The Greek verb entrepho means to nourish in, to bring up in, to train within a particular context or set of teachings. It conveys the image of being fed and formed by a set of principles or a community.
Entrepho appears in 1 Timothy 4:6 — Paul tells Timothy that a good servant of Jesus Christ will be 'nourished in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine.' The prefix en- (in) is significant: this is not mere exposure to truth but formation within truth, as a child is nourished within a household. The pastoral epistle thus presents discipleship as a nutritional process — the soul that feeds daily on Scripture and sound doctrine grows strong; the soul that starves on 'irreverent, silly myths' (1 Timothy 4:7) grows weak. The word invites us to think about what is feeding us at the deepest level.