What Does 1 Corinthians 11:26 Mean?
For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you show the Lord's death until he comes.
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 as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.THE KEY
The shared meal is itself a proclamation: the Lord’s death is announced until he comes.
THE MEANING
As you eat this bread and drink this cup, the Lord’s death is being proclaimed through the shared act. The meal holds that death and his expected arrival together in the present.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The Lord’s death is only a past event with nothing to say now; here, it is proclaimed as you share the meal.
THE ROOT
καταγγέλλετε
katangéllете
GROWS FROM
ἀγγελ-
aggel-
announce, make a message known
“show” in this verse is katangéllете. The Greek verb means to announce or proclaim, so “shew” carries the force of making a message known. Here the bread and cup do more than recall a death: sharing them proclaims it, with the announcement continuing until his coming.
ALSO GROWS
ángelos: messenger
ἄγγελος
A messenger makes a message known; the meal likewise carries its announcement.
euangélion: good news, gospel
εὐαγγέλιον
This word names an announcement of good news, showing how the same word family links proclamation with the message being proclaimed.
θάνατον
thánaton
GROWS FROM
θαν-
than-
die, death
The word names death directly, while its family also speaks of dying and of being mortal. The announcement keeps the Lord’s death in view even as it points toward his coming.
ALSO GROWS
apothnḗskō: to die
ἀποθνῄσκω
The shared root connects death as a named reality with the act of dying.
thnētós: mortal
θνητός
This branch links the Lord’s death with the condition of mortality that death names.
THE PATTERN
A repeated shared meal keeps a decisive act present while its participants look toward what is still to come.
And this day will be for you a remembrance. You will keep it as a feast to the LORD throughout your generations, a statute for the ages.Is not the cup of blessing that we bless a sharing in common of the blood of the Anointed One? Is not the bread that we break a sharing in common of the body of the Anointed One?But I say to you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's governance.THE THREAD
And I, brothers, when I came to you, came not with the height of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the witness of God.The Greek verb translated “shew” here is from the same word family as “declaring” in this verse: both announce a message. Here the shared bread and cup become that announcement, proclaimed until he comes.
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