What Does "Greet One Another" Really Mean — and Why It's More Powerful Than You Think

From the sermon preached on March 1, 2026

The biblical command to greet one another is not about being friendly. According to the New Testament, greeting someone is an act of embracing them, saluting them, and paying them genuine respect — a physical and spiritual expression of the love of Christ. It appears more than 60 times across the pages of Scripture, and most of us have read right past it.

There's a reason it doesn't land. We've all been on the receiving end of a greeting that cost nothing — the quick nod in a hallway, the "how are you" that doesn't wait for an answer. And most of us have given a few of those ourselves, especially in seasons when we're running on empty, when showing up at all is about all we've got. But the greeting the New Testament describes is something different, something that can actually change a person's day, or their year, or the direction they were heading.

The Greek word behind "greet one another" carries the weight of embrace — to salute, to pay respect to, to welcome, to enfold in your arms. It's not a social nicety. It's a posture. In 1 Corinthians 16:20, the apostle Paul closes a letter with a command: "Greet one another with a holy kiss." Coming right after a call to comfort one another, the greeting isn't incidental. It's the natural overflow of hearts that have been changed by the same gospel.

In Matthew 5, Jesus raises the bar on who deserves that kind of greeting. He says, essentially, that greeting the people who already like you is easy — even people who want nothing to do with God do that much. His standard is greeting the difficult ones: the neighbor who's cold toward you, the coworker who said the wrong thing, the family member you've been avoiding for two Thanksgivings running. That's not fake warmth. That's something harder and more costly — a choice rooted in what you actually believe about people and their worth.

One honest step: This week, greet one person you've been quietly avoiding. You don't have to fix anything. You just have to show up.

The Gospels give us two greeting scenes that sit at opposite ends of the spectrum, and both of them are instructive. In Matthew 26, Judas Iscariot approaches Jesus in the garden and greets him with a kiss — the customary gesture of honor — right before betraying him. There is no lonelier image in Scripture. A greeting emptied of its meaning, used as a cover for betrayal. Nobody wants to be on either side of that exchange.

Then in Matthew 28, the risen Jesus meets his disciples and says simply: "Greetings." They fall at his feet. Whatever that moment felt like, it was not routine. Think about what it would mean to lose someone close — a parent, a friend, a person who knew you — and then have them show up. The greeting in that moment carries everything. That's the register the New Testament is reaching for. Greet people as though something that was lost has been found. Greet people as though the stakes are real — because they are.

In Luke 1, when the angel Gabriel greets Mary with the words "Greetings, O favored one," she is so undone by the quality of the greeting that she stops to consider what kind of greeting it might be. She wasn't used to being seen that way. Most people aren't. A greeting that genuinely acknowledges someone's worth — that says, without performance, "I see you and I'm glad you're here" — is rarer than it should be.

One honest step: Before your next conversation, pause for two seconds and actually think about the person in front of you. What have they been carrying? Let that inform how you say hello.

The New Testament doesn't just command greeting — it shows what it produces. Across Paul's letters and Peter's, genuine greeting generates a cluster of goods that most people are quietly starving for.

It produces encouragement, because when a leader like Paul sends greetings to a specific person by name, it communicates: you matter, your work matters, you are not invisible. It deepens relationship, because showing up for someone — whether in person, by letter, by phone, by text — is an act of choosing them, and people feel it. It conveys genuine care: in Colossians 4, Paul reports that Epaphras is not just sending greetings but is actively laboring in prayer on the recipients' behalf. The greeting points to something going on beneath the surface, a kind of love that exerts itself at the throne of God for the good of another person.

It also brings peace. Not the peace that depends on circumstances settling down — but the peace Jesus described in John 14:27 as something entirely different from what the world offers. A text from someone who loves you. A phone call out of nowhere. A note that says "I've been thinking about you." These things carry the shalom of Christ when they come from a heart that has received it. And research has started catching up to what Scripture has said for two thousand years: genuine embrace lowers cortisol, releases endorphins, reduces anxiety, strengthens immune function, and improves heart health. The "holy hug" the New Testament keeps returning to is not sentimentality — it's medicine.

Here is what shifts when the practice of greeting is taken seriously:

• Encouragement flows between people who otherwise feel unseen and unvalued
• Relationships deepen because the act of greeting is itself a choice to prioritize someone
• Affection becomes tangible — not performed, but rooted in the reality of shared salvation
• Peace is carried person to person, even across distance, through words and presence
• Hope arrives in the form of another human being who showed up when they didn't have to
• Genuine care is communicated to people who have been waiting quietly for it
• Unity in Christ is demonstrated — not stated — through the simple act of choosing to greet

One honest step: Think of one person who is going through something hard right now. Send them a message today. Not a check-in, not a prayer hands emoji — a sentence that names the specific thing they're carrying and says you're thinking about them.

In Watseka and across Iroquois County, people know how to show up when it counts — at a funeral dinner, in a neighbor's field during a bad harvest, at the hospital when someone gets the news. That instinct is already close to what the New Testament is describing. Trinity Church Watseka exists for the people who are ready to build their whole way of life around it — not just the big moments, but the ordinary Tuesdays, the quiet Friday nights, the seasons when everything is hard and someone needs to know they haven't been forgotten. If you're in that place, or if you know someone who is, you're welcome here.

Greeting one another is not a greeting ministry. It's not a volunteer role. It's a posture — a way of seeing people and choosing to say so, in person or from a distance, in easy seasons and in hard ones. The New Testament makes the case that this practice, done with a full heart and rooted in what Christ has actually done, produces something real: peace, care, hope, and a unity that cuts through the walls people have spent years building around themselves.

If you're ready to take a next step, plan your visit to Trinity Church's in the button below! Come experience this kind of community at our Ashkum, Goodland, or Watseka campus — no pressure, no expectation that you have it all together.

And if you're not quite ready for that, you can still reach out through our connect page and let us know how we can pray for you — connect here is the whole ask.