What Does Acts 19:25 Mean?
Whom he gathered together, with the workers in such things, and said, Men, you know that our wealth comes from this work.
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
Whom he called together with the workmen of like occupation, and said, Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth.THE KEY
The Greek word translated “wealth” pictures provision as a good way through, opened by the craft.
THE MEANING
Your livelihood is not abstract from your work: what you make becomes one of the means by which you are provided for. People bound to the same craft can recognize that shared stake at once.
THE ROOT
εὐπορία
euporía
GROWS FROM
πορ-
por-
Passage or way through; by extension, a means or resource.
English makes “wealth” sound like a stockpile; εὐπορία (euporía, prosperity or available means) pictures provision as a viable way through. Its kin ἀπορία (aporía, an impasse or lack of a way) sharpens the contrast: this craft supplies the route by which they live.
ALSO GROWS
póros: A passage, way, or means.
πόρος
This supplies the base sense behind εὐπορία: means as an available route or resource.
aporía: An impasse, perplexity, or lack of a way.
ἀπορία
Its negative prefix reveals the contrast with having a good route or means.
ἐργασία
ergasía
GROWS FROM
ἐργ-
erg-
Work or doing.
The Greek ἐργασία (ergasía, work or business) shares its root with the word for “workmen.” The verse gathers workers and names their craft through one work-family, tying their livelihood to their shared labor.
ALSO GROWS
érgon: Work, deed, or task.
ἔργον
The craft belongs to the wider word-family of work and action.
ergátēs: Worker or laborer.
ἐργάτης
This is the word-family behind “workmen,” linking the people to the craft that provides for them.
THE PATTERN
Labor produces material provision that can sustain life and meet need.
In all toil there is a remainder, but the word of the lips only bends toward lack.And also, every human eats and drinks, and sees good in all his toil. This is the giving of God.Let the one who steals steal no longer, but rather let him toil, working the good thing with his own hands, that he may have something to share with the one who has need.THE THREAD
So that not only is our part in danger of being spoken down, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis should be counted as nothing, and her greatness taken down, whom all Asia and the inhabited earth hold in awe.The word translated “craft” in both verses is ἐργασία (ergasía, work or business). The next sentence names that same livelihood as being in danger, revealing how tightly their means are bound to what their hands produce.
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