What Does 1 Corinthians 3:2 Mean?
I gave you milk to drink, not food, for until now you were not able to carry it, nor even now are you able.
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 have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.THE KEY
The Greek word translated “meat” means food, so the contrast is milk versus solid nourishment the hearers can take in.
THE MEANING
You are met with nourishment at the level you can take in: milk is given to drink, while solid food remains beyond your present capacity. The verse presses on the word “now”: a limit that belonged to an earlier stage is still present. It names that gap without calling nourishment itself a failure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Needing milk does not mean receiving nothing; it is still nourishment. But “neither yet now” breaks the assumption that a limit disappears just because time passes.
THE ROOT
βρῶμα
brōma
GROWS FROM
βρω-
brō-
Eating; what is eaten.
The word names food in general, not specifically flesh. English “meat” can make the contrast sound like milk versus animal flesh, while the Greek describes two forms of nourishment.
ALSO GROWS
brōsis: Eating; food.
βρῶσις
The same eating-family links food with the act of taking it in.
brōtos: Edible; fit to eat.
βρωτός
This branch keeps the sense on what can be consumed, rather than on flesh.
ἐπότισα
epotisa
GROWS FROM
πι-/ποτ- (pi-/pot-, the drink-family)
To drink; to give someone drink.
“gave you milk to drink” in this verse is epotisa. The verb translated “fed” means “I gave you drink.” Milk is pictured as something received, and the verse’s nourishment image begins with drinking rather than with instruction as an abstract idea.
ALSO GROWS
poma: Drink; beverage.
πόμα
This noun makes explicit the drink that the verb describes giving.
posis: Drinking; a drink.
πόσις
This branch carries the same drink-family into the language of receiving nourishment.
δύνασθε
dynasthe
GROWS FROM
δυν-
dyn-
Power; capacity; ability.
The verse repeats the language of capacity: “not yet able” and “neither yet now are ye able.” The emphasis falls on what the hearers can presently receive, and the repeated “now” makes that limit current.
ALSO GROWS
dynamis: Power; capacity.
δύναμις
This noun makes the capacity behind “able” visible.
dynatos: Powerful; capable; possible.
δυνατός
This adjective belongs to the same family of ability and possibility.
THE PATTERN
Nourishment meets a receiver at their capacity, and growth can change what they are able to take in.
Surely I level and hush my living soul, like a weaned child upon his mother; like one weaned upon me, my living soul.And with many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they could hear it.As newborn infants, long for the unmixed milk of the word, so that by it you may grow into deliverance.THE THREAD
For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.John uses βρῶσις (brōsis, “eating” or “food”) and πόσις (posis, “drinking”), from the same eating and drinking families heard in this verse’s βρῶμα (brōma, “food”) and ἐπότισα (epotisa, “I gave drink”). That shared language opens the image beyond a measure of teaching: nourishment is something received as life.
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