What Does 1 Corinthians 14:4 Mean?
The one who speaks in a tongue no one knows builds himself up, but the one who prophesies builds up the assembly.
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
He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself; but he that prophesieth edifieth the church.THE KEY
The verse uses one verb, “build up,” for both gifts: the difference is whether the speaker or the assembly is being built.
THE MEANING
When a tongue is not understood by the assembly, it builds the speaker; prophecy builds the assembly. Both are forms of building, but their reach differs. The verse holds private strengthening and shared strengthening as distinct effects.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that what builds the speaker automatically builds the assembly.
THE ROOT
οἰκοδομεῖ
oikodomei
GROWS FROM
οἰκοδομέω (oikodomeō), a compound of οἶκος (oikos, “house”) and δομέω (domeō, “build”)
To build a house; figuratively, to build up.
“builds up” in this verse is oikodomei. Greek repeats one concrete building verb for both the speaker and the assembly. “Edify” carries that building sense too, but the repeated verb makes clear that these are two objects of the same construction.
ALSO GROWS
oikos: House, household
οἶκος
This is the “house” element in the compound, making the building image concrete.
oikodomē: Building, construction, edification
οἰκοδομή
This related noun names the building up that the verse assigns first to the speaker and then to the assembly.
THE PATTERN
Words can wound or build; their effect is seen in what they leave in the people who receive them.
There is one who blurts like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise is healing.Let no rotten word come out of your mouth, but whatever is good for building up where there is need, that it may give favor to those who hear.So also you, since you burn for gifts of breath, seek that you may overflow for the building up of the assembly.THE THREAD
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.Ephesians uses οἰκοδομή (oikodomē), “building up,” from the same οἰκοδομέω (oikodomeō), “build up,” word family. Here the whole body is built through what each part supplies, opening the verse’s contrast between speech that builds the speaker and speech that builds the assembly.
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