What Does 1 Timothy 4:7 Mean?
But push away the trodden stories of old women, and train yourself toward awe.
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
But refuse profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.THE KEY
The verse treats attention as training: what is refused stops shaping you, and reverence is exercised into form.
THE MEANING
In you now, irreverent stories compete with a life of practiced reverence toward God. This verse casts refusal and training as two parts of the same formation: one clears space, the other gives it shape.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that godliness is a fixed trait one either has or lacks; here it is something exercised and formed.
THE ROOT
γύμναζε
gymnaze
GROWS FROM
γυμναζ-
gymnaz-
To train or exercise through practice.
“train” in this verse is gymnaze. The verb names deliberate training, and its related noun γυμνασία (gymnasia, training) appears in the next verse for bodily exercise. The same verb family describes senses trained through use in Hebrews 5:14, showing that practice shapes discernment as well as conduct.
ALSO GROWS
gymnasia: Training; exercise.
γυμνασία
The related noun appears in 1 Timothy 4:8, where bodily training is set alongside godliness.
gegymnasmena: Trained; exercised through use.
γεγυμνασμένα
In Hebrews 5:14, the same word family describes senses trained to discern good and evil.
εὐσέβειαν
eusebeian
GROWS FROM
εὖ + σεβ- (eu + seb-)
Well-directed reverence; εὖ means “well,” and the σεβ- family carries the sense of revering.
“awe” in this verse is eusebeian. The Greek word joins reverence with a well-directed orientation. The goal of the training is therefore a practiced way of revering God, not merely avoiding irreverent stories.
ALSO GROWS
eusebēs: Devout; reverent.
εὐσεβής
This related word describes a person characterized by the reverence this verse treats as something to cultivate.
eusebeō: To act reverently; to live devoutly.
εὐσεβέω
This verb gives reverence an active form, matching the verse’s picture of godliness as practiced.
THE PATTERN
A life is shaped by repeated attention and practice: empty speech is refused while reverence and discernment are trained.
But his delight is in the instruction of the LORD; and over his instruction he murmurs day and night.For bodily training helps a little, but awe helps in all things, holding the promise of the life that now is, and of the life about to come.But firm food is for the complete, for those who through practice have their senses exercised to sift good from evil.THE THREAD
But firm food is for the complete, for those who through practice have their senses exercised to sift good from evil.The word translated “exercised” belongs to the same Greek verb family as “exercise” here. In Hebrews, practice trains discernment; in this verse, it trains reverence, revealing both as capacities formed through use.
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