What Does 1 Corinthians 9:12 Mean?
If others share this right over you, are we not even more so? Yet we have not used this right, but bear all things, lest we block the good news of the Anointed One.
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
If others be partakers of this power over you, are not we rather? Nevertheless we have not used this power; but suffer all things, lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ.THE KEY
The word for hindering pictures cutting into a path: the speaker leaves a legitimate right unused so the gospel can pass unblocked.
THE MEANING
A right can be real without being exercised. Here, the speaker bears all things so that claiming support does not become an obstacle to the gospel of Christ; the restraint is chosen, and its cost is explicit.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that having a right means you must use it, or that leaving it unused means it was never yours.
THE ROOT
ἐγκόψωμεν
enkopsōmen
GROWS FROM
κόπτω
koptō
To cut or strike; in this word family, cutting into a course can impede it.
“block” in this verse is enkopsōmen. The image beneath “hinder” is an interruption cut into a path. The speaker refuses to make the gospel’s way harder to travel, even while bearing the cost of leaving his right unused.
ALSO GROWS
enkoptō: To hinder or impede; to cut into or interrupt a course.
ἐγκόπτω
This is the verb family of the word translated “hinder” here: an obstacle is made by cutting into the way forward.
ekkoptō: To cut off or cut down.
ἐκκόπτω
It carries the same cutting image, showing how this root family describes stopping movement by cutting into or severing its course.
THE PATTERN
A legitimate claim can be relinquished when exercising it would obstruct another good.
That I will not take from a thread even to a sandal strap, and that I will not take anything of yours, lest you say, I have made Abram rich.Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will eat no flesh while the age stands, lest I make my brother stumble.Not that we lack the right, but so that we might give ourselves to you as an imprint, for you to imitate us.THE THREAD
For we wished to come to you, I, Paul, once and twice, but the Adversary cut across our way.“Hindered” here is from the same Greek verb family as the word translated “hinder” in 1 Corinthians 9:12. In both verses, the image is a path interrupted; one shows restraint that keeps the gospel’s way open, the other an obstruction to reaching people.
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