What Does 2 Corinthians 10:11 Mean in the King James?
Let such an one think this, that, such as we are in word by letters when we are absent, such will we be also in deed when we are present.
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
Distance does not divide the person who speaks from the person whose actions arrive.
THE MEANING
The words you send from a distance carry the same character as the actions people meet when you are present. Presence does not create a different self; it makes visible in action what your words have already expressed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that distance lets you claim one character in your words and live out another in person.
THE ROOT
λόγῳ
logō
GROWS FROM
λεγ-/λογ- (λέγω)
To say, speak, or give an account; λόγος means word or speech.
The verse’s “think” (λογιζέσθω, logizesthō) belongs to the λογίζομαι (logizomai) word family, related to λόγος. Considering and speaking are linked in the Greek, as if the words in the letters already give an account of the person whose actions will appear.
ALSO GROWS
logizomai: Reckon, consider, or account for.
λογίζομαι
The verse uses this family for “think,” joining what is considered to what is expressed in words.
logion: A saying or utterance.
λόγιον
Like λόγος, it names spoken words, the kind of expression that can be tested against a person’s actions.
ἔργῳ
ergō
GROWS FROM
ἐργ-
Work or action done.
“Deed” is not an abstract quality here; ἔργον names the work that becomes visible when someone is present. The letters and the actions are different forms of expression, but the verse says the same person is revealed in both.
ALSO GROWS
ergazomai: To work or do.
ἐργάζομαι
It makes the root’s action concrete: what a person does is the work that can be seen.
ergatēs: A worker.
ἐργάτης
The worker is known through the work, echoing the verse’s link between a person’s words and actions.
THE PATTERN
A person’s words and actions are two ways the same character becomes visible.
He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.And what soever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.THE THREAD
Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.“Works” here is ἔργων (ergōn), from the same root as “deed” in 2 Corinthians 10:11. Both verses make action visible evidence of what words claim.
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