What Does 1 Corinthians 14:5 Mean?
I wish all of you to speak in tongues, but rather that you prophesy. For greater is the one who prophesies than the one who speaks in tongues, unless he carries it across, so that the assembly may take hold of the building up.
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 would that ye all spake with tongues, but rather that ye prophesied: for greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret, that the church may receive edifying.THE KEY
Here, speech becomes edification when its meaning can reach the assembly.
THE MEANING
The verse welcomes both kinds of speech, while giving greater value in a gathering to what the assembly can receive. When a tongue is interpreted, its meaning becomes available to the assembly as building-up. The measure is the good the gathered people can receive from it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the most spiritually striking expression is automatically the most valuable in a gathering.
THE ROOT
οἰκοδομή
oikodomē
GROWS FROM
οἶκος + δομέω (oikos + domeō)
House-building; by extension, construction or building-up.
“building up” in this verse is oikodomē. The Greek word keeps an architectural image beneath edifying: the act of building a house. Speech is pictured as material for a shared structure, and interpretation makes a tongue’s meaning available for the assembly to receive.
ALSO GROWS
oikodomeō: To build a house; to build up.
οἰκοδομέω
This verb carries the same house-building image as the verse’s edifying.
oikodomos: Builder.
οἰκοδόμος
The builder belongs to the same word family, revealing the architecture beneath the verse’s language of edification.
THE PATTERN
Speech and gifts reach their purpose when others can receive and be strengthened by them.
A man has joy in the answer of his mouth, and a word in its season, how good it is!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.As each has received a gift, serve it to one another as good stewards of the many-colored favor of God.THE THREAD
So also you, since you burn for gifts of breath, seek that you may overflow for the building up of the assembly.The same house-building word appears again: the aim is to build up the assembly. Verse 5 shows how speech becomes something the assembly can receive; verse 12 makes that shared building the aim of spiritual gifts.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us