What Does Titus 1:13 Mean?
This witness is true. For this reason, expose them with a cut, that they may be healthy in the trust.
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
This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;THE KEY
The Greek calls trust’s condition “health,” so the verse places even a sharp rebuke inside a stated work of restoration.
THE MEANING
This verse meets you where trust needs correction: rebuke can be sharp, and its stated purpose is that you become sound in trust. It treats trust as something with a condition of health, which correction can restore.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that correction’s severity proves you are being cast off; here its stated aim is that trust becomes sound.
THE ROOT
ὑγιαίνωσιν
hygiainōsin
GROWS FROM
ὑγιαιν-
hygiain-
To be healthy or sound.
The same Greek word family can describe a body as healthy and trust as sound; English makes those feel like separate domains. The verse’s stated purpose is not merely stopping error, but bringing trust into health.
ALSO GROWS
hygies: Healthy; sound.
ὑγιής
This adjective shares the health word family, showing that “sound” describes a condition of well-being.
hygieia: Health; soundness.
ὑγίεια
This noun makes explicit the health idea carried by the word for being sound.
ἀποτόμως
apotomōs
GROWS FROM
τέμνω
temnō
To cut; in this word family, to cut off or sever.
“with a cut” in this verse is apotomōs. The Greek word translated “sharply” carries the force of cutting or severing, so the correction is not described as mild. The verse holds that severity together with its stated purpose: restored soundness in trust.
ALSO GROWS
apotemnō: To cut off; sever.
ἀποτέμνω
This verb shows the cutting force at the center of the word family behind “sharply.”
apotomia: Severity; a cutting-off.
ἀποτομία
This related noun appears in Romans 11:22 and preserves the same hard edge of the word family.
πίστις
pistis
GROWS FROM
πειθ- / πιστ- (peith- / pist-, trust or persuasion)
Trust; being persuaded to rely.
The Greek word translated “faith” carries the sense of trust: leaning your full weight on what is trusted. Here, trust itself can be sound or in need of correction; it is not merely a label someone carries.
ALSO GROWS
peithō: To persuade; to trust or be persuaded.
πείθω
This related verb shows the movement from persuasion toward reliance.
pistos: Trustworthy; firm or steady.
πιστός
This related adjective shows trust’s connection to steadiness and reliability.
THE PATTERN
Correction can be severe while its stated end is the restoration of what has become unhealthy.
Uncovered rebuke is better than hidden love.All training, for the present, does not seem to be joy but pain; but afterward it gives back the wholesome fruit of alignment to those who have been exercised by it.Those whom I love, I expose and train. Be boiling, therefore, and turn.THE THREAD
Beloved, concerning all things I pray that your way goes well and that you are whole, just as your living soul goes well.The word rendered “sound” in Titus and “in health” here comes from the same Greek word family: ὑγιαίνω (hygiainō, to be healthy or sound). Titus applies health language to trust, while this verse uses it for bodily health, joining conditions English tends to keep apart.
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