What Does 1 Corinthians 4:6 Mean?
And these things, brothers, I have reshaped onto myself and Apollos for your sake, so that in us you might learn not to go beyond what is written, and that none of you be inflated for one against another.
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
And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another.THE KEY
When you set one person above another, the text calls the swelling in your sight what it is: being puffed up.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to the impulse to make one person the measure and another the lesser. It places that ranking under the limit of what is written and calls its swelling effect being puffed up. The comparison enlarges one person in your mind by lowering another.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that honoring one person requires diminishing someone else, or that choosing sides reveals who is truly greater.
THE ROOT
φυσιοῦσθε
physiousthe
GROWS FROM
φυσι- (physi-); verb φυσιόω (physioō)
To inflate or puff up; figuratively, to become conceited.
“inflated” in this verse is physiousthe. The Greek keeps the image of swelling something beyond its actual size. Here that image attaches to setting one person over against another: rivalry can inflate a person’s stature in the mind by making someone else seem smaller.
ALSO GROWS
pephysiōmenos: Having become puffed up; 1 Corinthians 4:18 uses this form for someone swollen with conceit.
πεφυσιωμένος
The same root describes an inflated state a person has taken on, deepening the verse’s image of distorted stature.
physioutai: Is puffed up; 1 Corinthians 13:4 says love is not puffed up.
φυσιοῦται
The same root shows that love does not need to enlarge itself or diminish another to hold its place.
THE PATTERN
When people become measures of one another, rivalry inflates one and diminishes another beyond what is written.
Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.For I say, through the favor given to me, to every one among you, not to think of himself above what he ought to think, but to think soundly, as God has divided to each a measure of trust.I tell you, this man went down to his house aligned, rather than the other, for everyone who lifts himself up will be brought low, and the one who lowers himself will be lifted up.THE THREAD
Now as touching the things slaughtered for idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.“Puffeth up” translates the same Greek root as “puffed up” here. In this verse, rivalry inflates one person against another; there, knowledge inflates the knower, while love builds up.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us