paralambanō

At its core this word pictures one person taking another to be at their side, then moving together. The same gesture covers a whole range of relationships, which is why the word turns up in such different scenes. Joseph takes Mary home as his wife and later takes the child and mother to safety; Jesus takes a few disciples up a mountain or aside from the crowd; soldiers take a prisoner into custody; the devil takes Jesus to a high place. In each case someone is brought along, willingly or not, into the orbit of the one who takes them.

Because the taking can be gentle or forceful, the tone depends entirely on the scene. A teacher gathering his closest students and a squad of soldiers marching a condemned man to his death use the very same verb. What unites them is the simple fact of one party drawing another to themselves and taking them somewhere.

Jesus stretches this everyday word toward something larger. When he promises to come again and take his followers to be with him, he uses it of welcoming people into his own presence for good. The Gospels also use it for the sorting at the end, when of two people side by side one is taken and the other left, an image whose outcome readers have long debated.

Alongside the physical sense, this word became the standard term for receiving something passed on by another: a teaching, a way of life, a fixed message. It is the receiving end of handing something down. One person delivers the tradition and the next person takes it up and holds it. The early church used the pair of words almost as a technical phrase for how the gospel and its core confessions were transmitted from teacher to community.

Paul leans on this sense heavily. He reminds the Corinthians of the gospel they received and still stand in, and he insists that what he passed on about the Lord's Supper and the resurrection was itself first received, not invented. To receive in this sense is more than to hear: it is to take the message in, own it, and live by it, which is why Paul can urge believers to keep living in the way they received.

The word can also carry a note of accepting a gift or inheritance that is simply given, as when believers are said to be receiving an unshakable kingdom. Whether it is a teaching, a practice, or a gift, the picture is the same: something offered by another is taken up and made one's own.