What Does 1 Corinthians 10:32 Mean?
Give no place for stumbling to Jews, to Greeks, or to the assembly of God.
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
Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God:THE KEY
Here, “offence” carries the image of an obstacle in another person’s path.
THE MEANING
Your choices shape the path people around you meet, Jews, Gentiles, and God’s assembly. The word-picture is physical: a foot striking an obstacle, so your conduct can become something another person stumbles over. The verse keeps all three groups in view at once.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
My conduct affects only people in my own group.
THE ROOT
ἀπρόσκοποι
aproskopoi
GROWS FROM
προσκοπ- (proskop-), from κόπτω (koptō)
To strike; in this word family, to strike against and stumble.
“place for stumbling” in this verse is aproskopoi. At the word’s center is collision: a foot striking against something and stumbling. Its negative form pictures a path without that obstacle, linking personal conduct to the way another person experiences it.
ALSO GROWS
proskoptō: to strike against; to stumble
προσκόπτω
It supplies the physical action beneath offence: a foot meeting an obstacle.
proskomma: a stumbling block; an obstacle
πρόσκομμα
It shows what conduct can become in the path of one of the groups named here.
THE PATTERN
Conduct becomes a shared matter when it can place an obstacle in someone else’s way.
You shall not curse the deaf, nor set a stumbling block before the blind; but you shall stand in awe of your God. I am the LORD.But watch, lest somehow this right of yours become a stone for the weak to stumble over.So let us no longer judge one another, but judge this instead, that no one sets a stone to strike against, or a trap, in his brother's way.THE THREAD
Giving no place for stumbling in anything, so that the service is not blamed.The ἀπρόσκοποι (aproskopoi, “without causing a stumble”) here and προσκοπή (proskopē, “cause of stumbling”) in 2 Corinthians 6:3 share the προσκοπ- (proskop-, “strike against; stumble”) word family. Together they make the image tangible: conduct can become an obstacle that trips another person’s path.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us