What Does Acts 18:15 Mean?
But if it is a question of words and names and of your instruction, see to it yourselves, for I will not be a judge of such matters.
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 if it be a question of words and names, and of your law, look ye to it; for I will be no judge of such matters.THE KEY
The speaker’s refusal to judge the dispute leaves its truth undecided; it marks a boundary of authority, not a verdict.
THE MEANING
The charge rests on words, names, and instruction; the speaker identifies these as matters he will not judge. He sends the disputants back to the question itself, leaving the accusation unresolved. Declining jurisdiction does not tell either side that it is right.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A refusal to judge is not an acquittal: the speaker withholds judgment without confirming either the accusation or the defense.
THE ROOT
κριτής
kritēs
GROWS FROM
κριν-
krin-
To separate or distinguish, and thus to decide or judge.
“judge” in this verse is kritēs. A κριτής is one who renders a decision, not merely someone with an opinion. The speaker’s refusal marks a boundary around his judgment; it clears neither side.
ALSO GROWS
krinō: To distinguish, decide, or judge.
κρίνω
It names the act the speaker declines to perform in this matter.
krisis: Judgment or decision.
κρίσις
It names the judgment that remains unmade when the speaker refuses the role.
λόγου
logou
GROWS FROM
λεγ-/λογ- (leg-/log-)
To say or tell; λόγος also means an account, matter, or reason.
The Greek word can name the substance being put forward, not only spoken words. The dispute concerns an account or claim, giving “question of words” a wider reach than a quarrel over vocabulary.
ALSO GROWS
logizomai: To reckon or account.
λογίζομαι
It carries the same account-making sense into the act of weighing something.
logismos: Reasoning, calculation, or an account.
λογισμός
It shows how λόγος belongs to the substance and reasoning of a claim, not merely its sound.
ὀνομάτων
onomatōn
GROWS FROM
ὀνοματ-
onomat-
A name or designation that can carry the identity and nature of what is named.
A name is part of the claim, not decoration: what something is called bears on what is being said about its nature. By naming names alongside words and instruction, the verse includes contested identity among the matters the speaker will not decide.
ALSO GROWS
onomazō: To name or designate.
ὀνομάζω
It makes explicit that naming is an act of identifying what something is.
onomastos: Named or renowned.
ὀνομαστός
It shows a name carrying the identity by which someone or something is known.
THE PATTERN
An authority can name the limits of its role without deciding the underlying claim.
If a word is beyond your reach in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, words of dispute within your gates, then you shall rise and go up to the place which the LORD your God shall choose.And he said to him, Man, who set me as a judge or a divider over you?Does any of you, holding a deed against another, dare to be judged before the unaligned and not before the set-apart ones?THE THREAD
But set apart the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you for a word about the hope within you, with gentleness and fear.Acts uses λόγου (logou), a form of λόγος (logos); 1 Peter uses that same word for “reason.” In both verses, logos can name the account or substance being put forward, deepening “question of words” into a question about what the claim means.
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