Tool Beta
Is It Actually in the Bible?
Phrases people quote as Scripture. The real verse, or the honest answer that there is not one.
"Patience worketh experience" means going through hard times just gives you more life experience and stories to tell
"Experience" translates a Greek word for proven, tested character, not accumulated life events.
Romans 5:4, in every translation this tool compares.
Romans 5:4 traces a chain: "patience, experience; and experience, hope." The Greek word behind "experience" is "dokime," meaning the proven quality something has after passing a test, closer to "approvedness" or "tested character" than to having lived through a lot. Paul's argument is that endurance under trial produces a tested, proven character, which in turn produces hope, not that suffering simply broadens your resume of experiences.
"Experience" comes from Latin "experiri," to try or test (the same root as "experiment" and "expert"), which is exactly the sense Paul means. Modern English uses "experience" almost entirely for "things you've lived through," flattening Paul's actual point about tested, approved character.
