πιπράσκω

G4097, pipráskō, is a Greek verb for selling or transferring something for a price. In the New Testament it describes property sold to meet needs, perfume imagined as saleable, everything surrendered to obtain a priceless pearl, a debtor and family threatened with sale in a parable, and the human self pictured as sold into slavery to sin. The verb can therefore name a voluntary transaction, a rhetorical proposal, a coercive debt system, or metaphorical bondage. Context must establish agency, object, purpose, and moral force.

Acts 2 and 4 portray believers selling possessions and distributing proceeds so that needs are met. Acts 5:4 guards the voluntary character of that generosity: the property belonged to Ananias before sale, and the money remained at his disposal afterward. His sin is deceptive lying, not failure to surrender property under compulsion. The perfume controversy likewise requires care. Critics calculate what could have been sold for the poor, while Jesus defends the woman's act and exposes how pious economic language can be used against a person whose agency and devotion others dismiss.

Matthew 18 places the threatened sale of a debtor, his wife, children, and possessions inside a parable about an unpayable debt and astonishing mercy. The severe system heightens the story; it is not a command to sell families. Romans 7 then uses the passive form for being sold under sin, describing bondage that the law can expose but cannot by itself defeat. That metaphor must not blur the concrete realities of trafficking or excuse human choices. Pastoral use should join voluntary generosity, truth about money, protection from coercion, and hope in Christ's deliverance.

G4097 describes costly sale, proposed monetization, voluntary liquidation for shared need, a parabolic threat under debt, and the enslaving power of sin.