What Does 1 Timothy 1:19 Mean?
Holding trust and a good shared sight, which some have thrust away concerning trust, and have been broken at sea.
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
Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:THE KEY
The shipwreck of trust begins when a good conscience is deliberately thrust away.
THE MEANING
Trust and a good conscience are held together in the reader’s present life. The verse describes conscience as inward knowing whose rejection precedes trust’s shipwreck. The collapse begins with a deliberate pushing away.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that you can silence what you know and still keep your trust whole.
THE ROOT
συνείδησις
syneidēsis
GROWS FROM
οἶδα
oida
To know, perceive.
“shared sight” in this verse is syneidēsis. The Greek word pictures a knowing within oneself, an inner awareness carried into one’s own judgment. The verse treats this knowing as integral to trust: thrusting it away comes before the wreck.
ALSO GROWS
synoida: Be conscious of; know along with.
σύνοιδα
This related verb makes conscience a form of awareness, not merely a passing feeling.
syneidēsis: Conscience; inner moral awareness.
συνείδησις
This is the verse’s good conscience, the inward knowing some people push away.
ἀπωσάμενοι
apōsamenoi
GROWS FROM
ὠθέω
ōtheō
To push, thrust.
“thrust away” in this verse is apōsamenoi. The word carries the force of thrusting something away, not simply forgetting it. The shipwreck follows a chosen rejection of conscience.
ALSO GROWS
apōtheō: Push away; reject.
ἀπωθέω
This is the verb behind put away, giving the rejection a forceful, active sense.
exōtheō: Thrust out; drive away.
ἐξωθέω
The related word carries the same outward force, illuminating how conscience is expelled from consideration.
πίστις
pistis
GROWS FROM
πειθ-
peith-
To persuade; bring to confidence or trust.
Trust is reliance that grows from being persuaded, something a person can lean their full weight on. Here, rejecting conscience leaves that trust shipwrecked.
ALSO GROWS
peithō: Persuade; convince; in the middle voice, trust or be persuaded.
πείθω
The verb shows the movement from being persuaded to placing trust.
pistos: Firm, steady, trustworthy.
πιστός
This related word brings out the steadiness trust rests on, which the verse says can be wrecked.
THE PATTERN
Trust loses its course when inward knowing is cast aside, while a clear conscience keeps the inner life open to truth.
The breath of man is the lamp of the LORD, sifting all the inner chambers of the belly.And in this I train myself, to always have a conscience that stumbles on nothing, toward God and toward humankind.Let us draw near with a true heart in the fullness of trust, our hearts sprinkled from a burdened shared sight, and our bodies bathed in clean waters.THE THREAD
Now the aim of the charge is love from a clean heart, and from a good shared sight, and from trust without a mask.The same terms, good conscience and trust, appear together as parts of one inward life. This verse opens the present one further: casting conscience aside wrecks the trust that belongs alongside it.
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