What Does Mark 10:18 Mean?
Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, God.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.THE KEY
Jesus makes “good” more than a compliment: the word points to God as its sole source and measure.
THE MEANING
The word used for Jesus is weighed against God, whom he names as the one who is good. His question makes the reader hear the weight of that word and where its fullest meaning rests.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the assumption that goodness is an independent human possession or merely a polite label; it locates goodness in God alone.
THE ROOT
ἀγαθόν
agathon
GROWS FROM
ἀγαθ-
agath-
Good, beneficial, or fitting; the Greek stem names a positive quality.
“good” in this verse is agathon. The same Greek word appears in Jesus’ question and in his statement about God. That repetition turns the exchange on the very quality the speaker has named: the word’s reference lands on God alone.
ALSO GROWS
agathopoieō: To do good; to act beneficently.
ἀγαθοποιέω
The word family extends goodness from a quality to action, showing how the same idea can be expressed in what someone does.
agathōsynē: Goodness; benevolence.
ἀγαθωσύνη
This noun names goodness as a quality or disposition, echoing the quality Jesus asks the speaker to consider.
THE PATTERN
God is named as the source and measure of goodness, which appears in what God creates and gives.
And God saw all that he had made, and look, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day.O taste and see that the LORD is good. Flourishing is the strong one who takes shelter in him.Every good giving and every complete gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no shifting and no shadow cast by turning.THE THREAD
Every good giving and every complete gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no shifting and no shadow cast by turning.James uses the same Greek word for “good” and traces every good gift to the Father. Mark’s repeated word asks where goodness belongs; James shows it flowing from God into what is given.
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