What Does 1 Corinthians 11:21 Mean?
For in eating, each one seizes his own supper before the others, and one is hungry while another is drunk.
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 in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken.THE KEY
The word “own” exposes the fracture: one gathering becomes hunger for some and excess for others when each meal is kept private.
THE MEANING
When food is treated as private, being gathered together does not mean everyone is fed. The same meal holds one person’s hunger and another’s intoxication; the imbalance is visible among the people sharing the room.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that sitting at the same table means everyone there is being provided for.
THE ROOT
ἴδιον
idion
GROWS FROM
ἴδιος
idios
one’s own, private, belonging particularly to oneself
The Greek word names what is privately one’s own. Beside the hungry and the drunk, that possessive exposes how a shared gathering can be divided by private ownership.
ALSO GROWS
idiōtēs: a private person; a layperson
ἰδιώτης
This related word carries the sense of someone in a private rather than public role, echoing the verse’s emphasis on what is kept as one’s own.
idiōma: a distinctive property, custom, or expression
ἰδίωμα
What is distinctive or particular belongs to someone; this branch makes the private claim in “his own supper” more visible.
προλαμβάνει
prolambanei
GROWS FROM
λαμβάνω
lambanō
to take or receive; προ- (pro) adds the sense of beforehand
“seizes before” in this verse is prolambanei. The Greek verb means “takes beforehand,” while “own” marks the meal as private. Together they show how taking food in advance can leave others hungry.
ALSO GROWS
lambanō: to take, receive
λαμβάνω
This is the verb’s base: the action at the meal is a taking, with the prefix adding the sense of beforehand.
paralambanō: to receive, take along
παραλαμβάνω
This related compound retains the idea of receiving, showing how taking can also mean receiving something into one’s possession.
THE PATTERN
A community is revealed by whether its provision remains private while others are in need.
The one with a good eye is blessed, for he does give of his bread to the emptied.He answered and said to them, Whoever has two tunics, let him give a share to the one who has none; and whoever has food, let him do likewise.And the multitude of those who trusted were of one heart and one living soul. Not one of them said that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared all things in common.THE THREAD
And the multitude of those who trusted were of one heart and one living soul. Not one of them said that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared all things in common.The Greek word ἴδιον (idion, “his own”) appears in both verses. Here private ownership divides the meal; in Acts, the same word sits inside a community that no longer claims its possessions as its own.
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