What Does Ephesians 4:25 Mean in the King James?
Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.
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 locates truth in a shared body: what one person says reaches the life of the other because each belongs to the other.
THE MEANING
Your speech stands inside a bond of mutual belonging. You and the person beside you are members of one another, so truth names the reality your shared life already carries.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that dishonest speech stays private and affects only the speaker; shared membership means it enters the life of the other.
THE ROOT
ἀλήθεια
alētheia
GROWS FROM
ἀληθ-
alēth-
Truth; the word is traditionally connected with what is not hidden or concealed.
The same word family includes ἀληθεύω (alētheuō), to speak or deal truthfully, and ἀληθής (alēthēs), true. Truth here is not only something held in the mind: it takes shape in speech between people whose lives are joined.
ALSO GROWS
alētheuō: To speak or deal truthfully.
ἀληθεύω
This verb appears in Ephesians 4:15, showing truth as something enacted in speech.
alēthēs: True, genuine.
ἀληθής
This related form names what truthful speech brings into the open.
ψεῦδος
pseudos
GROWS FROM
ψευδ-
pseud-
Falsehood, a lie, or what is untrue.
“lying” in this verse is pseudos. The word family includes both the lie itself and people or claims marked as false. Against the shared truth of the verse, falsehood is speech that breaks alignment between what is said and the life people hold in common.
ALSO GROWS
pseudomai: To lie or speak falsely.
ψεύδομαι
This verb makes clear that falsehood can be a way of speaking, not merely a mistaken idea.
pseudēs: False, untrue.
ψευδής
This form describes what the lie makes a statement or claim become.
pseudoprophētēs: A false prophet.
ψευδοπροφήτης
The compound carries the same falsehood root into a person’s claim to speak for God.
THE PATTERN
Truthful speech protects the shared life of people who belong to one another.
These are the things that ye shall do; Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates:Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.THE THREAD
But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:The Greek word family behind “truth” here returns in 4:15 in the phrase “speaking the truth,” making truth an act of speech. There, that speech belongs to the body’s growth toward its head; here, the same shared life grounds mutual honesty.
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