What Does 1 Corinthians 16:1 Mean?
Now concerning the gathering for the set-apart ones, as I arranged for the assemblies of Galatia, so do you also.
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 concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye.THE KEY
The collection is a shared practice deliberately arranged across communities, making care part of their common life.
THE MEANING
Material care for people set apart belongs inside the reader’s shared life. Resources are gathered deliberately, and the same practice holds across assemblies rather than depending on a private impulse. The verse places care within the community’s ordinary order.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that spiritual life is separate from material care: here, supporting others is built into the community’s shared order.
THE ROOT
λογίας
logias
GROWS FROM
λογ-
log-
Gathering or collecting; here, a contribution gathered for a shared purpose.
The Greek noun names a collection or contribution, and its verbal family carries the act of gathering. The verse presents care as a common undertaking, then says that undertaking is arranged across communities.
ALSO GROWS
logeúō: To gather or collect contributions.
λογεύω
The verbal form makes the gathering behind the collection explicit.
syllogē: A gathering or collection.
συλλογή
This related gathering word echoes the shared action contained in the collection.
διέταξα
dietaxa
GROWS FROM
τάσσω
tassō
To arrange, assign, or put in place.
“arranged” in this verse is dietaxa. The instruction uses a word of arrangement: the collection is given a structure that can be carried from Galatia to Corinth. Care is made repeatable across communities.
ALSO GROWS
taxis: Arrangement or order.
τάξις
It shows the organizing sense that remains underneath the English word “order.”
diatassō: To arrange or prescribe.
διατάσσω
This is the verb family of the word used here for setting the practice in place.
ἁγίους
hagious
GROWS FROM
ἁγ-
hag-
Set apart; devoted to what is sacred.
The recipients are ἅγιοι (hagioi, set-apart ones), so their material needs belong within the community’s set-apart life. The word describes a people’s relation and belonging, not a rank reserved for the exceptional.
ALSO GROWS
hagiazō: To set apart or consecrate.
ἁγιάζω
It gives the verb form of the setting-apart named by “saints.”
hagiasmos: Setting apart or consecration.
ἁγιασμός
It names the process or state connected to being set apart.
THE PATTERN
Resources are opened, gathered, and shared so that need is met within a common life.
But you shall open your hand wide to him, and you shall surely lend him enough for what he lacks.and set them down at the feet of the sent ones, and it was given out to each as anyone had need.But through evenness, that in this present season your overflow may fill their lack, and their overflow may fill your lack, that there may be evenness.THE THREAD
Begging us with much urging that we would receive the favor and take up the sharing in common of serving the set-apart ones.This verse uses ἁγίους (hagious, set-apart ones) for the same recipients. It calls their care κοινωνία (koinōnia, sharing in common), opening the collection into participation in one another’s service.
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