What Does Ephesians 4:14 Mean in the King James?
That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
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
What seems like a gust of teaching may hide a dice player’s strategy to send you wandering.
THE MEANING
The verse names a movement beyond infancy: you are no longer defined by every current of teaching that tosses and carries you. Beneath that motion, it exposes human sleight and calculated craft, showing how a path can lead into wandering.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie it undoes is that being swept along proves you are open or growing; movement can also be the result of a scheme.
THE ROOT
περιφερόμενοι
peripheromenoi
GROWS FROM
φέρω
pherō
To carry, bear, or bring.
“carried about” in this verse is peripheromenoi. The image is movement imposed on you: teachings do not merely arrive as ideas; they carry you around. The same carry-root appears in Hebrews 13:9 for being carried away by varied teachings, locating instability in the direction a teaching bears you.
ALSO GROWS
peripherō: To carry around.
περιφέρω
This is the compound behind the verse’s image of being borne around by each new teaching wind.
parapherō: To carry away or carry off.
παραφέρω
Hebrews 13:9 uses this compound for being carried away by varied doctrines, making drift a movement teaching can set in motion.
κυβείᾳ
kubeia
GROWS FROM
κύβος
kubos
A die or cube, especially a gaming die.
The word translated “sleight” carries the image of dice-play, a game in which outcomes can be manipulated. Beside the waves and winds, it suggests that the drift can be engineered by human cunning, not only caused by confusion.
ALSO GROWS
kubos: A die or cube.
κύβος
The concrete gaming object under “sleight” makes the image of manipulation visible.
kubeuō: To play dice or gamble.
κυβεύω
This branch preserves the game-of-chance image that gives the verse’s “sleight” its sharper edge.
τῆς πλάνης
tēs planēs
GROWS FROM
πλαν-
plan-
To wander or stray; to lead away from the path.
The word translated “deceive” carries the sense of error and wandering: deception is pictured as being moved off course. The schemes in the verse do more than put a false idea before you; they turn drift into a direction.
ALSO GROWS
planaō: To wander, or to lead someone astray.
πλανάω
This verb makes the movement beneath deception explicit: someone can be made to stray.
planos: A wanderer or deceiver.
πλάνος
The related noun links the one who misleads with the image of wandering away from a sound path.
THE PATTERN
Unsteady understanding is carried by teaching currents, while deception can disguise the direction of that drift.
The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.THE THREAD
Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.Ephesians uses περιφερόμενοι (peripheromenoi, carried around); Hebrews uses παραφέρεσθε (parapheresthe, carried away): both are built on φέρω (pherō, to carry or bear). Hebrews gives the counter-image too: a heart made firm by favor is not carried off by every teaching current.
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