member
melos denotes a bodily part and, by body imagery, an individual constituent of a united body.
The dominant use identifies individuals as constituent parts of a single body, especially where many are joined in one body and bear responsibility for one another. It also names bodily parts in concrete references to the eye, hand, tongue, and the members in which desires or sin are described as active.
Senses in use
-
Constituents within one body · dominant
In 1 Corinthians 12:12, the accusative plural occurs in the comparison of one body having many parts, while the verse says that the many are one body. In 1 Corinthians 12:25 the nominative plural identifies those who are to have the same care for one another, and Ephesians 4:25 places the plural in the statement that believers are members of one another.
-
Parts of the physical body · common
Matthew 5:29 and Matthew 5:30 use the genitive plural in warnings involving the eye and hand, where the APB renders the clause as one of the body's members perishing rather than the whole body. James 3:5 calls the tongue a small nominative-singular member, while James 3:6 places it among the members and describes its effect on the whole body.
In the Anselm Project Bible: Across these verses, the APB commonly presents the term as “member” or “members,” including body imagery and statements about mutual belonging. In the cited clauses it also uses “members” for bodily contexts; These renderings reflect the verse-level presentation rather than a fixed translation in every instance.