Fraternal affection
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φιλαδελφία compounds philos (love, affection) and adelphos (brother), producing the characteristic affection of siblings for one another — the warm, familial love that marks those who belong to the same household. In Greek culture, philadelphia named the natural love of biological siblings.
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Full entry for φιλαδελφία (G5360) · Open the biblical lexicon
φιλαδελφία compounds philos (love, affection) and adelphos (brother), producing the characteristic affection of siblings for one another — the warm, familial love that marks those who belong to the same household. In Greek culture, philadelphia named the natural love of biological siblings.
The BSB source-word alignment has 6 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include brotherly kindness (2), in brotherly love (2), brotherly love (1), you have a genuine love for your brothers (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Romans 12:10. Its strongest book concentrations include 2 Peter (2), 1 Peter (1), 1 Thessalonians (1), Hebrews (1).
φιλαδελφία compounds philos (love, affection) and adelphos (brother), producing the characteristic affection of siblings for one another — the warm, familial love that marks those who belong to the same household. In Greek culture, philadelphia named the natural love of biological siblings. In the NT, it is redirected to the community of those who share the same heavenly Father and the same elder brother, Christ — the love that belongs to the family of God's children.
Romans 12:10 calls for philadelphia as the relational quality of the community: 'Love one another with brotherly affection (philadelphia). Outdo one another in showing honor.' The pairing is significant: philadelphia is not a policy or a community rule but a relational warmth — the genuine, familial affection of siblings for one another. And it is immediately connected to the time (honor) instruction: the philadelphia-love expresses itself specifically in preferring to give honor to others rather than to seek it for oneself.
First Thessalonians 4:9 makes one of the most remarkable statements in the NT about philadelphia: 'Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God (theodidaktoi) to love one another.' The community's philadelphia is Spirit-taught, not institutionally produced. God Himself has been the teacher of this love, and its fruit is visible.
Hebrews 13:1 issues the simplest possible command: 'Let brotherly love (philadelphia) continue.' The word 'continue' (meneto — imperative of meno) implies it is already present and must not be allowed to lapse. The philadelphia in view is concrete: hospitality to strangers (v. 2), care for prisoners (v. 3), honor of marriage (v. 4). The love is not abstract but expressed in specific practices.
For the preacher, φιλαδελφία is the word that names the family-warmth of the church — not the professionalism of a good organization but the affection of people who actually belong to one another.
φιλαδελφία appears in the local Greek index about 6 times in the New Testament, with representative witnesses in Romans 12:10, 1 Thessalonians 4:9, Hebrews 13:1, 1 Peter 2:17, 1 Peter 3:8, and 2 Peter 1:7. In these ethical and community contexts, the word functions as both a description of what the community already has and a call to maintain and increase what it has been given.
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Outdo yourselves in honoring one another.
The philadelphia command: philostorgoi allelois — tender in affection toward one another. The compound philostorgos (tender, affectionate, as in family love) intensifies the basic philadelphia: not merely dutiful brotherly concern but the warm, tender affection of close family. This is the texture of community life Paul is calling for — not the formal meeting of obligations but the genuine warmth of family.
Now about brotherly love, you do not need anyone to write to you, because you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.
The Spirit-taught character of philadelphia. 'Taught by God' (theodidaktoi) is a hapax legomenon in the NT — a word Paul apparently coined to describe something for which no existing word was adequate. The Thessalonians' philadelphia was not produced by instruction or social pressure but by God's own teaching. This is the eschatological community: the people in whom God's Torah-writing-on-the-heart promise (Jer 31:33; Ezek 36:27) is already beginning to be fulfilled.
Continue in brotherly love.
Three Greek words, maximum pastoral weight: he philadelphia meneto — the brotherly love, let it continue. The imperative of meno (to remain, to abide) is used for what is already present but under threat of lapsing. The community has philadelphia; the instruction is to not let the pressures of suffering, conflict, or weariness cause it to fade. What follows in verses 2-4 are the concrete practices in which philadelphia expresses itself: hospitality, care for prisoners, honor of marriage.
Finally, all of you, be like-minded and sympathetic, love as brothers, be tenderhearted and humble.
Philadelphos (the adjective form) in a cluster of community virtues: like-minded, compassionate, brother-loving, tenderhearted, humble-minded. The list describes the texture of a community that can maintain unity under external pressure (the 1 Peter context is persecution). These are not heroic individual qualities but the ordinary relational culture of a community — the daily grain of how people treat one another.
And to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.
The virtue chain of 2 Peter 1:5-7 culminates in two steps: philadelphia leads to agape. Brotherly love is not the highest virtue in the NT — it is the penultimate one, the family affection that must be expanded into the agape that covers those outside the family and even enemies. Philadelphia is the training ground for agape: learning to love the family of God is the school in which the capacity for universal love is developed.
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How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Mutual affection among Christians understood as familial bond, not mere emotion or preference.
Mutual affection among Christians understood as familial bond, not mere emotion or preference.
(φιλάδελφος), [in LXX: 4Ma.13:23 4Mac 13:26 4Mac 14:1 * ;] the love of brothers, brotherly love: of Christians' mutual love as brethren (see: ἀδελφός), Rom.12:10, 1Th.4:9, Heb.13:1, 1Pe.1:22, 2Pe.1:7.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
6 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
brotherly love
Read versebrotherly love
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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 4 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 1 selected witness from 6 lexical occurrence verses.
φιλαδελφία is built from this root:
Defines covenant affection among believers. Hebrews 13:1-6
φιλαδελφία is the NT's word for the family-warmth that should be the texture of the church's daily life. It is not the formal doing of duties — the meeting of obligations, the execution of ministry programs — but the genuine affection of people who actually love one another as family. Hebrews 13:1 distills it to three words: 'let brotherly love continue.' The word 'continue' is the whole of the pastoral challenge: philadelphia is given, not manufactured, but it requires active maintenance against the forces that erode it (conflict, busyness, suffering, disappointment).
The community that maintains philadelphia will hospitalize strangers, visit prisoners, and honor its marriages (Heb 13:2-4) — not because it has been told to but because the family-affection has made those concrete expressions natural. First Thessalonians 4:9 is the source of the confidence: you have been taught by God to love one another. The Spirit-taught philadelphia is the community's most durable resource, because its teacher is God Himself.
But it must be cultivated: 2 Peter 1:7 places philadelphia in a development chain that ends in agape — the love that goes even further than the family, that covers enemies and strangers, that is the fullest expression of the God who is love. Philadelphia is the school; agape is the graduation.
Rom.12.10
φιλαδελφία compounds philos (love, affection in the family-and-friendship sense) and adelphos (brother). The word existed in Greek for the natural love of siblings; the NT repurposes it for the family love of the community of Christ's brothers and sisters. The philo-family of words in the NT is large: philos (friend), philia (friendship/love), philein (to love, to be fond of), philadelphia (brotherly love), philoxenia (love of strangers, hospitality — Heb 13:2), philandros (loving one's husband), philoteknos (loving one's children).
The phileo-love in the NT tends toward the warm, affectionate, relational dimension of love — in contrast to the agape that is the theological love of self-giving. Philadelphia is the specific form that phileo takes in the family of God: the warm, genuine, affectionate love of siblings who share the same Father.
The OT background for philadelphia is the covenant-family love of Israel. Leviticus 19:17-18 — 'you shall not hate your brother in your heart... you shall love your neighbor as yourself' — grounds sibling love within the covenant community as a Torah obligation. The closest OT concept is the chesed (lovingkindness) that covenant members show to one another — the family loyalty that holds the covenant people together.
Ruth is the OT's most extended narrative of philadelphia: Naomi and Ruth (and Ruth and Boaz) demonstrate the family-loyalty that goes beyond obligation because the relationship has become genuinely familial. The wisdom tradition's commendation of faithful friendship — 'a friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity' (Prov 17:17) — establishes the OT ideal that the NT community inherits and expands: the philadelphia of the community should be precisely this kind of present-in-adversity loyalty.
Jesus' instruction to love one another 'as I have loved you' (Jhn 13:34; 15:12) provides the NT's deepest specification of what the philadelphia-standard means: not the warmth of favorable circumstances but the laying-down-of-life love that Christ modeled.
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