What Does 1 Corinthians 6:10 Mean?
Nor thieves, nor those who reach for more, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor snatchers, will inherit the governance of God.
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
Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.THE KEY
“Inherit the kingdom” speaks of receiving a share in God’s governance, so the verse names patterns that have no share in that order.
THE MEANING
The verse places theft, greed, drunkenness, verbal abuse, and predatory taking outside God’s governance. Its boundary speaks now: these ways of living do not belong to the order God rules.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that exploitation and abuse can coexist with a share in God’s governance.
THE ROOT
κληρονομήσουσιν
klēronomēsousin
GROWS FROM
κληρονόμ-
klēronom-
to inherit; to receive a share as an heir
“inherit” in this verse is klēronomēsousin. The verb carries the idea of receiving a share as an heir, making the verse’s ending about participation in God’s governance. The warning reaches beyond a single act to the kind of life that has no share in that order.
ALSO GROWS
klēros: lot, allotted share
κλῆρος
It reveals the share at the heart of inheritance.
klēronomos: heir, one who receives an inheritance
κληρονόμος
It names the person who receives that share.
klēronomia: inheritance
κληρονομία
It names what is received, the heir’s allotted share.
βασιλείαν
basileian
GROWS FROM
βασιλ-
basil-
kingship, royal rule
“governance of God” in this verse is basileian. This word can name the reign or rule itself, and its word family includes both the king and the act of reigning. “The kingdom of God” thus carries the sense of God’s active governance, the order in which the verse says these patterns have no share.
ALSO GROWS
basileus: king
βασιλεύς
The king is the source of the royal rule named by this word family.
basileuō: to reign, rule as king
βασιλεύω
This branch makes the active exercise of kingship visible.
ἅρπαγες
harpages
GROWS FROM
ἁρπαγ-
harpag-
rapacious seizing, plundering
“snatchers” in this verse is harpages. The word depicts taking by seizure, carrying the force of snatching something away. Beside thieves and the covetous, it reveals a shared pattern of reaching into another person’s life to take what is not one’s own.
ALSO GROWS
harpazō: to seize, snatch
ἁρπάζω
It makes the forceful taking in the word family explicit.
harpagē: plunder, robbery
ἁρπαγή
It names the plunder produced by this kind of seizing.
THE PATTERN
Scripture describes inheritance as a share in God’s order, while showing that destructive ways of living need not define a person permanently.
But the bowed ones will inherit the land, and they will soften themselves in the abundance of wholeness.envyings, killings, drunkenness, wild processions, and things like these, of which I tell you beforehand, as I also told you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the governance of God.And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were set apart, but you were aligned, in the nature of the Lord Jesus and in the breath of our God.THE THREAD
And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were set apart, but you were aligned, in the nature of the Lord Jesus and in the breath of our God.Verse 11 keeps the warning intact while showing that the list need not be a permanent identity: “such were some of you,” followed by washing, setting apart, and alignment. The movement is from being described by these patterns to a changed condition.
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