What Does 1 Timothy 4:7 Mean in the King James?
But refuse profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.
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 verse treats attention as training: what is refused stops shaping you, and reverence is exercised into form.
THE MEANING
In you now, irreverent stories compete with a life of practiced reverence toward God. This verse casts refusal and training as two parts of the same formation: one clears space, the other gives it shape.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that godliness is a fixed trait one either has or lacks; here it is something exercised and formed.
THE ROOT
γύμναζε
gymnaze
GROWS FROM
γυμναζ-
gymnaz-
To train or exercise through practice.
The verb names deliberate training, and its related noun γυμνασία (gymnasia, training) appears in the next verse for bodily exercise. The same verb family describes senses trained through use in Hebrews 5:14, showing that practice shapes discernment as well as conduct.
ALSO GROWS
gymnasia: Training; exercise.
γυμνασία
The related noun appears in 1 Timothy 4:8, where bodily training is set alongside godliness.
gegymnasmena: Trained; exercised through use.
γεγυμνασμένα
In Hebrews 5:14, the same word family describes senses trained to discern good and evil.
εὐσέβειαν
eusebeian
GROWS FROM
εὖ + σεβ- (eu + seb-)
Well-directed reverence; εὖ means “well,” and the σεβ- family carries the sense of revering.
“godliness” in this verse is eusebeian. The Greek word joins reverence with a well-directed orientation. The goal of the training is therefore a practiced way of revering God, not merely avoiding irreverent stories.
ALSO GROWS
eusebēs: Devout; reverent.
εὐσεβής
This related word describes a person characterized by the reverence this verse treats as something to cultivate.
eusebeō: To act reverently; to live devoutly.
εὐσεβέω
This verb gives reverence an active form, matching the verse’s picture of godliness as practiced.
THE PATTERN
A life is shaped by repeated attention and practice: empty speech is refused while reverence and discernment are trained.
But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.THE THREAD
But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.The word translated “exercised” belongs to the same Greek verb family as “exercise” here. In Hebrews, practice trains discernment; in this verse, it trains reverence, revealing both as capacities formed through use.
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