What Does 1 Corinthians 14:18 Mean?
I give thanks to my God; I speak in tongues more than all of you.
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
I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all:THE KEY
The word rendered “tongues” names both the body’s speaking organ and a language, making one mouth the meeting point of body and shared meaning.
THE MEANING
You hear gratitude joined to abundance: the speaker moves through more tongues than the others and gives thanks to God. The next verse shifts the measure from how much is spoken to what others can understand.
THE ROOT
γλώσσαις
glōssais
GROWS FROM
γλωσσ-
glōss-
Tongue; language.
English “tongues” can sound like a bodily act set apart from language, but γλῶσσα (glōssa, tongue or language) holds both senses in one word. The verse’s abundance is speech moving through languages, with the mouth itself as their meeting point.
ALSO GROWS
glōssa: The organ in the mouth used for speech.
γλῶσσα
This bodily sense keeps the verse’s image grounded in the speaking mouth.
glōssa: A language or the speech of a people.
γλῶσσα
The same word makes the mouth’s speech a shared means of understanding.
εὐχαριστῶ
eucharistō
GROWS FROM
χάρις
charis
Favor; gracious giving, from which gratitude is expressed.
The verb εὐχαριστέω (eucharisteō, give thanks) is formed with χάρις (charis, favor), linking gratitude with what is received as favor. Related words name a gift and the act of giving freely, so the verse places thankful speech beside the gift it acknowledges.
ALSO GROWS
charis: Favor or gracious regard; in some contexts, thanks.
χάρις
This is the root carried inside the verb for giving thanks.
charisma: A gift freely given.
χάρισμα
It connects gratitude with a gift received rather than an achievement claimed.
charizomai: To grant freely; to forgive.
χαρίζομαι
It shows favor enacted as free giving, a shade of meaning beneath thanksgiving.
THE PATTERN
Speech serves a gathered community when its meaning reaches the people listening.
So they read aloud from the scroll of the instruction of God, spread open, and set the sense in place, and caused the people to perceive in the reading.When this voice arose, the crowd came together and was poured into confusion, because each one heard them speaking in his own tongue.But in the assembly I wish to speak five words with my mind, that by my voice I might instruct others also, rather than ten thousand words in a tongue no one knows.THE THREAD
But in the assembly I wish to speak five words with my mind, that by my voice I might instruct others also, rather than ten thousand words in a tongue no one knows.The word translated “tongue” in both verses is γλῶσσα (glōssa, tongue or language): the mouth’s organ and a language share one name. Verse 19 measures speech by whether it reaches other people’s understanding, bringing the word’s two senses together.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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