What Does Ephesians 6:8 Mean?
Knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will carry home from the Lord, whether servant or free.
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
Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.THE KEY
The same Greek root behind “do” also gives “workmanship”: the good you bring about is received by the Lord beyond the line between bond and free.
THE MEANING
The good you do now is received by the Lord, and your standing does not change its worth before him. Whether you are bond or free, the deed reaches the same source and receives its answer there.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that good only counts when a person’s social position gives it recognition.
THE ROOT
ποιήσῃ
poiēsē
GROWS FROM
ποιέω
poieō
To make, do, or bring about.
“doeth” in this verse is poiēsē. The form ποιήσῃ (poiēsē, “does” or “may do”) comes from ποιέω (poieō, “to make or do”). Its word family joins an action with what is made: the verse presents good as something brought into being, received by the Lord regardless of the doer’s status.
ALSO GROWS
poiēma: A thing made; workmanship.
ποίημα
This branch names the result of making, linking the good you do with something that takes shape.
poiētēs: A maker; a doer.
ποιητής
This branch names a person through what they do, echoing the verse’s focus on the deed rather than the person’s rank.
agathopoieō: To do good; to act beneficently.
ἀγαθοποιέω
This compound joins “good” and “do” in one verb, making explicit the active goodness at the center of the verse.
THE PATTERN
Good done by any person remains before God and is answered according to the work, not the worker’s standing.
And yours, O Lord, is faithful love, for you repay each man according to his deed.So that your compassion may be in the hidden; and your Father, who sees in the hidden, himself will give it back to you in the open.The one who plants and the one who gives to drink are one, and each one will take his own wage according to his own toil.THE THREAD
For we are his making, created in the Anointed One, Jesus, for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that in them we might walk.The word translated “workmanship” comes from the same Greek word family as “doeth” here. One names what is made; the other names the making, joining the reader’s being formed with the good they bring about.
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