What Does 1 Corinthians 14:15 Mean?
What then is it? I will pray with the breath, and I will pray with the mind also. I will sing with the breath, and I will sing with the mind also.
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
What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.THE KEY
The “spirit” here is also breath: prayer and song become whole when breath and mind move together.
THE MEANING
Your prayer and song can carry both the breath moving within you and the mind attending to what is said. The verse joins inward life and conscious understanding in one voice.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that spiritual expression becomes deeper when the mind disappears, or that thought alone can contain the whole voice.
THE ROOT
πνεύματι
pneumati
GROWS FROM
πνε- (pne-), from πνέω (pneō)
To breathe or blow; breath in motion.
The Greek word πνεῦμα (pneuma) means breath as well as spirit. Prayer and song rise through living breath while remaining joined to the mind; inwardness does not erase thought.
ALSO GROWS
pneō: Breathe, blow
πνέω
The verb gives the verse’s inward spiritual movement a bodily, breathing dimension.
pnoē: Breath
πνοή
This related noun makes visible the breath shared by speech, song, and inward life.
νοΐ
noi
GROWS FROM
νο-/νοε- (no-/noe-), the perceive-and-think family
To perceive, think, or apprehend with the mind.
The word translated “understanding” names the mind’s faculty of perception, not merely a store of explanations. Prayer and song include what you inwardly apprehend, not only the sound you make.
ALSO GROWS
noeō: Perceive, understand
νοέω
It shows understanding as an active act of noticing and apprehending.
dianoia: Mind, thought, understanding
διάνοια
This related word keeps the verse’s emphasis on the mind as part of the voice’s expression.
THE PATTERN
Prayer and praise become whole when inward life and conscious understanding sound together.
For God is the King of all the earth; sing with insight.Let the words of my mouth be received, and the murmur of my heart before your face. O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and songs of breath, singing and plucking the strings in your heart to the Lord.THE THREAD
For if I pray in a tongue no one knows, my breath prays, but my mind bears no fruit.The preceding verse names the split: the spirit prays while the understanding bears no fruit. This verse brings spirit and understanding together in both prayer and song.
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