What Does 2 Timothy 1:8 Mean?
So do not be ashamed of the witness of our Lord, nor of me, his bound one. But suffer alongside me for the good news, according to the power of God.
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
Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;THE KEY
God’s power here sustains shared hardship; it does not mean the hardship disappears.
THE MEANING
The testimony of the Lord and the speaker’s imprisonment stand together, showing that shame can attach to both message and messenger. You are a sharer in the gospel’s hardship, and that participation takes place according to God’s power. The power of God sustains the testimony through affliction rather than making affliction proof of abandonment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
God’s power means I will be spared hardship; this verse places sharing in hardship within the reach of that power.
THE ROOT
συγκακοπάθησον
synkakopathēson
GROWS FROM
κακοπαθέω (kakopatheō), with σύν (syn, “with”)
To undergo hardship; with σύν, to undergo it together.
“suffer alongside” in this verse is synkakopathēson. The word translated “partaker” names shared suffering, not merely observing someone else’s pain. Its “together” is inside the word: the gospel’s hardship is borne in company, according to God’s power.
ALSO GROWS
synkakopathēson: Suffer hardship together
συγκακοπάθησον
The same compound appears in 2 Timothy 2:3, where it is rendered “endure hardness.”
kakopathēson: Endure hardship
κακοπάθησον
In 2 Timothy 4:5, the base verb names hardship without the “together” prefix, making the shared sense here stand out.
δύναμις
dynamis
GROWS FROM
δυν- (from δύναμαι, dynamai)
To be able; to have capacity.
“According to the power of God” points to God’s capacity at work within the call to share hardship. The word does not promise a life untouched by affliction; it names the power by which the testimony can be carried through it.
ALSO GROWS
dynamai: Be able, have the capacity
δύναμαι
This verb makes the root’s emphasis on ability visible beneath “power.”
dynatos: Able, capable, strong
δυνατός
This related word connects power with what can be borne or accomplished.
THE PATTERN
Witness to God can carry real suffering without making that suffering a sign of abandonment.
Indeed, for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.So they went from the face of the council, rejoicing that they were weighed worthy to be dishonored for his nature.And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and co-heirs with the Anointed One; if indeed we suffer together with him, so that we may also be clothed in weight with him.THE THREAD
So then, bear ill, as a good soldier of the Anointed One, Jesus.The Greek verb behind “partaker” here appears again in 2 Timothy 2:3 as “endure hardness.” The repeated word opens hardship as something shared and sustained, rather than a private sign that God’s power is absent.
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