What Does 1 Timothy 3:8 Mean in the King James?
Likewise must the deacons be grave, not doubletongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre;
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
The warning against a double tongue exposes divided speech as the first audible sign of a divided character.
THE MEANING
Where you carry responsibility, trust shows in steady speech, appetites that do not rule you, and gain that does not bend your service. Your words, desires, and motives belong to the same field of character.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that someone’s words can be trusted while intoxication or profit is treated as unrelated to their service.
THE ROOT
δίλογος
dilogos
GROWS FROM
λόγος (logos), from λέγω (legō)
Word, speech, or account. The word combines δί- (di-, two) with λόγος (logos, word or speech), literally describing someone as “two-worded.”
“doubletongued” in this verse is dilogos. The phrase pictures speech split into competing versions, not merely someone who talks too much. Its word-family also reaches into reckoning, bringing integrity of speech into the same frame as the verse’s warning about gain.
ALSO GROWS
logos: Word, speech, message, or account
λόγος
This is the stem inside δίλογος, so the warning names a person whose word divides in two.
logizomai: Reckon, count, or consider
λογίζομαι
The shared word-family links speech with reckoning, fitting a passage where character also includes one’s relation to gain.
legō: Say, speak, or tell
λέγω
This verbal relative brings the focus back to what is spoken: whether a person’s words hold to one line.
THE PATTERN
Trusted service keeps speech, appetites, and gain from splitting apart.
But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight.Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;THE THREAD
But as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay.The same Greek word-family that gives “doubletongued” its sense of divided speech appears in Paul’s claim that his word is not both yes and no. The shared root makes integrity audible: a trusted word does not split into competing answers.
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