 15:7. The welcome between people begins in the fact that God has already drawn each one near.
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