What Does 1 Corinthians 2:13 Mean?
And these things we also speak, not in words that man's wisdom teaches, but in words the Set-Apart Breath teaches, fitting the things of the breath to the things of the breath.
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
Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.THE KEY
Greek binds “Holy Ghost” and “spiritual” through pneuma, the word-family for breath, wind, and spirit, joining the teacher to what is discerned.
THE MEANING
The verse describes speech now as receiving its teaching from the Spirit, while human wisdom is not its source. Greek links “Spirit” (pneuma) and “spiritual” (pneumatikos) through the language of breath, and the final verb can carry the sense of comparing or interpreting. Spiritual understanding appears as something discerned through what the Spirit teaches.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that spiritual understanding comes from human wisdom alone dissolves here: the verse names the Spirit as the teacher of the words.
THE ROOT
πνευματικοῖς
pneumatikois
GROWS FROM
πνεῦμα (pneuma), from πνέω (pneō)
Breath, wind, spirit; the movement of air, and by extension the spirit.
“things of the breath” in this verse is pneumatikois. The verse names the teacher with pneumatos, “of the Spirit,” then uses pneumatikos for what is spiritual. English gives these different sounds, while Greek connects them through one breath-word family, joining the source of the teaching to what is discerned.
ALSO GROWS
pneō: To breathe or blow.
πνέω
The verb preserves the moving-breath image beneath the word for Spirit.
pneumatikos: Of or belonging to the Spirit; spiritual.
πνευματικός
This is the adjective used in the verse, sharing its word-family with the Spirit who teaches.
συγκρίνοντες
synkrinontes
GROWS FROM
κρίνω (krinō), in the compound σύν + κρίνω (syn + krinō)
To distinguish, decide, or judge; the compound can mean to compare or interpret.
“fitting” in this verse is synkrinontes. The compound begins with syn, “together,” and carries krinō’s sense of discerning. So “comparing” can suggest bringing spiritual things together to recognize their relation, with interpretation also within the verb’s range.
ALSO GROWS
synkrinō: To compare, combine, or interpret.
συγκρίνω
This is the verb used in the verse and allows the closing phrase to carry more than simple likeness.
anakrinō: To examine, investigate, or discern.
ἀνακρίνω
This related compound shows the discerning sense within the krinō word-family.
THE PATTERN
Divine life and understanding move through breath-shaped speech, joining a word to its living source.
By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.It is the breath that gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you, they are breath, and they are life.All scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, for exposure, for straightening again, for the training in alignment.THE THREAD
It is the breath that gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you, they are breath, and they are life.In John, Jesus says his words are pneuma, the same Greek word-family behind “Spirit” in 1 Corinthians. Both verses join breath, speech, and life, so the Spirit’s teaching here is connected to words that are themselves spirit and life there.
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