What Does Philippians 2:13 Mean?
For it is God who works in you, both to will and to do, for the sake of his good pleasure.
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
For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.THE KEY
The same Greek verb names God’s work in you and the doing it enables, placing both willing and action within one active source.
THE MEANING
God is at work within you now, reaching both your desire to act and the action itself. Your willing and doing are held within God’s good purpose. The verse describes one living movement from inward desire to outward deed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a lack of desire or follow-through means God is absent: the verse locates God’s activity in both the willing and the doing.
THE ROOT
ἐνεργῶν
energōn
GROWS FROM
ἐργ-
erg-
Work, deed, or action; ἐνεργέω (energeō) means to be active or at work.
“worketh / to do” in this verse is energōn. The forms translated “worketh” and “to do” come from the same verb, ἐνεργέω (energeō, to be active or at work). The verse links God’s activity within you to the doing that takes shape there: inward movement and outward action share one root.
ALSO GROWS
ergon: Work, deed, or task.
ἔργον
It makes visible the deed beneath the verse’s language of God being at work.
energeia: Activity or working.
ἐνέργεια
It names the active power or operation that connects inward work with what is done.
εὐδοκία
eudokia
GROWS FROM
δοκ-
dok-
The word-family of δοκέω (dokeō): to seem, think, or regard; with εὖ (eu, good), it carries the sense of favorable regard or pleasure.
“for the sake of his good pleasure” in this verse is eudokia. The phrase points to what God regards favorably and takes pleasure in, giving the inner work its direction. The willing and doing are joined to a purpose that is good in God’s sight.
ALSO GROWS
dokeō: To seem, think, or regard.
δοκέω
It gives the word-family its sense of regard, beneath the phrase “good pleasure.”
eudokeō: To be pleased with or approve.
εὐδοκέω
It expresses the favorable pleasure carried by εὐδοκία (eudokia, good pleasure).
THE PATTERN
God’s work within a person reaches both inward desire and outward action.
LORD, you will set wholeness for us; for you also have worked all our works for us.And I will set my breath within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will guard my judgments and do them.May he mend you in every good work to do his will, doing in you what is pleasing before his face, through Jesus the Anointed One, to whom let there be weight for the ages of the ages. Amen.THE THREAD
Now to him who is strong enough to do beyond all that we ask or perceive, overflowing past measure, according to the strength that works in us.“Worketh” here is ἐνεργέω (energeō, to be active or at work), the same Greek verb-family used for God’s working and the doing it enables in Philippians 2:13. Ephesians reveals that this inward activity is power at work beyond what can be asked or conceived.
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