What Does 1 Corinthians 7:23 Mean?
You were bought with a price. Do not become the servants of humans.
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
Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.THE KEY
The price that names your worth also marks the limit of every human claim over you.
THE MEANING
You are already bought at a price; your life is not available for people to claim as property. The verse holds belonging and freedom together: being claimed by God does not make you a servant of men.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the lie that another person’s authority gives them ownership of your life.
THE ROOT
τιμῆς
timēs
GROWS FROM
τιμ-
Value or worth; the noun can mean price, honor, or esteem.
The Greek word for “price” also names honor and value. The verse presents the cost as a measure of worth, then denies that human beings can turn that belonging into ownership.
ALSO GROWS
timē: Price, honor, or esteem
τιμή
The same word can name both the cost paid and the value accorded.
timaō: To honor or value
τιμάω
Its verb form shows that the word family carries the act of treating someone as valuable.
timios: Precious or highly valued
τίμιος
This branch makes the link between price and preciousness explicit.
ἠγοράσθητε
ēgorasthēte
GROWS FROM
ἀγορα-
The marketplace; by extension, buying or acquiring in a marketplace.
The word carries the concrete language of a purchase. That sharpens the second half of the verse: a life already bought cannot simply be treated as available property for human claims.
ALSO GROWS
agora: Marketplace
ἀγορά
The marketplace is the word’s concrete starting point, giving the purchase its transactional force.
agorazō: To buy or purchase
ἀγοράζω
This verb names the act behind “bought” in the verse.
exagorazō: To buy out or redeem
ἐξαγοράζω
This related compound carries the sense of purchase that brings someone out from under a claim.
δοῦλοι
douloi
GROWS FROM
δουλ-
Bondage or service under another’s claim.
“servants” in this verse is douloi. “Servant” remains the noun, while its word family carries the force of bondage. The verse draws a boundary around belonging: the purchase does not make you subject to human ownership.
ALSO GROWS
douleuō: To serve as a servant
δουλεύω
The verb shows the ongoing condition expressed by the noun.
douleia: Bondage or slavery
δουλεία
This branch exposes the bondage contained in becoming a servant of men.
THE PATTERN
A deliverance that establishes belonging breaks the authority of bondage.
Therefore say to the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the loads of the Egyptians, and I will snatch you from their service, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments.Stand, then, in the freedom for which the Anointed One set us free, and do not be caught again in the yoke of slavery.knowing that you were not loosed with what can be ruined, silver or gold, from your empty walk handed down from your fathers. but with the costly blood of the Anointed One, as of a lamb without blemish and without stain.THE THREAD
For you were bought in the marketplace for a price; so give weight to God in your body, and in your breath, which are God's.The same words for “bought” and “price” appear here. This verse names the body and breath as God’s, making explicit the boundary that 1 Corinthians 7:23 gives against becoming servants of men.
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