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G3581, xénos, is a Greek adjective that describes someone or something foreign, unfamiliar, strange, or outside an established circle. Used substantivally, it can name a stranger or guest; in Romans 16:23 it describes Gaius as the host who receives Paul and the whole church.
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Full entry for ξένος (G3581) · Open the biblical lexicon
G3581, xénos, is a Greek adjective that describes someone or something foreign, unfamiliar, strange, or outside an established circle. Used substantivally, it can name a stranger or guest; in Romans 16:23 it describes Gaius as the host who receives Paul and the whole church.
The BSB source-word alignment has 14 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include a stranger (4), strangers (3), foreigners (2), [of] strange (1), foreign (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 25:35. Its strongest book concentrations include Matthew (5), Acts (2), Ephesians (2), Hebrews (2).
G3581, xénos, is a Greek adjective that describes someone or something foreign, unfamiliar, strange, or outside an established circle. Used substantivally, it can name a stranger or guest; in Romans 16:23 it describes Gaius as the host who receives Paul and the whole church. The word therefore stands on both sides of hospitality: one person arrives without belonging, and another makes room. It also modifies gods, teachings, trials, and ideas, where strange means foreign to a community's expectations or unfamiliar in content rather than socially excluded.
Jesus places the stranger among people whose hunger, thirst, nakedness, sickness, and imprisonment reveal whether mercy becomes concrete welcome. Paul says Gentile believers were once strangers to the covenants and then announces that, in Christ, they are no longer strangers and foreigners but fellow citizens and members of God's household. Hebrews calls the faithful strangers and exiles on earth while warning against strange teachings, and Third John honors service to traveling brothers who are personally unknown. These uses join vulnerability, belonging, discernment, pilgrimage, and generous reception without making every stranger identical or every unfamiliar claim trustworthy.
Pastoral teaching should not romanticize hospitality or make vulnerable households accept unsafe access. Welcome can include food, shelter, introductions, verified support, boundaries, and shared responsibility. Nor should the judgment scene in Matthew be used to manipulate gifts, bypass safeguarding, or identify every claimant as trustworthy. G3581 calls the church to see people who lack social standing, receive faithful servants, and build a household across former divisions while still testing teachings and protecting those at risk. The decisive contrast is not familiar versus foreign as a measure of worth, but exclusion versus merciful belonging and novelty versus truth.
G3581 names the stranger who needs welcome, the host who gives it, people outside a civic or covenant circle, pilgrims on earth, unfamiliar gods and ideas, strange teachings, and trials that should not be treated as alien to Christian discipleship.
For I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you took Me in,
Jesus identifies merciful welcome to the vulnerable with service rendered to Him. The scene makes hospitality concrete in food, drink, reception, clothing, care, and visitation.
When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You?
The righteous do not present mercy as a strategy for recognition. Their question underscores ordinary acts of reception performed without calculating status.
I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, I was naked and you did not clothe Me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after Me.’
Failure is expressed as neglected embodied need. The verse addresses accountable mercy and should not be turned into coercive fundraising or the removal of prudent safeguards.
After conferring together, they used the money to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners.
Foreigners receive a designated burial place through money tied to Judas's betrayal. The narrative exposes compromised leadership and blood-money reasoning rather than presenting the purchase as uncomplicated charity.
Some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others said, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was proclaiming the good news of Jesus and the resurrection.
The Athenians classify Paul's proclamation as foreign to their religious categories. Luke then lets Paul address their misunderstanding rather than treating unfamiliarity as proof of either truth or error.
Now all the Athenians and foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing more than hearing and articulating new ideas.
Here foreigners are residents distinguished from Athenians, while novelty itself occupies the city's attention. The description sets the social and intellectual scene for Paul's witness.
Gaius, who has hosted me and all the church, sends you greetings. Erastus, the city treasurer, sends you greetings, as does our brother Quartus.
Used of Gaius, xénos carries the sense of host. His household becomes shared space for Paul and the church, showing hospitality as sustained communal service.
Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.
Paul asks Gentile believers to remember their former exclusion from covenant promise without turning memory into humiliation or ethnic superiority. Grace governs the transition that follows.
Therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household,
Christ creates a new belonging in which former strangers become citizens and household members. The claim opposes both Gentile boasting and exclusion by established insiders.
All these people died in faith, without having received the things they were promised. However, they saw them and welcomed them from afar. And they acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
The faithful confess pilgrim status because their hope reaches beyond present possession. Strangerhood here is a posture of promise and longing, not social worthlessness.
Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace and not by foods of no value to those devoted to them.
Strange modifies teachings foreign to grace-centered stability. Hospitality to people in the preceding verses does not require uncritical reception of every doctrine.
Beloved, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers, and especially since they are strangers to you.
Gaius serves traveling brothers he does not personally know, and the letter connects welcome with partnership in the truth. Discerned support and generous reception work together.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Foreigner or social outsider; emphasizes alienation from community belonging rather than mere geographic distance.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
14 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
new, novel, a foreigner
Read versenew, novel, a foreigner
Read versenew, novel, a foreigner
Read versenew, novel, a foreigner
Read versenew, novel, a foreigner
Read versenew, novel, a foreigner
Read versenew, novel, a foreigner
Read versenew, novel, a foreigner
Read versenew, novel, a foreigner
Read versenew, novel, a foreigner
Read versenew, novel, a foreigner
Read versenew, novel, a foreigner
Read versenew, novel, a foreigner
Read versenew, novel, a foreigner
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 8 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 3 selected witnesses from 14 lexical occurrence verses.
ξένος is a primary word - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
G3581 gathers hospitality, belonging, pilgrimage, and discernment into one lexical family. In Matthew 25 the stranger's need becomes a test of embodied mercy. In Romans 16 Gaius shows that a stranger's opposite is not merely an insider but a host who turns resources into shared space. Ephesians moves from remembered exclusion to citizenship and household membership through Christ, while Hebrews can call believers strangers on earth and strange teachings a danger in the same letter.
Third John joins welcome to truth by supporting faithful workers unknown to the host. The church therefore cannot choose between mercy and discernment. It welcomes people without making foreignness a stigma, tests teaching without treating unfamiliar people as threats, and practices safety without using it as a cover for neglect.
Matt.25.35
G3581 is an adjective appearing in masculine, feminine, and neuter forms across 14 governed witnesses. It often functions substantivally as stranger or foreigners, but Romans 16:23 uses it for a host. With teachings, gods, ideas, or a trial, it means foreign, unfamiliar, or strange. The noun-like and adjective uses share a family resemblance while their social and theological force comes from the modified person or thing.
Israel's law commands love for the sojourner while preserving particular holy and civic responsibilities. The New Testament receives that concern through Jesus' welcome of the stranger, the church's new household identity, and commands to hospitality. These themes illuminate but do not erase the distinctions among Hebrew resident-sojourner terms, H2114, Greek xénos, and the hospitality verb xenízō.