What Does 1 Corinthians 14:20 Mean?
Brothers, do not become children in mind, but in evil be infants, and in mind become full-grown.
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
Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men.THE KEY
The verse divides childlikeness by domain: your mind matures, while your experience of evil stays infant-small.
THE MEANING
Your thinking is capable of maturity and discernment; your relation to malice stays infant-like, without practiced skill in harm. Here growth means clearer judgment without becoming fluent in evil.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that maturity requires becoming worldly or skilled at harm: in this verse, mature thinking and inexperience in evil belong together.
THE ROOT
φρεσίν
phresin
GROWS FROM
φρην / φρεν- (phrēn / phren-)
Mind, thought, or the faculty of understanding.
The same Greek word for the thinking faculty appears in both halves of the verse. The contrast is not between thinking and innocence: the mind grows toward maturity while childlikeness is kept specifically in relation to malice.
ALSO GROWS
phroneō: Think, set one’s mind on.
φρονέω
This related verb makes clear that the verse concerns the quality and direction of thought, not simply knowing facts.
phronēsis: Practical wisdom, understanding.
φρόνησις
This branch shows how the thinking faculty can become exercised wisdom.
phronimos: Wise, sensible.
φρόνιμος
It names the discernment that mature thinking can express.
νηπιάζετε
nēpiazete
GROWS FROM
νηπι-
nēpi-
Infancy or the state of being an infant; νηπιάζω means to be infant-like.
“infants” in this verse is nēpiazete. The KJV uses “children” in both halves, but the Greek shifts words: the first is παιδία (paidia), children, while the second is νηπιάζετε (nēpiazete), be infant-like. That shift makes the contrast sharper: maturity belongs to thought, while malice is where experience stays small.
ALSO GROWS
nēpios: Infant, young child.
νήπιος
This is the noun behind the verb used for remaining childlike in malice.
nēpiotēs: Infancy, childishness.
νηπιότης
The related noun shows the state of immaturity that the verse preserves only with regard to evil.
τέλειοι
teleioi
GROWS FROM
τελ- (tel-; expanded stem τελει-)
τέλος (telos): an end, goal, or completion; τέλειος describes what is complete or mature.
“full-grown” in this verse is teleioi. The Greek word translated “be men” means mature or complete, not male. It names growth toward fullness of judgment, setting that maturity beside an infant-like stance toward malice.
ALSO GROWS
teleioō: Bring to completion, fulfill, make mature.
τελειόω
This verb shows the movement toward completion implied by the verse’s call to maturity.
teleiotēs: Maturity, completeness.
τελειότης
This noun names the state the verse describes with τέλειοι.
THE PATTERN
Maturity grows in discernment while remaining inexperienced in evil.
Curds and honey shall he eat, that he may perceive how to refuse the evil and choose the good.Look, I send you as sheep among wolves; be therefore wise as serpents, and unmixed as doves.For your hearing and response has reached all humankind, so I rejoice over you, but I want you wise toward the good and unmixed toward evil.THE THREAD
When I was an infant, I spoke as an infant, thought as one, and counted as one; but when I became a man, I have made idle the things of the infant.The Greek child-word νηπιάζω (nēpiazō, be infant-like) in 14:20 shares its word-family with νήπιος (nēpios, child) here. This verse pictures childhood thinking as something outgrown; 14:20 preserves childlikeness only toward malice, while thought becomes mature.
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