What Does 1 John 3:18 Mean in the King James?
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Truth is what cannot stay hidden, and here love becomes visible when it moves from the mouth into action.
THE MEANING
Your words can name love, but what you do brings its truth into view. Love is present now where speech and action meet without concealment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief this undoes is that saying loving things is sufficient evidence that love is present.
THE ROOT
ἀλήθεια
alētheia
GROWS FROM
ληθ-
lēth-
Hiddenness, concealment, or escaping notice; the word for truth is formed with a negating prefix, carrying the sense of what is not hidden.
Truth is what does not remain concealed. Paired with deed, it makes action the place where love is brought into view, rather than leaving love as a claim in words.
ALSO GROWS
lanthanō: To be hidden or escape notice.
λανθάνω
It gives the contrast inside truth: love that stays only in speech can remain unseen, while action makes it visible.
lēthē: Forgetfulness or oblivion.
λήθη
Its connection to hiddenness echoes the verse’s concern with what is kept out of view; truth brings love into the open.
ἔργον
ergon
GROWS FROM
ἐργ-
erg-
Work, activity, or an act done.
English can make “deed” sound like a single outward gesture; this root places it in the family of work and doing. Love in deed is love made active and observable.
ALSO GROWS
ergazomai: To work, labor, or do.
ἐργάζομαι
It shows the active force behind deed: love takes shape in what is done.
ergatēs: A worker or laborer.
ἐργάτης
It connects deed to sustained activity, making love more than an announcement.
THE PATTERN
Love and trust become visible through the actions that give them substance.
Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?THE THREAD
But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.John 3:21 joins doing to the same word for truth, ἀλήθεια (alētheia, truth), and says the one who does truth comes to light. It opens this verse further: love’s truth is disclosed through action, where what is hidden becomes visible.
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