What Does 1 Corinthians 15:2 Mean?
Through which you are also being delivered, if you hold fast to the word I brought you, unless you leaned your full weight on it for nothing.
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
By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.THE KEY
Deliverance is present-tense: it moves through the message you still hold, not merely the memory that you once believed.
THE MEANING
The good news is delivering you now as you hold fast to the message you received. Trust remains anchored in that message; belief that comes to nothing is not the same as trust that continues to bear its weight.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that a past moment of belief makes the received message irrelevant afterward: the verse links deliverance with continuing to hold fast.
THE ROOT
σῴζεσθε
sōzesthe
GROWS FROM
σῴζω
sōzō
Deliver, rescue, bring out of danger; preserve.
σῴζεσθε (sōzesthe, you are being delivered) is present tense, so the line lets you hear deliverance as living now. The same word family names the deliverer and deliverance, keeping the action, its agent, and its outcome together.
ALSO GROWS
sōtēr: Deliverer, rescuer
σωτήρ
The one who delivers belongs to the same word family as the act happening to you.
sōtēria: Deliverance
σωτηρία
The noun names the deliverance that the verb presents as active.
κατέχετε
katechete
GROWS FROM
ἔχω
echō
Have, hold; with κατά (kata, down or firmly), hold fast or retain.
“keep in memory” in this verse is katechete. κατέχετε (katechete, you hold fast) grows from ἔχω (echō, have or hold): the phrase carries the sense of retaining the message, not only recalling it. The verse places the good news in your continuing grasp.
ALSO GROWS
echō: Have, hold
ἔχω
This is the basic holding sense underneath the compound verb.
katechō: Hold fast, retain
κατέχω
This form makes the continuing hold on the preached message explicit.
ἐπιστεύσατε
episteusate
GROWS FROM
πιστ-
pist-
Trust, rely on; firmness or reliability.
“leaned your full weight on it” in this verse is episteusate. The verb belongs to the family of trust: to lean your full weight on someone or something. Its kin also carries the sense of being firm and steady, so “believed in vain” describes trust that has come to nothing, not merely an opinion that was mistaken.
ALSO GROWS
pistis: Trust, reliance
πίστις
This noun makes clear that the believing in view is a relation of trust.
pistos: Firm, steady, trustworthy
πιστός
The related adjective brings the language of trust into contact with what is firm enough to rely on.
THE PATTERN
The good news remains an active means of deliverance when it is held fast in trust.
He sends his word and heals them, and slips them free from their pits.Then Jesus said to those Jews who had leaned their weight on him, If you remain in my word, then you are truly my disciples.For I am not ashamed of the good news of the anointed one, for it is the power of God for deliverance to everyone who trusts, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.THE THREAD
For I am not ashamed of the good news of the anointed one, for it is the power of God for deliverance to everyone who trusts, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.Romans names the gospel as God’s power unto σωτηρία (sōtēria, deliverance), from the same word family as σῴζεσθε (sōzesthe, you are being delivered). The noun names what this verse shows in motion: the good news is the means of present deliverance.
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