What Does 1 Timothy 1:11 Mean?
According to the good news of the weight of the flourishing God, which was entrusted to me.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.THE KEY
The good news carries God’s weight, and that weight is entrusted to a human being to carry.
THE MEANING
The good news bears the weight of God and opens into flourishing. It is entrusted to a person, so what is received becomes something carried onward through human life.
THE ROOT
ἐπιστεύθην
episteuthēn
GROWS FROM
πιστεύω
pisteuō
To trust, entrust, or place confidence in someone.
“entrusted to me” in this verse is episteuthēn. The verb holds trusting and entrusting together: here, the speaker is trusted with the good news. English can make trust sound like a belief kept inside the mind, while this word also describes a charge placed into someone’s care.
ALSO GROWS
pistis: Trust; reliance.
πίστις
The related noun names the trust that this verb turns into an entrusted charge.
pistos: Trustworthy; reliable.
πιστός
This branch describes the quality expected of the person who carries what has been entrusted.
δόξης
doxēs
GROWS FROM
δόξα
doxa
Weight, worth, honor; the weight carried by glory.
The gospel bears God’s weight, not only a brightness to admire. Related words show that this weight is recognized and honored, giving ‘glorious’ a sense of significance that English can leave in the background.
ALSO GROWS
doxazō: To honor or glorify.
δοξάζω
The branch describes giving recognition to the weight named by δόξα (doxa, ‘weight, honor’).
endoxos: Honored; held in esteem.
ἔνδοξος
This branch describes something whose weight is recognized and valued.
μακαρίου
makariou
GROWS FROM
μακάριος
makarios
Flourishing; in a state of well-being.
God is named as flourishing, and the good news comes from that abundance. The verse holds flourishing and weight together before describing the message as entrusted to a person.
ALSO GROWS
makarizō: To call flourishing or blessed.
μακαρίζω
This verb names the act of recognizing flourishing in someone.
makarismos: A state of flourishing or blessedness.
μακαρισμός
This noun makes the quality of flourishing itself visible in the word family.
THE PATTERN
What carries God’s message is entrusted to human keepers and passed onward.
For he made a testimony stand in Jacob, and set instruction in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, to make them known to their children.For if I do this willingly, I have a wage; but if against my will, the household keeping of the good news has been entrusted to me.But just as we were tested by God and trusted with the good news, so we speak, not pleasing people but God, who tests our hearts.THE THREAD
For if I do this willingly, I have a wage; but if against my will, the household keeping of the good news has been entrusted to me.Both verses use the Greek verb πιστεύω (pisteuō, ‘to trust, entrust’): here the speaker says the gospel was entrusted to him, and in 1 Corinthians he calls it a stewardship committed to him. Trust is not only a belief held; it is also confidence placed in a person to carry something onward.
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