What Does 1 Timothy 5:12 Mean?
They bear judgment, because they have set aside their first trust.
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
Having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith.THE KEY
“Cast off” pictures more than losing trust: it is treating a trust once placed as though it no longer has any claim.
THE MEANING
When an earlier trust is treated as disposable, the act meets judgment. “Cast off” means to set aside or invalidate what has been laid down; “first faith” can name an initial trust or commitment, and the sentence leaves its precise referent open.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that an earlier trust can be discarded without consequence: the verse calls the setting aside itself answerable.
THE ROOT
ἀθετέω
atheteō
GROWS FROM
θε- (from τίθημι, tithēmi)
The Greek stem means “put” or “place”; with the privative ἀ-, the verb carries the sense of setting aside or rejecting.
“set aside” in this verse is atheteō. The Greek is more than a picture of drifting away: it describes treating what was placed as though it no longer stands. That gives “cast off” the force of actively invalidating the trust.
ALSO GROWS
tithēmi: Put, place, or lay down.
τίθημι
The root makes the trust something first placed, then set aside.
athetēsis: Annulment or setting aside; Hebrews 7:18 uses it for “a disannulling.”
ἀθέτησις
This related form makes clear that setting aside can mean treating what was established as void.
πίστις
pistis
GROWS FROM
πειθ- (from πείθω, peithō)
To persuade or be persuaded; to trust.
Pistis is trust: leaning your full weight on someone or something, not merely agreeing with an idea. “First” modifies this trust, while the sentence leaves open whether it names initial reliance or a specific commitment.
ALSO GROWS
peithō: Persuade, convince, or trust.
πείθω
This verb shows the movement from being persuaded to placing trust.
pepoithēsis: Confidence or trust; 2 Corinthians 3:4 calls it “trust.”
πεποίθησις
The related word keeps the focus on reliance, the weight placed on what is trusted.
THE PATTERN
The breach begins when what has been received as binding is treated as disposable.
For rebellion is like a shortcoming of divination, and stubbornness like crookedness and household idols. Because you have cast off the word of the LORD, he has cast you off from being king.And he said to them, Finely you set aside the commandment of God, so that you may keep your own handing down.I do not set aside the favor of God, for if alignment comes through instruction, then the Anointed One died for nothing.THE THREAD
I do not set aside the favor of God, for if alignment comes through instruction, then the Anointed One died for nothing.“Frustrate” in Galatians 2:21 is the same verb, ἀθετέω, translated “cast off” here. The shared word reveals the same act in both verses: treating something with a claim on you, the first trust here, God’s favor there, as though it can be set aside.
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