What Does 1 Corinthians 1:10 Mean?
Now I urge you, brothers, by the nature of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, that you all say the same thing, and that there be no rending among you, but that you be mended together in the same mind and the same judgment.
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
Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.THE KEY
Unity here is not an abstraction: the word for being joined together pictures mending what has torn.
THE MEANING
Your shared life is treated as something that can be repaired: what has split can be fitted together until thought and judgment are shared. The appeal is made in the nature of Jesus, the one whose name carries deliverance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that division is the final shape of a shared life: what has torn can be mended.
THE ROOT
κατηρτισμένοι
katērtismenoi
GROWS FROM
καταρτίζω
katartizō
To fit together, mend, or restore to a complete condition.
“mended together” in this verse is katērtismenoi. The word translated “perfectly joined together” can describe mending something that has come apart. Unity is pictured as a repaired wholeness, not merely an idea everyone agrees to admire.
ALSO GROWS
katartizō: To mend or restore.
καταρτίζω
This is the verb behind the verse’s image of being joined together.
katartismos: Equipping or fitting out.
καταρτισμός
This related form presents restoration as being made whole and ready for its purpose.
artios: Complete, fitted, or ready.
ἄρτιος
Its related stem echoes the sense of something brought into a fitting, whole condition.
σχίσματα
schismata
GROWS FROM
σχίζω
schizō
To split or tear apart.
“rending” in this verse is schismata. “Divisions” carries the image of a tear in something that belongs together. Set beside the word for mending, the verse describes both the rupture and the possibility of repair.
ALSO GROWS
schizō: To split or tear.
σχίζω
It gives the verse’s divisions the concrete shape of something pulled apart.
schisma: A rent, split, or division.
σχίσμα
This noun names the tear between people that the verse contrasts with being mended together.
ὀνόματος
onomatos
GROWS FROM
ὄνομα
onoma
Name, designation, or reputation.
A name can carry the character and authority of the one named; the appeal is made in Jesus’ nature, not as a bare verbal formula. Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ, Yeshua) is linked to yasha (יָשַׁע, deliver), so the name holds the movement from constriction toward spaciousness.
ALSO GROWS
onomazō: To name or call.
ὀνομάζω
The verb shows the name as an act of identifying or calling someone.
onomastos: Named or renowned.
ὀνομαστός
This related form carries the sense of a name associated with a person’s known character.
THE PATTERN
Shared wholeness takes shape as what has torn is restored into a common life.
A Song of degrees of David. Look, how good and how sweet it is for brothers to settle also together!And stepping forward from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them.Brothers, even if a person is caught in a stumble, you who are of the breath, mend such a one in the breath of gentleness, watching yourself, lest you also be tested.THE THREAD
Brothers, even if a person is caught in a stumble, you who are of the breath, mend such a one in the breath of gentleness, watching yourself, lest you also be tested.“Restore” translates the same Greek root as “perfectly joined together” here: καταρτίζω (katartizō), meaning to mend or restore. Together, the verses show repair as the root image of wholeness, whether what is torn is a community or a person.
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