What Does 2 Corinthians 7:14 Mean?
For if I have boasted anything to him about you, I am not put to shame; but just as we spoke everything to you in truth, so also our boasting before Titus has become truth.
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
For if I have boasted any thing to him of you, I am not ashamed; but as we spake all things to you in truth, even so our boasting, which I made before Titus, is found a truth.THE KEY
A boast about you becomes truth when the life it describes confirms the words.
THE MEANING
The verse holds a truthful word about you beside the life you embody: the words can be spoken without shame because the boast is found true. Truth here is not only sincerity in the speaker; it is the match between the claim and what is.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that praise must be empty flattery dissolves here: confidence about you can stand without shame when it agrees with truth.
THE ROOT
ἀλήθεια
alētheia
GROWS FROM
ἀληθ-
alēth-
The Greek word family for what is true or real; its formation is often read as “not hidden.”
The verse uses ἀλήθεια (alētheia, truth) both for the words spoken to them and for what the boast becomes. The claim does not stay hidden in speech: it is found true when it meets the life it describes.
ALSO GROWS
alēthēs: True; in accord with what is real.
ἀληθής
The same word family describes a person’s word as true, showing that truth can be heard in speech and recognized in reality.
alētheuō: To speak or act in truth.
ἀληθεύω
This branch joins truth to what a person says and does, echoing the verse’s meeting of spoken words and lived reality.
καύχησις
kauchēsis
GROWS FROM
καυχ-
kauch-
To boast, exult, or take confidence in something.
The Greek repeats this word family in “have boasted” and “boasting,” binding the speaker’s claim to the same act of confidence. Here that confidence is not left as self-assertion: it is found to be true.
ALSO GROWS
kauchaomai: To boast or take confidence.
καυχάομαι
This verb names the speaker’s act of speaking confidently about them.
kauchema: A boast or the thing one takes pride in.
καύχημα
This branch makes the boast itself visible as a claim that can be measured against what is true.
THE PATTERN
Truth is confirmed not by insistence alone, but by what endures and appears in lived reality.
The lip of truth stands firm for the ages, but a lying tongue lasts only for a blink.And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.I have no greater joy than this, to hear my children walking in truth.THE THREAD
But as God is steady, our word toward you is not yes and no.The word “true” here, ἀληθής (alēthēs, true), belongs to the same Greek word family as ἀλήθεια (alētheia, truth) in 2 Corinthians 7:14. Together, the verses connect truthful speech with words that hold steady.
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