What Does 1 Corinthians 14:6 Mean?
But now, brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, what help will I be to you, unless I speak to you in an unveiling, or in knowing, or in prophecy, or in teaching?
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
Now, brethren, if I come unto you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, except I shall speak to you either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by doctrine?THE KEY
A sound is not yet a gift; speech becomes one when it opens something another person can receive.
THE MEANING
If speech reaches you only as sound, it leaves you without gain. What benefits you is what arrives through it: something disclosed, something known, prophetic speech, or instruction. Meaning, not the mere fact of speaking, is what crosses between speaker and hearer.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a striking spiritual utterance is valuable on its own. Its value appears in what the hearer can receive through it.
THE ROOT
ἀποκάλυψις
apokálypsis
GROWS FROM
καλύπτ-
kalýpt-
to cover, conceal
“unveiling” in this verse is apokálypsis. Apokálypsis joins apo-, “away,” with kalyptō, “cover”: revelation is the covering taken away. The word carries an image of something becoming visible, not something merely added to the hearer’s store of information.
ALSO GROWS
apokalyptō: to uncover, reveal
ἀποκαλύπτω
The related verb makes the image plain: what was covered comes into view for the hearer.
kalymma: covering, veil
κάλυμμα
The same root names what obscures, so revelation carries the movement of a covering being lifted.
THE PATTERN
Speech serves its hearers when its meaning reaches them in a form they can receive.
A man has joy in the answer of his mouth, and a word in its season, how good it is!Cretes and Arabians, we hear them speak in our tongues the great works of God.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.THE THREAD
That the God of our Lord Jesus the Anointed One, the Father of weight, might give you a breath of wisdom and unveiling in the full knowing of him.Here “revelation” is the same Greek word, apokálypsis, and “knowledge” is epignōsis, from the same knowing word-family as gnōsis in this verse. Their pairing shows the movement from what is uncovered to what can be known.
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