What Does Colossians 1:29 Mean in the King James?
Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.
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 same Greek work-root names both the work and its activity: the power shaping your labor is already at work within you.
THE MEANING
Your labor is real, and the power active within you is real too. The verse places your striving in proportion to an operation already at work inside you, holding outward effort and inward power together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that meaningful work must be powered by you alone, or that divine activity leaves no room for your effort.
THE ROOT
ἐνέργεια
energeia
GROWS FROM
ἔργον
ergon
Work, deed; an action or thing done.
“working / worketh” in this verse is energeia. “His working” is ἐνέργεια (energeia, active operation), while “worketh” is ἐνεργουμένην (energoumenēn, being at work), a form of ἐνεργέω (energeō, to work); both belong to the ἔργον (ergon, work or deed) word family. The operation named first is already active “in me,” so the verse joins the source of the work to its ongoing action.
ALSO GROWS
energeō: To work, be active, operate.
ἐνεργέω
This is the word family behind “worketh,” making the inward operation an ongoing activity.
synergeō: To work together, cooperate.
συνεργέω
It shows the same work-root can describe activity in concert; here the inner operation is joined to the labor named beside it.
ἐν δυνάμει
en dynamei
GROWS FROM
δύναμις
dynamis
Power, capacity, ability.
“Mightily” renders the phrase ἐν δυνάμει (en dynamei, in power). The verse locates this power in the work already happening within you, giving the labor an inward source as well as visible exertion.
ALSO GROWS
dynamai: To be able, have power.
δύναμαι
This branch brings out the capacity within the phrase “in power”: the work has ability at its source.
dynamoō: To strengthen, empower.
δυναμόω
This verb shows power as something that strengthens, adding depth to the force described as “mightily.”
THE PATTERN
God’s work within a person does not erase human labor; it becomes active through it.
LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.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
For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.Colossians 1:29 and Philippians 2:13 use the same Greek work-verb, ἐνεργέω (energeō, to work), for what is active within a person. Philippians makes the reach of that inward work explicit: it touches both willing and doing.
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