What Does Galatians 5:6 Mean?
For in Jesus, the Anointed One, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any strength, but trust that works through love.
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
For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.THE KEY
In Christ Jesus, neither the mark nor its absence has force; trust comes alive through love.
THE MEANING
In Christ Jesus, circumcision and uncircumcision have no force for you. What is active now is trust working through love. Love is where trust operates, not a badge added beside it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This dissolves the belief that a visible religious marker, or the absence of one, has power in itself.
THE ROOT
ἐνεργουμένη
energoumenē
GROWS FROM
ἐργ-
erg-
Work, deed, activity
“works” in this verse is energoumenē. The form translated “worketh” means working or being active and belongs to the Greek work-family ἐργ- (erg-). That same family names both activity and deed, presenting trust as active through love.
ALSO GROWS
ergon: Work, deed
ἔργον
It shares the work-family with the verb describing trust in this verse.
energeia: Activity, operation
ἐνέργεια
It carries the same sense of something being active or at work.
synergeō: Work together
συνεργέω
Its shared root appears in James’s description of trust working together with deeds.
ἰσχύει
ischyei
GROWS FROM
ἰσχυ-
ischy-
Have strength, be powerful
“has any strength” in this verse is ischyei. The verb translated “availeth” also means to be strong or have power. It sharpens the contrast: neither circumcision nor uncircumcision carries force here; trust takes effect through love.
ALSO GROWS
ischys: Strength, power
ἰσχύς
It names the strength the verse says neither outward condition has.
ischyros: Strong, mighty
ἰσχυρός
It shares the same root family of strength and power.
πίστις
pistis
GROWS FROM
πειθ-
peith-
Persuade, win confidence or trust
Here πίστις (pistis) is trust: leaning your full weight on what is trusted. Its root family connects that reliance with being persuaded or confident, and the verse pictures this trust at work through love rather than as mere agreement.
ALSO GROWS
peithō: Persuade, convince
πείθω
It shares the root family linking trust with being persuaded.
pepoithēsis: Confidence, trust
πεποίθησις
It names the confidence that grows from reliance.
THE PATTERN
Trust takes effect through love, so inward reality matters beyond an outward religious distinction.
And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your seed, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your living soul, that you may live.Love does not work evil on the neighbor. So love is the fullness of the instruction.And if I hold the gift to prophesy, and see all sealed things and all knowledge; and if I hold all trust, so that I could move mountains, but do not hold love, I am nothing.THE THREAD
Do you see how trust worked together with his works, and how by works trust was made complete?Galatians says trust is ἐνεργουμένη through love; James uses συνεργεῖ and ἔργοις, words from the same ἐργ- (erg-) work-family. The shared root reveals trust as active: here through love, there together with deeds.
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