What Does 1 Corinthians 14:29 Mean?
Let the prophets speak, two or three, and let the others judge it.
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
Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge.THE KEY
The prophet speaks, but the others, plural in Greek, discern: prophetic speech does not certify itself.
THE MEANING
When a prophetic word enters the gathering, two or three speak and the others weigh what is said. The voice is heard and distinguished in community; its claim does not stand alone.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a message claiming prophetic authority must be accepted without examination.
THE ROOT
διακρινέτωσαν
diakrinetōsan
GROWS FROM
κρίνω (krinō, judge or decide) with διά (dia, through or apart)
To distinguish by deciding: to judge, evaluate, or discern.
“judge” in this verse is diakrinetōsan. The verb διακρινέτωσαν (diakrinetōsan) carries both judging and distinguishing: the speech is evaluated by discerning what it is. Its subject is οἱ ἄλλοι (hoi alloi, “the others”), plural in Greek, placing discernment across the gathering rather than inside the speaker alone.
ALSO GROWS
krinō: Judge; decide
κρίνω
The unprefixed verb names the act of making a judgment, showing that discernment here includes evaluation.
diakrisis: Discernment; distinguishing
διάκρισις
This related noun names the capacity to distinguish; 1 Corinthians 12:10 uses it for discerning spirits, linking the gathering’s weighing to a recognized form of discernment.
THE PATTERN
A claim to speak for God remains answerable to discernment.
When the prophet speaks in the nature of the LORD, if the word does not come to be, nor arrive, it is the word the LORD has not spoken, but the prophet has spoken it in a boiling over. You shall not cower from him.Do not treat prophesying as nothing. Test everything, and hold fast to what is good.Beloved, do not lean your weight on every breath, but test the breaths, whether they come out of God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.THE THREAD
To another the workings of might, to another prophesying, to another the sifting of breaths, to another kinds of tongues, and to another the carrying across of tongues.The word translated “discerning” is διάκρισις (diakrisis), a close relative of the verb in this verse. The same root links weighing prophetic speech with discerning spirits: both name the work of distinguishing what is being heard.
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