What Does 2 Corinthians 3:5 Mean in the King James?
Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
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 places the same Greek word for “from” on both sides: you are not the source of your adequacy; God is.
THE MEANING
You do not generate your own adequacy; the source of what you are able to carry is God. Even your reckoning of what can be done does not stand as a self-contained origin. The verse speaks of dependence while leaving room for your part in the work.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that your capacity only counts if it originates in you.
THE ROOT
ἱκανότης
hikanotēs
GROWS FROM
ἱκαν-
hikan-
Adequacy, fitness, enough to meet a need.
The Greek word family links sufficiency with being made competent. The verse names that adequacy as coming from God, and the next verse uses the same family for God making people able.
ALSO GROWS
hikanos: sufficient, fit, competent
ἱκανός
This is the related adjective: sufficiency is the state of being fit or able.
hikanoō: make sufficient, qualify, make able
ἱκανόω
The same word family describes capacity as something God makes present in a person.
λογίσασθαι
logisasthai
GROWS FROM
λογ-
log-
Reckoning, accounting, taking something into account.
The verb translated “think” carries the sense of reckoning or accounting. The verse reaches even the mind’s assessment of what is possible: that accounting does not make the self its own source.
ALSO GROWS
logizomai: reckon, count, consider
λογίζομαι
The related verb describes the act of taking stock that the verse says cannot arise from the self alone.
logismos: reckoning, calculation, reasoning
λογισμός
This related noun makes the verse’s “think any thing” sound like an account being formed, not merely a passing thought.
THE PATTERN
A person can act fully while capacity still originates beyond the self.
It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect.I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.THE THREAD
Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.“Made us able” translates ἱκανόω (hikanoō), “make sufficient” or “qualify,” from the same Greek word family as ἱκανότης (hikanotēs), “sufficiency,” in verse 5. The next verse makes explicit what verse 5 implies: God is the source who makes people competent.
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