to fully convince: to settle someone's mind in complete certainty
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
When this verb takes a person as its subject, it describes a mind brought all the way to settled conviction. The picture is of a heart filled to the brim with assurance, with no room left for doubt.
The New Testament uses it this way for the deepest kind of confidence. Abraham was fully convinced that God could do what He had promised. Paul tells believers that each one should be fully convinced in his own mind about disputed matters of conscience, and he praises a church for standing fully assured in everything God wills.
Notice that the certainty is usually pictured as something a person is brought into rather than something they work up on their own. The verb leans toward the depth of the conviction, not just its firmness: the person is filled full, not merely persuaded.
Rom 4:21Rom 14:5Col 4:12
2
to fully carry out: to bring a task or message all the way to completion
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
When this verb takes a thing rather than a person as its subject or object, the meaning shifts: a task, a message, or a course of events is carried through to its full extent. The same core idea of bringing something to fullness is applied to work rather than to a mind.
This is the everyday sense the word carried in ordinary life, where it was a business term for paying a debt in full or discharging the terms of a contract. Paul charges Timothy to fully carry out his ministry, the way Paul himself had just finished his own course. A few verses later Paul says the message he preached was brought to its full reach through him so that all the nations could hear it.
Luke opens his Gospel by writing about the events that have been brought to completion among the first believers. Because events cannot be talked into believing something, the older translation that read this as things people were sure of is set aside here: the things themselves were accomplished, and many readers hear in it the fuller note that they were fulfilled in God's plan.
Nuances
2ato fully carry out or discharge a task entrusted to someone
2Ti 4:5
2bto bring a message or course of events to its full extent
keeps the flavor of discharging an obligation in full, the way one pays off a debt completely, so a ministry is not just done but fully discharged2Ti 4:5
Both
both describe bringing something all the way to completion2Ti 4:17
Only fulfill
"fulfill" in English often implies fulfilling a prophecy or a promise; here the stress can simply be on completing a task to its full extent
“make full proof”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“fully accomplished”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How plērophoreō differs from similar Greek words
πληρόωthe plain verb "to fill, fulfill"; this word is its intensified cousin, adding the note of bringing something all the way to the brim
Aims at the mind: to settle a person in full conviction, leaving no room for doubt.Rom 4:21Rom 14:5Col 4:12
Of a task or ministry: to carry it through to the finish, doing the whole of it.2Ti 4:52Ti 4:17
Of events or reports: brought fully to pass and so firmly established as settled fact.Luk 1:1
Both
Both mean to bring something all the way to its full measure rather than leaving it partial, so both are translated fulfill or complete.2Ti 4:5Mat 5:17
Fills a physical space, the way sound or scent floods a room.Act 2:2Jhn 12:3
Fills a person or thing with a quality, so they are saturated with it.Eph 5:18Rom 15:13Jhn 15:11
The standard word for Scripture or prophecy coming true, that this happened so the word might be fulfilled.Mat 1:22Mat 2:15Luk 24:44
Marks a span of time or a course of action as run out, completed, or finished.Act 12:25Act 19:21
plērophoreō in the other biblical languages
מָלֵאHebrew“to fill”the Hebrew "to be full, to fill"; Greek translators reached for this stronger verb to render it when a heart was completely set on something
Names an inner state, not a physical one: to settle a person's mind in complete certainty so that no doubt remains. It is about being fully convinced, never about a container being filled.Rom 4:21Rom 14:5Col 4:12
Both
Both reach the idea of bringing something all the way to completion. The Hebrew word completes a span of time or carries out a spoken word, and the Greek word carries a task or message fully through to the end.1Ki 2:27Gen 25:242Ti 4:52Ti 4:17
Covers ordinary physical filling, which the Greek word never does: water filling a dry valley, or a cloud of glory filling a building until people cannot stand.2Ki 3:171Ki 8:10
Describes a space or land made full of living things, a sense of sheer abundance the Greek word lacks: creatures filling the seas, people multiplying to fill the earth.Gen 1:22Gen 1:28
What scholars say about plērophoreō
Modern lexica (BDAG, LSJ, Louw-Nida, Spicq's TLNT, Delling in TDNT 6:309-311, NIDNTTE) agree the verb carries two genuine senses rooted in one core idea, "to bring to full measure": (1) "fulfill, fully accomplish" and (2) "fully convince, assure." Context, not etymology, decides. The decisive criterion is the subject: a personal subject yields "fully convince" (Rom 4:21; 14:5; Col 4:12), an impersonal subject or object yields "fully carry out" (2 Tim 4:5, of the ministry; 2 Tim 4:17, of the proclamation; Luke 1:1, of events). Moulton-Milligan and Deissmann reshaped the discussion by documenting the verb in Egyptian business papyri as a workaday term for discharging an obligation or paying in full (e.g. P.Oxy. XII 1473.8; P.Amh. II 66.42), which grounded the modern consensus on 2 Tim 4:5 against the KJV's "make full proof." The verb is essentially post-classical Koine, rare outside the Septuagint (its one canonical occurrence is Eccl 8:11, rendering Hebrew מלא) and the New Testament.
Where scholars disagree about plērophoreō
At Luke 1:1, whether the events are described as "fulfilled" in God's saving plan (with a prophetic overtone) or simply as "brought to completion / accomplished" without that overtone.
majority"Fulfilled" in God's plan, tied to Luke's repeated fulfillment language across his two volumes.; Darrell L. Bock, Luke 1:1-9:50 (BECNT; Baker, 1994), 55; I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke (NIGTC; Eerdmans, 1978), 41-42
minority"Accomplished / brought to completion," without a specifically prophetic note.; John Nolland, Luke 1-9:20 (WBC 35A; Word, 1989), 5-6; Alfred Plummer, The Gospel According to S. Luke (ICC; T&T Clark, 1922), 3
In-depth research
This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.
Sources
BDAG, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 3rd ed. (2000), s.v. πληροφορέω, p. 827lexicon
Gerhard Delling, "πληροφορέω, πληροφορία," in TDNT, vol. 6 (Eerdmans, 1968), 309-311lexicon
J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament Illustrated from the Papyri (1930), s.v. πληροφορέωlexicon
Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament (Hendrickson, 1994), 3:119-124lexicon
Louw and Nida, Greek-English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domains, 2nd ed. (1989), §§31.45, 33.199, 68.31lexicon
Darrell L. Bock, Luke 1:1-9:50 (BECNT; Baker, 1994), 53-60commentary
John Nolland, Luke 1-9:20 (WBC 35A; Word, 1989), 5-6commentary
George W. Knight III, The Pastoral Epistles (NIGTC; Eerdmans, 1992), 457-459, 471-472commentary
Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus (NICNT; Eerdmans, 2006), 605-610, 642-646commentary
James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1-8 (WBC 38A; Word, 1988), 238-239commentary