What Does Acts 6:5 Mean in the King James?
And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch:
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 first name chosen means “crown”, Στέφανος (Stephanos), yet the verse describes Stephen by what fills him: trust and holy breath.
THE MEANING
This scene speaks now through a person whose defining fullness is trust that bears weight and God’s set-apart breath. Stephen is named among those chosen, and Nicolas appears in the same list with his identity as a proselyte from Antioch still visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that a different origin bars someone from belonging: Nicolas is identified as a proselyte from Antioch and still appears among those chosen.
THE ROOT
πνεῦμα
pneuma
GROWS FROM
πνευ-
pneu-
Breathe, blow; moving air and breath.
The Greek noun pneuma carries the senses of breath, wind, and spirit in one word. Here, being full of it evokes living breath and divine presence together, a depth the English phrase “Holy Ghost” can leave less visible.
ALSO GROWS
pneō: To breathe, to blow.
πνέω
This verb is the action beneath pneuma: the verse’s fullness is connected to breath in motion.
pnoē: Breath, a gust or blast of wind.
πνοή
This related word shows the same breath-and-wind range in Acts 2:2, where the sound comes as a rushing mighty wind.
πίστις
pistis
GROWS FROM
πιστ-
pist-
Trust, reliance; being persuaded or convinced.
“faith” in this verse is pistis. Pistis is more than an opinion held at a distance: its word family speaks of trusting and being trustworthy. The verse describes trust as a fullness in a person, something that stands alongside breath-filled life.
ALSO GROWS
pisteuō: To trust, believe, or entrust oneself.
πιστεύω
The verb makes trust an act of reliance, opening the weight-bearing sense inside “faith.”
pistos: Trustworthy, steady; one who can be trusted.
πιστός
This branch shows trust taking visible form as steadiness, a quality present in a person rather than an abstract idea.
THE PATTERN
God’s breath-filled presence equips people for the work entrusted to them.
And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship,For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith: and much people was added unto the Lord.And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;THE THREAD
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.John uses the same Greek word, πνεῦμα (pneuma), for both “wind” and “Spirit.” That shared word opens the breath-and-wind resonance within Acts’ description of Stephen as full of the Holy Ghost.
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