Consent or approval names agreement with a stated person, action or arrangement, and its moral character depends on that object. Paul describes an unbelieving spouse willing to live with a believing husband or wife, within instructions that also address departure and God's call to peace.
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Reader summary
Full entry for συνευδοκέω (G4909) · Open the biblical lexicon
Consent or approval names agreement with a stated person, action or arrangement, and its moral character depends on that object. Paul describes an unbelieving spouse willing to live with a believing husband or wife, within instructions that also address departure and God's call to peace.
The BSB source-word alignment has 6 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include is willing (2), approve of (1), consenting (1), giving approval (1), giving my approval (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Luke 11:48. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Corinthians (2), Acts (2), Luke (1), Romans (1).
Consent or approval names agreement with a stated person, action or arrangement, and its moral character depends on that object. Paul describes an unbelieving spouse willing to live with a believing husband or wife, within instructions that also address departure and God's call to peace. Acts says Saul approved Stephen's death, and Paul's later account names both that approval and his watching the killers' garments.
Romans condemns approving those who practice the wrongdoing it has listed. The verb therefore does not mean every agreement is good or that quiet presence proves inward consent. Identify the person who approves and what the text says is approved. In the marriage passage, keep willingness visible without using it to settle every divorce question or to demand continued exposure to abuse.
In the violence accounts, retain the named harm rather than softening approval into harmless companionship.
All six Greek witnesses include willingness to live together and approval of killing or wrongdoing. The stated object and surrounding instruction determine how agreement is evaluated.
To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If a brother has an unbelieving wife and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her.
Paul's instruction concerns an unbelieving wife willing to live with the believing husband, with the following verses giving the parallel case and addressing an unbeliever's departure.
And Saul was there, giving approval to Stephen’s death. On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.
Saul's approval is explicitly attached to Stephen's death, immediately before persecution and scattering are reported, so the narrative names what he supported.
Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things are worthy of death, they not only continue to do these things, but also approve of those who practice them.
The charge includes approving those who practice the listed wrongdoing, not merely acknowledging their existence; the following chapter also challenges the judging person's own conduct.
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 agree to
to join in approving, consent, agree to or with: absol., Act.22:20; with dative of person(s), Rom.1:32; with dative of thing(s), Luk.11:48, Act.8:1; with inf., 1Co.7:12-13 (chiefly in late writers).
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
6 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I consent, agree, am of one mind with
Read verseI consent, agree, am of one mind with
Read verseI consent, agree, am of one mind with
Read verseI consent, agree, am of one mind with
Read verseI consent, agree, am of one mind with
Read verseI consent, agree, am of one mind with
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 5 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)
συνευδοκέω is built from these roots:
Agreement matters because it is directed toward something. First Corinthians names a spouse's willingness to live together and addresses both the husband and the wife, while the surrounding instructions also recognize departure and the call to peace. Acts explicitly attaches Saul's approval to Stephen's death, and Paul's later account describes his supporting presence with the killers' garments.
Romans names approval of people practicing the wrongdoing it lists, then turns toward the judging person's own conduct. A teacher should not extract the verb as a generic commendation of unity or use it to infer a person's inner agreement from quietness. Follow the actual object and stated evaluation. Preserve the marriage passage's conditions without issuing a private divorce ruling, and name approval of harm honestly without treating every uninvolved observer or coerced person as equally culpable.
Acts.8.1
The licensed Greek verb supports joining in approval, consenting or agreeing. Its complements and surrounding statements identify the object; the lexical range cannot alone define a modern legal standard of consent, infer an unspoken motive or decide whether a particular agreement is righteous.
Exodus 32:1-4 describes a gathered people's demand and Aaron's making of the calf. This separate Hebrew narrative does not contain the Greek verb, but its actual request and action likewise show why agreement must be evaluated by what is supported. It does not make every crowd, question or unwilling participant guilty by association.