What Does 1 Timothy 6:3 Mean?
If anyone teaches otherwise, and does not draw near to healthy words, even the words of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, and to the teaching that is according to godliness;
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
If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;THE KEY
The verse calls Jesus’ words healthy, making a teaching’s soundness a matter of whether it carries life.
THE MEANING
The words in front of you are called wholesome, sound, healthy words, and are joined to the words of the Lord Jesus and teaching shaped by reverence for God. When teaching refuses those words, it separates itself from the source and shape of what is sound.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a teaching is wholesome merely because it speaks about God; this verse ties soundness to the words of the Lord Jesus and teaching aligned with reverence for God.
THE ROOT
ὑγιαίνουσιν
hygiainousin
GROWS FROM
ὑγι-
Health and soundness; being in good condition.
The Greek word pictures the Lord’s words as healthy or sound. English “wholesome” carries that sense, but the health image makes the connection vivid: teaching can nourish what is whole, or depart from it.
ALSO GROWS
hygiainō: To be healthy or sound.
ὑγιαίνω
This verb is the word family behind “wholesome,” making health part of the verse’s description of the words.
hygiēs: Healthy, sound, whole.
ὑγιής
This related word carries the same health and soundness that the verse attributes to Jesus’ words.
hygeia: Health.
ὑγίεια
This branch names the condition pictured by the words: soundness that sustains life.
διδασκαλίᾳ
didaskalia
GROWS FROM
διδασκ-
Teaching or instruction.
The word translated “doctrine” belongs to the Greek family for teaching and teacher. It keeps the idea connected to what is taught and the act of teaching, not only to an abstract set of claims.
ALSO GROWS
didaskō: To teach.
διδάσκω
This verb shows the living action behind the “doctrine” named in the verse.
didaskalos: Teacher.
διδάσκαλος
This related word links the teaching to the one who teaches it.
יֵשׁוּעַ
Yeshua
GROWS FROM
יָשַׁע
To deliver, to bring out of constraint into freedom.
The name rendered “Jesus” is Yeshua, from yasha: deliverance, being brought out of narrowness. The verse joins his words to sound teaching, so the name itself points toward the freedom carried by those words.
ALSO GROWS
yeshuah: Deliverance.
יְשׁוּעָה
This branch names the deliverance carried in the name Yeshua.
moshia: Deliverer.
מוֹשִׁיעַ
This related form names the one who brings deliverance, illuminating the name in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Words aligned with life carry health and soundness into the people who receive them.
A healing tongue is a tree of life, but a twisting in it is a breaking in the breath.It is the breath that gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you, they are breath, and they are life.Hold to the imprint of whole words which you have heard from me, in trust and love, which is in Jesus the Anointed One.THE THREAD
Hold to the imprint of whole words which you have heard from me, in trust and love, which is in Jesus the Anointed One.“Sound” translates the same Greek health-root as “wholesome” in 1 Timothy 6:3. Together, the verses present sound teaching as words whose health can be recognized and held fast.
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