What Does Acts 18:14 Mean?
And when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, If there were some crookedness or reckless wickedness, O Jews, I would reasonably have borne with you.
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
And when Paul was now about to open his mouth, Gallio said unto the Jews, If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with you:THE KEY
λόγος (logos, “word”) underlies both “reason” here and “words” in the next verse, so Gallio’s sentence turns on whether the dispute’s words name an offense that warrants judgment.
THE MEANING
The verse places public judgment under a test: there must be a wrong or grave misconduct to judge. Before Paul can answer, Gallio measures the dispute against that threshold. A forceful accusation and a substantiated offense are not the same thing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
An accusation does not become proof of a punishable wrong simply because it is forcefully presented.
THE ROOT
λόγον
logon
GROWS FROM
λογ- (log-), the stem of λόγος (logos)
Word, statement, or account; in this phrase, a reason or rational ground.
“reasonably” in this verse is logon. The Greek word translated “reason” here belongs to the same λόγος (logos, “word”) family as “words” in the next verse. English separates the ideas, while the passage links them: Gallio weighs what the dispute is about and whether it gives him grounds to judge.
ALSO GROWS
logos: word, statement, account
λόγος
This is the word behind both Gallio’s “reason” and the next verse’s “words,” joining speech with the question of what can be judged.
logizomai: reckon, consider, account
λογίζομαι
This related form carries the sense of weighing or accounting for something, fitting Gallio’s assessment of the matter before him.
legō: say, speak
λέγω
This related verb makes the family’s connection to spoken words explicit: the dispute is presented through what is said.
ἀδίκημα
adikēma
GROWS FROM
δικ- (dik-), in δίκη (dikē) and ἀδικ- (adik-)
Right, justice, or judgment; with the privative ἀ- in ἀδικ-, the family describes what violates justice.
“crookedness” in this verse is adikēma. The Greek word for “wrong” belongs to the same word family as δίκη (dikē, “justice”). Gallio’s condition therefore concerns an act framed as an injustice, not simply a disagreement or accusation.
ALSO GROWS
dikē: justice, right, judgment
δίκη
It names the standard that the ἀδίκημα (adikēma, “wrong”) breaches.
adikeō: do wrong, act unjustly
ἀδικέω
This verb names the act of committing the wrong that the noun in the verse identifies.
adikos: unjust, wrongful
ἄδικος
This adjective describes what lacks justice, extending the same justice-and-wrongdoing family.
ῥᾳδιούργημα πονηρόν
rhadiourgēma ponēron
GROWS FROM
ῥᾳδιουργ-
rhadiourg-
Unscrupulous or criminal conduct; here, a wicked deed.
“reckless wickedness” in this verse is rhadiourgēma ponēron. This phrase adds the sense of a seriously unscrupulous act alongside the general word for wrong. The Greek word family points to villainous or criminal conduct, giving Gallio’s threshold a concrete and weighty character.
ALSO GROWS
rhadiourgia: unscrupulous conduct, villainy
ῥᾳδιουργία
This related noun names the kind of conduct described by the deed in the verse.
rhadiourgeō: act unscrupulously, commit a crime
ῥᾳδιουργέω
This verb shows the action contained in the noun: an act of deliberate misconduct.
THE PATTERN
Public judgment needs a specific wrong whose substance can be tested, rather than an accusation accepted on force alone.
You shall not lift up a false report; do not set your hand with the wicked to be a witness of violence.Concerning whom, when the accusers stood up, they carried no charge of such painful things as I had supposed.Or to governors, as to those sent by him for the setting right of doers of badness, and for the praise of doers of good.THE THREAD
Or else let these same ones say, if they found any unaligned deed in me while I stood before the seated council.Acts 24:20 uses the same Greek noun ἀδίκημα (adikēma, “wrongful act”) when Paul asks whether any wrong was found in him before the council. Here the word sets the condition for Gallio’s hearing; there it becomes the question of whether that condition has been met.
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