To enter (literally or figuratively)
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Εἰσπορεύομαι means to go or come into, enter, or pass inside. It describes food entering the mouth, Jesus entering a synagogue to teach, worshipers entering temple courts, and people entering a room where a lamp gives light.
Reader summary
Full entry for εἰσπορεύομαι (G1531) · Open the biblical lexicon
Εἰσπορεύομαι means to go or come into, enter, or pass inside. It describes food entering the mouth, Jesus entering a synagogue to teach, worshipers entering temple courts, and people entering a room where a lamp gives light.
The BSB source-word alignment has 18 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include enters (2), [and] as you enter [it] (1), [Jesus and His companions] went (1), as you enter (1), came (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 15:17. Its strongest book concentrations include Mark (8), Luke (5), Acts (4), Matthew (1).
Εἰσπορεύομαι means to go or come into, enter, or pass inside. It describes food entering the mouth, Jesus entering a synagogue to teach, worshipers entering temple courts, and people entering a room where a lamp gives light. Jesus also uses the verb figuratively for worries, deceptive wealth, and competing desires entering a hearer and choking the word. Physical entry is morally neutral; what enters, where it enters, and what happens afterward supply the significance.
The term can mark ordinary movement, access to worship, public teaching, visibility, or invasive influence. Readers should not turn every doorway into a spiritual metaphor, nor miss the figurative force when Jesus explicitly moves entry into the heart's reception of the word.
Εἰσπορεύομαι depicts movement inward, from bodily and spatial entry to influences entering a hearer. Context identifies the boundary crossed and the result produced inside.
“Do you not yet realize that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then is eliminated?
Jesus distinguishes food entering the digestive system from evil issuing from the heart, relocating defilement from ritual misunderstanding to moral source.
Then Jesus and His companions went to Capernaum, and right away Jesus entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and began to teach.
Jesus enters the Capernaum synagogue and teaches with authority on the Sabbath, turning ordinary entry into the setting for revelation and confrontation.
No one lights a lamp and covers it with a jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, he sets it on a stand, so those who enter can see the light.
A lamp is placed so those entering can see, making entry part of a household image about revealed light and responsible hearing.
And a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those entering the temple courts.
The man is positioned at the temple entrance to seek aid from worshipers going in, and the apostles meet him at the boundary he cannot cross unaided.
But the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.
Worries, wealth's deceit, and other desires enter and choke the word, showing how rival concerns can invade reception and prevent fruit.
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. to enter (literally or figuratively)
to go into, enter: Luk.8:16 11:33 19:30; before εἰς, Mrk.1:21 6:56 11:2, Luk.22:10, Act.3:2; πρός, with accusative of person(s), Act.28:30; ὅπου, Mrk.5:40; κατά τ. οἴκους, house after house, Act.8:3; of things (food), Mat.15:17, Mrk.7:15, 18-19 Metaphorical (cf. εἰοέρχομαι, 2), Mrk.4:19, Luk.18:24; εἰσ. καὶ ἐκπορ., to associate with, before μετά (cf. εἰσέρχομαι), Act.9:28.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 17 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I journey into, go into
Read verseI journey into, go into
Read verseI journey into, go into
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Read verseI journey into, go into
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Read verseI journey into, go into
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Read verseI journey into, go into
Read verseI journey into, go into
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 mood, tense, and voice shift the force of this verb in context.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
How this verb appears across 17 occurrences in the NT discourse index (MACULA Greek SBLGNT).
Aspect reflects grammatical form — not authorial emphasis. Participles and infinitives are verbal adjectives and nouns respectively.
Clause data: MACULA Greek (Clear Bible, CC BY 4.0) · SBLGNT (Logos/SBL, CC BY 4.0)
εἰσπορεύομαι is built from these roots:
Entry only becomes theologically meaningful through destination and result. Food passes into the body without creating the heart's moral evil, while Jesus enters the synagogue and fills an ordinary gathering with authoritative teaching. The lamp saying pictures light positioned for those coming in, and Acts places a disabled beggar at the temple threshold where he depends on others and soon receives healing in Jesus' name.
Mark's soils warning moves inward: worries, wealth's deceit, and other desires enter, compete with the received word, and make it fruitless. Discipleship therefore attends to access and hospitality but also to what the heart welcomes. Churches should remove needless barriers to people while helping hearers recognize rival influences that quietly occupy attention and suffocate truth.
Matt.15.17
Εἰσπορεύομαι combines into with a verb of going and is typically intransitive. A prepositional phrase or narrative setting identifies the destination; figurative subjects can name influences entering a person.
Israel enters land, sanctuary, and gates under God's promise and holiness, while wisdom warns what is welcomed into the heart. Jesus grants access and exposes inward defilement.