Be healthy
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G5198 names to be healthy or sound, used figuratively in the Pastoral Epistles for teaching, words, faith, love, and endurance that are not diseased by error. Readers often come to this word asking about sound doctrine, healthy teaching, spiritual health, and what makes teaching life-giving.
Reader summary
Full entry for ὑγιαίνω (G5198) · Open the biblical lexicon
G5198 names to be healthy or sound, used figuratively in the Pastoral Epistles for teaching, words, faith, love, and endurance that are not diseased by error. Readers often come to this word asking about sound doctrine, healthy teaching, spiritual health, and what makes teaching life-giving.
The BSB source-word alignment has 12 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include sound (4), [and] sound (1), [with the] sound (1), enjoy good health (1), healthy (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Luke 5:31. Its strongest book concentrations include Titus (4), Luke (3), 1 Timothy (2), 2 Timothy (2).
G5198 names to be healthy or sound, used figuratively in the Pastoral Epistles for teaching, words, faith, love, and endurance that are not diseased by error. Readers often come to this word asking about sound doctrine, healthy teaching, spiritual health, and what makes teaching life-giving. In the Pastoral Epistles, the word must be read inside the sentence, the paragraph, and the local charge to Timothy or Titus before it becomes a broader teaching category.
This companion keeps the search question useful while refusing to let a search term control the text. It helps shepherds, teachers, leaders, churches, groups, families, and disciples ask what the passage is actually doing, how the word serves the book argument, and how the gospel governs the application. It also guards against using sound doctrine as a label for harshness, or using spiritual health language without testing teaching by the apostolic gospel.
The aim is not to create a shortcut around Scripture but to make the word a doorway back into Scripture with clearer questions and better boundaries.
Be sound; be healthy; be wholesome matters for readers because it opens the link between truth, spiritual health, and the formation of a congregation.
For the sexually immoral, for homosexuals, for slave traders and liars and perjurers, and for anyone else who is averse to sound teaching
Sound teaching is contrasted with conduct that resists God's moral order.
Hold on to the pattern of sound teaching you have heard from me, with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
Timothy must hold to the pattern of sound words in faith and love in Christ Jesus.
He must hold firmly to the faithful word as it was taught, so that he can encourage others by sound teaching and refute those who contradict it.
An overseer must hold the faithful word so he can encourage by sound teaching and refute contradiction.
But as for you, speak the things that are consistent with sound doctrine.
Titus is charged to speak what fits sound doctrine.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. To be sound or healthy; in Pastoral Epistles, metaphorically means doctrinally sound or orthodox in faith.
To be sound or healthy; in Pastoral Epistles, metaphorically means doctrinally sound or orthodox in faith.
(ὑγιής), [in LXX chiefly for שָׁלוֹם, and frequently in To ;] to be sound, healthy, in good health: Luk.5:31 7:10 15:27, 3Jo.2. In Past. Epp. (as also in cl.) metaphorically, ὑ. ἐν τ. πίστει, Tit.1:13 ; τ. πίστει, τ. ἀγάπῃ, τ. ὑπομονῇ, Tit.2:2; ἡ ὑγιαίνουσα διδασκαλία, 1Ti.1:10, 2Ti.4:3, Tit.1:9 2:1 ; λόγοι ὑγιαίνοντες, 1Ti.6:3, 2Ti.1:13.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
12 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I am well
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Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How mood, tense, and voice shift the force of this verb in context.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
How this verb appears across 11 occurrences in the NT discourse index (MACULA Greek SBLGNT).
Aspect reflects grammatical form — not authorial emphasis. Participles and infinitives are verbal adjectives and nouns respectively.
Clause data: MACULA Greek (Clear Bible, CC BY 4.0) · SBLGNT (Logos/SBL, CC BY 4.0)
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 3 selected witnesses from 12 lexical occurrence verses.
ὑγιαίνω is built from this root:
The gospel message is described as doctrinally healthy, contrasting with false teachings that corrupt the faith. 1 Timothy 6:3-10
Healthy doctrine preserves the spiritual well-being of the church. 2 Timothy 1:13-14
True doctrine produces spiritual health in contrast to corrupt speculation. 2 Timothy 4:1-5
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Teach G5198 by starting with the local passage and the burden that caused the word to matter there. The entry opens the link between truth, spiritual health, and the formation of a congregation. A faithful teacher should define the word plainly, show how the immediate context uses it, and then move carefully to related witnesses without pretending that one word proves every doctrine attached to the subject.
This matters for end users who may search for sound doctrine, healthy teaching, spiritual health, and what makes teaching life-giving but need more than a dictionary answer. The word should bring them back to Christ, the gospel, the household of God, and the obedience Scripture calls for. It corrects the assumption that doctrine is sound merely because it is forceful, traditional, or popular.
Keep the tone clear and sober: enough definition to orient the reader, enough canonical connection to deepen trust, and enough restraint to avoid making the word say more than the passage says.
1Tim.1.10
The verb's health imagery is metaphorical in these letters. It should not be reduced to physical wellness or used as a technical party label.
Use the Old Testament and wider canonical background only where the cited passages or the local lexicon artifact warrant it. The Pastoral Epistles remain the controlling entry point for this batch.
MorphGNT Strong's Dictionary XML — CC0 1.0 Public Domain
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (morphhb/OSHB) — CC BY 4.0
Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon — CC BY 4.0
Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain