What Does 1 Corinthians 1:11 Mean?
For it has been shown to me about you, my brothers, by those of Chloe's house, that there is strife among you.
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
For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.THE KEY
The conflict is named inside a family: kinship does not make division imaginary.
THE MEANING
Contention is present among people who call one another family, and the report brings it into the open. Kinship and conflict can occupy the same shared life without either one erasing the other.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a community bound by kinship cannot be divided.
THE ROOT
ἔριδες
erides
GROWS FROM
ἔρις
eris
Strife or rivalry
“contentions” in this verse is erides. The Greek noun names rivalry or strife, and its plural form makes the conflict visible as multiple points of friction. The word describes what is happening among the community, not the whole nature of the people within it.
ALSO GROWS
eris: Strife, contention
ἔρις
This is the singular lemma beneath the plural form in the verse.
erizō: To strive or contend
ἐρίζω
The related verb shows the same root taking shape as an act of contention.
ἐδηλώθη
edēlōthē
GROWS FROM
δηλόω
dēloō
To make clear or manifest
“shown” in this verse is edēlōthē. The verb carries the sense of making something clear or visible. The report brings the contention into view, holding disclosure and conflict together in one sentence.
ALSO GROWS
dēlos: Clear, visible
δῆλος
This related word shows the clarity contained in the act of declaring.
dēlōsis: Disclosure, manifestation
δήλωσις
This noun carries the same movement from what is present but unseen to what is openly known.
THE PATTERN
When shared life becomes a contest for standing, strife spreads through the community.
The beginning of strife is the opening of waters, so let it go before contention is uncovered.And a love of winning also arose among them, as to which of them was reckoned the greatest.For where boiling and strife are, there is no standing still and every base deed.THE THREAD
For you are still fleshly, since among you there is boiling, and strife, and splits. Are you not fleshly, and do you not walk as humans?The Greek word rendered “strife” here is the same root, ἔρις (eris), as “contentions” in 1:11. This later verse opens the report further: the strife appears alongside envy and divisions within the community.
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