What Does 1 Corinthians 12:15 Mean?
If the foot says, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?
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
If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?THE KEY
Not being the hand does not place the foot outside the body; difference does not cancel belonging.
THE MEANING
Your place in the whole is not canceled by lacking another part’s shape or function. The foot can be unlike the hand without its belonging to the body becoming false.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that you belong only if you resemble someone else or perform their role.
THE ROOT
σῶμα
sōma
GROWS FROM
σωμ- (sōm-), the Greek stem of σῶμα
body; an embodied whole
The word names the whole body that contains its distinct parts. The foot’s difference from the hand does not make it less bodily: the question exposes how unlike functions can belong to one whole.
ALSO GROWS
sōmata: bodies; the plural form of σῶμα
σώματα
The same word can name multiple bodies without implying they must all have one shape or role.
sōmatikós: bodily; pertaining to a body
σωματικός
This form keeps the sense concrete and embodied: the passage speaks of belonging within a body, not matching an abstract ideal.
THE PATTERN
A living whole includes distinct parts whose difference does not cancel their belonging.
But now God has set the limbs, each one of them, in the body, as he willed.For just as we have many limbs in one body, and not all the limbs have the same deed.from whom the whole body, joined together and knit by every joint that supplies, according to the working in the measure of each part, makes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.THE THREAD
But now God has set the limbs, each one of them, in the body, as he willed.The same Greek word, σῶμα (sōma, body), names the whole the foot fears it is outside. The nearby verse says each member is set within it, making belonging a matter of place in the whole rather than resemblance to another part.
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