What Does 1 Corinthians 9:15 Mean?
But I have used none of these rights, and I have not written these things so that it might become so in me, for it would be better for me to die than that anyone should empty my boast.
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
But I have used none of these things: neither have I written these things, that it should be so done unto me: for it were better for me to die, than that any man should make my glorying void.THE KEY
The boast he will not let anyone empty is that the gospel can reach you without a price attached.
THE MEANING
The verse holds a right and its release together: the speaker can receive support, yet chooses not to claim it. That choice keeps the message arriving as a gift, not a bill. His boast is this freedom, and he would rather die than have anyone empty it into a transaction.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that having a right means exercising it, or that a gift loses its force when its giver declines repayment.
THE ROOT
καύχημά
kaúchēma
GROWS FROM
καυχ-
kauch-
Boast, exult, or take pride in something.
English “glorying” can sound like private self-congratulation, but καύχημα names what a person boasts in or can claim as grounds for pride. Here, the boast is the freedom to give the message without charge.
ALSO GROWS
kaucháomai: To boast or exult.
καυχάομαι
The verb names the act behind the “glorying”: taking pride in what one can claim.
kaúchēsis: Boasting or the act of boasting.
καύχησις
This related noun shows the same family can name the boast as an action, while καύχημα can name what the boast rests on.
κενώσει
kenōsei
GROWS FROM
κεν-
ken-
Empty; make empty.
“empty” in this verse is kenōsei. The Greek verb pictures emptying: anyone could drain the boast of its substance. “Void” here carries the sense of an emptied claim, not merely one that is challenged.
ALSO GROWS
kenós: Empty, without content; also vain or ineffective.
κενός
The adjective makes visible the emptiness that the verb warns could happen to the boast.
kenóō: To empty or make empty; in Philippians 2:7, ἐκένωσεν (ekénōsen) is rendered “made himself of no reputation.”
κενόω
This same verb family links the verse’s “void” with the language of being emptied.
THE PATTERN
A gift remains open to all when receiving it carries no price.
Ho, every one who thirsts, come to the waters, and whoever has no silver, come, break open and eat. Yes, come, break open wine and milk, without silver and without price.Heal the weak, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. As a gift you received, as a gift give.For you remember, brothers, our toil and our strain, working night and day so that we would not lay a weight on any of you, and we heralded to you the good news of God.THE THREAD
For the Anointed One did not send me out to immerse, but to bring good news, not with the wisdom of the word, so that the cross of the Anointed One would not be emptied.“Made of none effect” translates the same Greek verb family as “make void” here: κενόω (kenóō), to empty. In one verse the cross can be emptied by the manner of preaching; in the other, the boast can be emptied if the message becomes a transaction.
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