What Does 1 Corinthians 15:31 Mean in the King James?

I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

1 Corinthians 15:31 · KJV

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 Greek verb is present tense: dying recurs day after day, held in the same life as rejoicing in Christ.

THE MEANING

The verse holds rejoicing in Christ together with dying day after day. Your joy does not make death’s nearness unreal; within this chapter, death is faced with resurrection still in view.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that joy in Christ means daily life is untouched by death.

THE ROOT

ἀποθνῄσκω

apothnēskō

GROWS FROM

⁨θαν-⁩/⁨θνῃσκ-⁩

The alternating stems than-/thnēsk- mean to die, to cease living.

Here “die” carries the force of actual mortality as a recurring reality: the Greek verb is present, and “daily” makes its repetition explicit. Its word family also names death and the mortal condition, while the chapter’s resurrection hope holds that reality open.

ALSO GROWS

thanatos: death

θάνατος

This word carries the ⁨θαν-⁩ stem of the same death family, making the verse’s repeated dying concrete.

thnētos: mortal, subject to death

θνητός

This related form names the condition behind daily dying: human life remains mortal even as it is held in resurrection hope.

καύχησις

kauchēsis

GROWS FROM

καυχ-

The stem kauch- carries the sense of boasting, exulting, or taking pride in something.

“rejoicing” in this verse is kauchēsis. The Greek word can carry the sense of a shared boast or ground of confidence beneath the gladness. The verse places that Christ-centered confidence beside the repeated reality of dying.

ALSO GROWS

kauchaomai: to boast, exult, or glory

καυχάομαι

This verb shares the ⁨καυχ-⁩ stem and shows that the rejoicing can be voiced as confidence in its ground.

kauchema: a boast or ground of boasting

καύχημα

This noun shares the same stem and brings out what the rejoicing rests on: Christ.

THE PATTERN

Scripture places death inside a movement toward life without pretending death is absent.

And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

Daniel 12:2 · KJVThose who sleep in the dust awake, placing death within a promise of rising.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

John 12:24 · KJVThe seed’s dying precedes the fruit it bears, so death does not exhaust what the seed carries.

Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

2 Corinthians 4:10 · KJVThe verse holds dying and life together in the body, without asking the reader to deny either.

THE THREAD

Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:

1 Corinthians 15:36 · KJV

The same Greek death verb appears again in the seed image: here the seed must die before it is made alive. That echo places daily dying within the chapter’s resurrection argument, where death is real and not the final word.

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