What Does Ephesians 4:23 Mean?
and be made new again in the breath of your mind;
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 be renewed in the spirit of your mind;THE KEY
The renewal reaches the breath that animates your mind, at the source of perception itself.
THE MEANING
Your mind is being made fresh at the level of its animating disposition. The Greek word beneath “spirit” is pneuma, which also means breath and wind; the verse locates renewal in what moves and animates thought.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that your present way of perceiving is fixed: the animating disposition of your mind is being renewed.
THE ROOT
ἀνανεοῦσθαι
ananeousthai
GROWS FROM
νέος
néos
new, fresh, young
“made new again” in this verse is ananeousthai. The verb carries the seed of νέος (néos), new or young: renewal is freshening at the mind’s inner orientation. Its passive form presents the mind as receiving this renewal.
ALSO GROWS
ananeoō: renew, make fresh again
ἀνανεόω
This is the verb behind “renewed”; it carries newness into the act of being made fresh again.
neotēs: youth, young age
νεότης
This branch keeps the word’s connection to freshness and youth visible.
πνεύματι
pneumati
GROWS FROM
πνέω
pnéō
breathe, blow
The word translated “spirit” belongs to the same family as words for breath and moving air. Here that breathlike animating force is joined to the mind, so renewal reaches what moves thought from within.
ALSO GROWS
pneuma: breath, wind, spirit
πνεῦμα
One Greek word holds together the breath, moving air, and inward spirit that English separates.
pnoē: breath, blast of wind
πνοή
This branch makes the link between inward animating spirit and breath or wind audible.
νοὸς
noos
GROWS FROM
νοῦς
nous
mind, the faculty of perception and understanding
“mind” in this verse is noos. Nous points to the perceiving and understanding faculty, not just a storehouse of thoughts. The verse places renewal in the breath of that faculty, where perception takes shape.
ALSO GROWS
noeō: perceive, understand
νοέω
This verb shows the mind as an active faculty of perceiving and understanding.
dianoia: understanding, thought
διάνοια
This related word carries nous into the wider movement of thought and understanding.
THE PATTERN
Renewal works inwardly, making the inner person and its way of perceiving fresh.
Do not take the shape of this age, but be reshaped by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test what is the good, well-pleasing, and complete will of God.Therefore we do not give out; though our outer person is worn through, yet our inner person is made new day after day.And have put on the new human, which is being made new in full knowing, after the image of him who created him.THE THREAD
For what human knows the things of a human, except the breath of human that is within him? So also the things of God no one knows, except the breath of God.Both verses use πνεῦμα (pneuma), the word translated “spirit” here and in Ephesians. Corinthians names the inward spirit of a person; Ephesians places that same animating reality in the mind, where renewal reaches the source of perception.
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