What Does 1 Corinthians 10:33 Mean?
Just as I also please all things to all people, not seeking my own, but what brings the many together, that they may be delivered.
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
Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.THE KEY
The verse turns pleasing others into a path toward deliverance by making their benefit, rather than your own advantage, its aim.
THE MEANING
Your influence reaches beyond what benefits you: attention to what serves many can become a path toward their deliverance. The verse joins pleasing others with seeking their good, giving each encounter a purpose larger than personal gain.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that personal advantage must be the aim of every interaction falls away here: this verse centers what benefits many and leads toward deliverance.
THE ROOT
συμφέρον
sympheron
GROWS FROM
συμφέρω (sumpherō; σύν + φέρω)
To bring together, contribute, or be beneficial.
“what brings together” in this verse is sympheron. The word translated “profit” carries the sense of what contributes or proves beneficial. Beside “mine own,” the “profit of many” makes the question one of where benefit flows and whom it serves.
ALSO GROWS
sympherei: It benefits; it is advantageous or expedient.
συμφέρει
This form makes benefit an outcome: the verse asks what your choices bring about for others.
ta sympheronta: The things that are beneficial.
τὰ συμφέροντα
The plural form points to the concrete good that can be sought for others, rather than advantage held only for oneself.
σωθῶσιν
sōthōsin
GROWS FROM
σῴζω
sōzō
To deliver, rescue, or bring safely out.
“delivered” in this verse is sōthōsin. The verse names deliverance as the purpose of seeking the many’s good. The same word family names both the one who delivers and deliverance itself, keeping the focus on people being brought out.
ALSO GROWS
sōtēr: Deliverer or rescuer.
σωτήρ
The deliverer branch makes the movement implicit in “saved” visible: someone is brought out of danger.
sōtēria: Deliverance or rescue.
σωτηρία
This branch names the outcome the verse holds before the reader: the many are brought into safety.
THE PATTERN
The good of many becomes the measure of action when personal advantage no longer sets its aim.
The living soul of blessing is made fat, and the one who waters is himself watered.Each of you, do not fix your eyes on your own things, but also on the things of others.Let no one seek his own, but the other's.THE THREAD
But the showing of the breath is given to each one, for what carries us together.The same Greek word, συμφέρον (sympheron, “what is beneficial”), appears in both verses. Here it names the good sought for many; there it names the purpose of what is given, joining personal conduct and spiritual gift through their benefit to others.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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