What Does 1 Corinthians 10:17 Mean?
For there is one bread, and we, being many, are one body, since we all share in the one bread.
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 we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.THE KEY
The Greek word translated “partakers” means to share in, so the one bread is not merely received by many people, it is what they share as one body.
THE MEANING
You belong to the many who share one bread and are one body. The shared bread holds your connection to one another: you are many, yet part of one common life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that becoming one means losing your distinctness; the verse calls the many one body while still calling them many.
THE ROOT
μετέχομεν
metechomen
GROWS FROM
μετέχω
metechō
To share in; to have a part in.
“share in” in this verse is metechomen. “Partakers” can sound like many people each taking something separately, but this verb carries the sense of sharing in it. That shared participation is the hinge of the verse: the many are one body because they share the one bread.
ALSO GROWS
metochos: Partner; participant.
μέτοχος
This related form names someone who shares in something, echoing how the many participate in one bread.
metochē: Participation; share.
μετοχή
This related noun makes the verse’s central idea explicit: oneness is expressed through sharing.
THE PATTERN
Many are joined as one body through sharing in a common life.
And they held fast in the teaching of the sent ones, and in sharing in common, and in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.For as the body is one, and has many limbs, and all the limbs of the body, though many, are one body, so also is the Anointed One.There is one body, and one breath, even as you have been called in one hope of your calling.THE THREAD
For we have become sharers of the Anointed One, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence, firm to the end.The same share-language appears here as “partakers of Christ,” linking participation with belonging. In this verse, the shared reality is pictured as one bread and one body.
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