What Does 1 Corinthians 14:20 Mean in the King James?
Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse divides childlikeness by domain: your mind matures, while your experience of evil stays infant-small.
THE MEANING
Your thinking is capable of maturity and discernment; your relation to malice stays infant-like, without practiced skill in harm. Here growth means clearer judgment without becoming fluent in evil.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that maturity requires becoming worldly or skilled at harm: in this verse, mature thinking and inexperience in evil belong together.
THE ROOT
φρεσίν
phresin
GROWS FROM
φρην / φρεν- (phrēn / phren-)
Mind, thought, or the faculty of understanding.
“understanding” in this verse is phresin. The same Greek word for the thinking faculty appears in both halves of the verse. The contrast is not between thinking and innocence: the mind grows toward maturity while childlikeness is kept specifically in relation to malice.
ALSO GROWS
phroneō: Think, set one’s mind on.
φρονέω
This related verb makes clear that the verse concerns the quality and direction of thought, not simply knowing facts.
phronēsis: Practical wisdom, understanding.
φρόνησις
This branch shows how the thinking faculty can become exercised wisdom.
phronimos: Wise, sensible.
φρόνιμος
It names the discernment that mature thinking can express.
νηπιάζετε
nēpiazete
GROWS FROM
νηπι-
nēpi-
Infancy or the state of being an infant; νηπιάζω means to be infant-like.
The KJV uses “children” in both halves, but the Greek shifts words: the first is παιδία (paidia), children, while the second is νηπιάζετε (nēpiazete), be infant-like. That shift makes the contrast sharper: maturity belongs to thought, while malice is where experience stays small.
ALSO GROWS
nēpios: Infant, young child.
νήπιος
This is the noun behind the verb used for remaining childlike in malice.
nēpiotēs: Infancy, childishness.
νηπιότης
The related noun shows the state of immaturity that the verse preserves only with regard to evil.
τέλειοι
teleioi
GROWS FROM
τελ- (tel-; expanded stem τελει-)
τέλος (telos): an end, goal, or completion; τέλειος describes what is complete or mature.
The Greek word translated “be men” means mature or complete, not male. It names growth toward fullness of judgment, setting that maturity beside an infant-like stance toward malice.
ALSO GROWS
teleioō: Bring to completion, fulfill, make mature.
τελειόω
This verb shows the movement toward completion implied by the verse’s call to maturity.
teleiotēs: Maturity, completeness.
τελειότης
This noun names the state the verse describes with τέλειοι.
THE PATTERN
Maturity grows in discernment while remaining inexperienced in evil.
Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.THE THREAD
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.The Greek child-word νηπιάζω (nēpiazō, be infant-like) in 14:20 shares its word-family with νήπιος (nēpios, child) here. This verse pictures childhood thinking as something outgrown; 14:20 preserves childlikeness only toward malice, while thought becomes mature.
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