What Does 3 John 1:11 Mean?
Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is out of God. The one who does evil has not perceived 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
Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.THE KEY
“Follow” means imitate, so the verse treats conduct as the likeness through which a person’s source becomes visible.
THE MEANING
The verse places imitation at the center of life with God: good practiced now reflects God’s nature, while evil practiced now reveals that God is not truly perceived. A person’s actions disclose the pattern they are reproducing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that someone can truly perceive God while repeatedly embodying what is evil.
THE ROOT
μιμοῦ
mimou
GROWS FROM
μιμ- (mim-), the stem of μιμέομαι
to imitate, model oneself on
“imitate” in this verse is mimou. The Greek command means more than walking behind someone: it calls for taking a pattern into oneself and reproducing it. The verse’s central question is whose nature a person’s actions mirror.
ALSO GROWS
mimētēs: imitator
μιμητής
Ephesians 5:1 uses this related noun for imitating God, making the pattern explicit.
mimēsis: imitation
μίμησις
This related noun names the act of copying a model, bringing out the practice contained in “follow.”
ἀγαθοποιῶν
agathopoiōn
GROWS FROM
ποιέω (poieō), with the stem ποιε-
to do, make, produce
“doeth good / doeth evil” in this verse is agathopoiōn. The two contrasting phrases share the verb ποιέω: both good and evil are described as things a person does or produces. The verse presents character as visible in practiced action, rather than as an abstract label.
ALSO GROWS
poiēma: a thing made, a work
ποίημα
This branch names what is produced, echoing the verse’s focus on what a person’s actions bring forth.
poiētēs: maker, doer
ποιητής
This branch names the one who acts, connecting the verb’s production to the person whose life displays it.
οὐχ ἑώρακεν
ouch heōraken
GROWS FROM
ὁράω (horaō), with the stem ὁρα- (hora-)
to see, behold, perceive
The verb means seeing or perceiving, so the claim reaches beyond lacking information: evil-doing shows that God is not perceived. The perfect form presents that failure to see as still standing.
ALSO GROWS
horasis: sight, vision
ὅρασις
This related word names the faculty or experience of seeing, clarifying the perception at stake.
horatos: visible, able to be seen
ὁρατός
This branch describes what can be perceived, echoing the verse’s language of seeing God.
THE PATTERN
A person’s practiced conduct makes visible the nature they perceive and imitate.
Speak to all the assembly of the children of Israel, and say to them, You shall be set apart, for I, the LORD your God, am set apart.Become therefore imitators of God, as beloved children.Everyone who remains in him does not keep missing the mark. Everyone who keeps missing the mark has not perceived him, nor has known him.THE THREAD
Become therefore imitators of God, as beloved children.Ephesians uses a noun from the same μιμ- root: God is named as the one to imitate. That makes “of God” in 3 John readable as both source and resemblance expressed in what is done.
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