Tithemi – Ordained

As the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you. Remain in My love. If you keep My commands you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commands and remain in His love.

I have spoken these things to you so that My joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is My command: love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you slaves anymore, because a slave doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from My Father. You did not choose Me, but I chose you. I appointed you that you should go out and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you. This is what I command you: love one another.             
(John 15:9-17 Holman Christian Standard Bible ® ©)

Couched in this last-supper monologue by Jesus, in a section greatly devoted to instructions on loving each other, is what we call verse 15. We didn’t choose Jesus, but He chose us. And he ordained, or appointed, or co-missioned us to bear much fruit. The word with these various translations into English was “tithemi.”

Using tools like Strong’s Concordance and Dictionaries and the Englishman’s Concordance, it is possible to see other places listed where the word was used by the same or another writer, and compare the contexts to help discern deeper meaning or implication. Strong’s number for the word was NT5087.

Some of the instances of its use found in the Englishman’s Concordance include Matthew 5:15: “Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.” “Put” in that sentence was “tithemi.”

In Luke 6:48, “He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock:…” “Laid” in that sentence was “tithemi.” In John 10:15, “As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.” “Lay” = “tithemi.” I John 15:13, “lay” down his life for his friends = “tithemi.”

Your “ordination” to serve Jesus is in the form of Him “laying” you as a foundation on which your ministry could become you “laying down” your life for your friends. Not taking up death – taking up a life that is put in place for His use.