What Does 1 Corinthians 4:7 Mean?
For who sifts you apart? And what do you hold that you did not take? But if you did take it, why do you boast as though you had not taken it?
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
For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?THE KEY
What makes you different is already something you have received, so it cannot be proof that you made yourself.
THE MEANING
What you have comes to you as something received. The distinction that sets you apart does not begin with you, and boasting as though it did loses its ground.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that what sets you apart proves you are self-made and entitled to boast.
THE ROOT
ἔλαβες
élabes
GROWS FROM
λαβ- / λαμβ-
To take or receive.
“did not take” in this verse is élabes. The Greek repeats this receiving: what you have is something taken in, not something originating in you. Once that is visible, the verse’s question about boasting changes: possession is not authorship.
ALSO GROWS
paralambánō: Receive; take along.
παραλαμβάνω
This branch keeps receiving concrete: something comes into your keeping from elsewhere.
katalambánō: Grasp; seize; attain.
καταλαμβάνω
The wider word family links receiving with taking hold, while the verse asks where what you hold came from.
διακρίνει
diakrinei
GROWS FROM
κρίνω
krínō
To judge, decide, or distinguish.
“sifts you apart” in this verse is diakrinei. The opening question asks who marks the distinction between you and another. The word carries the sense of discerning or judging a difference, and the next question traces what you possess back to receiving.
ALSO GROWS
krísis: Judgment; decision.
κρίσις
It shows that distinction involves a judgment about what separates one thing from another.
diákrisis: Distinction; discernment.
διάκρισις
This branch makes the verse’s question about who sees or marks your difference explicit.
καυχᾶσαι
kauchásai
GROWS FROM
καυχ-
To boast or take pride in.
The verse describes boasting as speaking as though receiving never happened. The root turns attention to the claim being made about the self: the boast loses its basis when the gift’s source remains in view.
ALSO GROWS
kaúchēma: A boast; a ground for boasting.
καύχημα
It names what someone presents as a reason for pride, which the verse tests against the fact of receiving.
kaúchēsis: Boasting; exultation.
καύχησις
It names the act of boasting that the verse questions when what is held was received.
THE PATTERN
What is received from another can be shared, but cannot honestly be claimed as self-originated.
But who am I, and what is my people, that we should hold the strength to offer so willingly after this sort? For all things come from you, and from your hand have we given to you.Heal the weak, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. As a gift you received, as a gift give.THE THREAD
John answered and said, "A person can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from the heavens."John states directly what this verse presses into your own possessions: receiving depends on what is given. Both verses use lambánō (λαμβάνω), meaning “receive,” making the shared root visible beneath the English.
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