to take a person or thing to oneself: to draw someone to your own side, take them along, or welcome them into your own company
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
At its core this verb means to take a person or thing to yourself. It always turns the action back on the one doing it, so the sense is not merely "take" but "take to your own side, for your own part." That self-involving pull is what unites its otherwise varied uses.
In its plainer uses it stays close to the ordinary verb for taking (λαμβάνω): Peter draws Jesus aside to rebuke him in private, a hostile crowd rounds up troublemakers off the street, and shipwrecked sailors are urged to take some food after two weeks without eating.
Its warmest and most frequent use is to welcome someone into your own company. Paul tells the believers in Rome to welcome one another the way Christ welcomed them, and asks his friend Philemon to receive the runaway Onesimus as warmly as he would receive Paul himself. This is more than opening a door: it is an active drawing-in that makes the other person one of your own. It overlaps with the common word for welcoming a guest (δέχομαι) but carries a stronger note of taking the person to yourself.
Nuances
1ato take someone aside: to draw a person privately to your own side
TranslatabilityDirect
Mat 16:22Mrk 8:32Act 18:26*
1bto take along: to recruit or bring someone with you
TranslatabilityDirect
Act 17:5
1cto take food: to eat, to take nourishment
TranslatabilityDirect
Act 27:33Act 27:36
1dto welcome: to receive a person into your own company or home
Means to welcome a person into fellowship and full acceptance, the near-technical sense of receiving one another as God in Christ has received us.Rom 14:1Rom 14:3Rom 15:7Phm 1:17
Used of taking someone aside privately, drawing that person to oneself for a personal word.Mat 16:22Mrk 8:32Act 18:26
Means to receive as a guest or show hospitality, taking strangers in and caring for them.Act 28:2
Both
Both can describe taking food to eat, though only the compound stresses drawing the nourishment to oneself.Mat 15:36Act 27:36
The plain, all-purpose verb for taking or grasping a physical object of any kind, with no idea of drawing it toward oneself in welcome: bread, a cup, water, coins, a sponge.Mat 26:26Mat 26:27Mat 27:24
Used of receiving what is given or granted, including abstractions and rewards, so that the emphasis falls on the getting rather than on any personal relationship with the giver.Mat 7:8Mat 10:8Mat 20:9
Applied to seizing or arresting a person by force, the opposite of a warm reception, showing how neutral and wide the bare verb is.Mat 21:35Mat 21:39
δέχομαιThe common verb for receiving or accepting a guest, a message, or a gift; this word is more active and personal, taking the person to your own side.
welcomes a message: to accept the word of God, the gospel, or teaching that is offered, embracing it rather than rejecting it1Th 1:61Th 2:13Jas 1:21Act 17:11
takes an object that is handed over: a cup, a written bill, a letter, a gift, or the helmet of salvation held out to be receivedLuk 22:17Luk 16:6Eph 6:17Php 4:18
receives a messenger as standing for the one who sent him, so that welcoming the envoy is welcoming his masterMat 10:40Mat 18:5Mrk 9:37
ὑποδέχομαιTo receive a guest under your roof, to host; this word is broader, taking someone into your company or fellowship, not only into your house.
Reaches beyond welcoming to "take a person aside" to oneself, as when Peter drew Jesus away to rebuke him.Mat 16:22Mrk 8:32
Can mean to take food into oneself, of eating and nourishment, a sense the other word never carries.Act 27:33Act 27:36
Names the act of accepting a person into fellowship and mutual acceptance in the community, not into a house: "receive one another" as Christ received us.Rom 14:1Rom 15:7Phm 1:17
Both
Both can render "receive" or "welcome" a person gladly into one's presence.Phm 1:17Luk 19:6
Specifically means to receive a guest under one's own roof, the language of household hospitality: Martha welcomed Jesus into her home, Zacchaeus into his house, Rahab sheltered the spies.Luk 10:38Act 17:7Jas 2:25
Its ordinary sense is welcoming a person in: taking someone into your home, your company, or your fellowship. This is the word behind the call to welcome the believer whose faith is weak and to welcome one another.Rom 14:1Rom 15:7Phm 1:17Act 28:2
God and Christ are the subject of this welcome, and that divine welcome sets the standard for the human one. The other word is never used this way.Rom 14:3Rom 15:7
Because it means taking someone to your own side, it can describe rounding people up for your own ends, including a bad one: the hostile crowd recruits troublemakers from the marketplace.Act 17:5
Even when a thing rather than a person is taken, the sense is taking it into yourself rather than claiming it as a due: on the storm-tossed ship the sailors had taken no food, then took some.Act 27:33Act 27:36
When it does mean drawing someone aside, the person drawn aside is taken under the wing of the one who draws them: Priscilla and Aquila take Apollos in and explain the way of God to him more accurately.Act 18:26
Both
Both can describe one person pulling another out of a crowd for a private moment. Jesus takes the deaf man away from the crowd on his own, and Peter takes Jesus aside to rebuke him.Mrk 7:33Mat 16:22Mrk 8:32
Both are regularly rendered "received" with a person as the object, which is where English blurs them. The father in the story of the lost son gets his boy back safe and sound, while Philemon is asked to take Onesimus in as he would take Paul himself.Luk 15:27Phm 1:12
Its main weight is collecting what is owed: a wage, a repayment, a reward earned by work. Lenders lend to the like-minded so as to get back the same amount, and workers are told what is coming to them from their master.Luk 6:34Col 3:242Jn 1:8
What is owed can be a punishment rather than a prize, so the same word covers getting the payback you had coming. Nothing in the other word carries this sense of a debt settled against you.Luk 23:41Rom 1:27
It also covers finally getting hold of something that was already promised or already yours, so the receiving closes an account rather than opening a relationship.Gal 4:5Luk 16:25Luk 18:30
Means welcoming someone and accepting them into your circle, the way God receives a believer or one Christian is to receive another despite their differences.Rom 14:1Rom 15:7Phm 1:17
Used for taking a person aside privately, drawing them apart for a quiet word.Mat 16:22Act 18:26
Both
Both can mean taking a person to yourself, drawing someone close so they are with you rather than apart from you.Mat 18:16Act 17:5
Carries the weight of receiving something handed down: a teaching, a tradition, the gospel itself, passed from one person to the next. This is the word for taking up what you have been given and keeping it.1Co 15:3Gal 1:12Col 2:6
Often means simply taking a person along with you on a journey or to a place, with no sense of welcome or acceptance involved.Mat 2:14Mat 17:1
proslambanō in the other biblical languages
לָקַחHebrew“to take: take”The ordinary Hebrew verb for taking; this Greek word often carries that same plain sense, but in its warm New Testament use it goes further, to welcome a person into fellowship.
Welcomes a person into acceptance and fellowship: God and believers receiving one another into the community without judging them.Rom 14:1Rom 15:7Phm 1:17
Draws a single person aside for a private word, pulling them apart from the crowd to speak with them alone.Mat 16:22Mrk 8:32Act 18:26
Both
Both are the plain verb for taking a person to oneself, drawing someone into one's own household or company and caring for them.Gen 12:5Act 28:2
Reaches far beyond people to seizing and carrying off objects: goods, plunder, and things fetched or grasped.Gen 14:11Gen 8:9
Carries the fixed marriage idiom of taking a wife, the standard way to say a man marries.Gen 4:19Gen 11:29
Means taking away or removing, including God taking a person out of this life.Gen 5:24
אָסַףHebrew“to gather”The Hebrew word for gathering in or taking a stranger into your home; it matches the welcoming sense of this word, the taking-in of a guest or an outsider.
Draws a single person aside to oneself for a private word, whether to rebuke or to instruct.Mat 16:22Act 18:26
Means taking nourishment for oneself, as in urging shipmates to take some food after long fasting.Act 27:33Act 27:36
Carries a settled sense of welcoming a fellow believer into full fellowship, receiving the weaker one without quarreling over disputed matters.Rom 14:1Rom 14:3
Both
Both can mean taking a person in: receiving or welcoming someone into one's home or company.Rom 15:7Jdg 19:15
Covers the ingathering of a harvest, bringing in the crops of the field at the year's end.Exo 23:10Deu 16:13
Assembles a whole multitude or army into one place, a mass ingathering of people rather than the reception of one person.2Sa 6:1Num 11:16
Serves as the gentle idiom for death: a person is "gathered to" their people or their ancestors.Gen 25:8Num 20:26
Can flip to the sense of taking away or withdrawing something, as when God gathers back the breath He gave.Psa 104:29Gen 30:23
What scholars say about proslambanō
Standard lexicons (BDAG; Louw and Nida) treat προσλαμβάνω as a single verb whose middle voice ("to take to oneself") generates its range: to take aside, to take along, to take food, and, most significantly in Paul, to receive or welcome into fellowship. The Pauline usage (Romans 14:1, 14:3, 15:7; Philemon 17) is widely discussed in commentary on Romans as the ground of mutual acceptance in the church, modeled on God's own reception of believers (Romans 14:3, 15:7). There is no dispute about the word's meaning.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. προσλαμβάνωlexicon
Louw and Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, s.v. προσλαμβάνωlexicon
C. E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans (ICC), on Romans 14:1 and 15:7commentary