Ἀγαπητοί, μὴ παντὶ πνεύματι πιστεύετε (I John 4:1)

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Title:  Beloved, Do Not Trust Every Spirit

The text is, “Ἀγαπητοί, μὴ παντὶ πνεύματι πιστεύετε ἀλλὰ δοκιμάζετε τὰ πνεύματα εἰ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν, ὅτι πολλοὶ ψευδοπροφῆται ἐξεληλύθασιν εἰς τὸν κόσμον”.

Ἀγαπητοί -> masculine, plural, vocative, verbal adjective → beloved

μὴ → negative particle → not

παντὶ -> neuter, singular, dative adjective → every

πνεύματι -> neuter, singular, dative noun → spirit

πιστεύετε -> second person, plural, present, active, imperative verb → do trust

ἀλλὰ -> coordinating adversative conjunction → but

δοκιμάζετε -> second person, plural, present, active, imperative verb → test

τὰ -> neuter, plural, accusative article → the

πνεύματα -> neuter, plural, accusative noun → spirits

εἰ -> subordinating complementary conjunction-> whether

ἐκ -> preposition taking the genitive for its object word → from

τοῦ -> masculine, singular, genitive article → the **NRIEH

θεοῦ -> masculine, singular, genitive noun → GOD

ἐστιν -> third person, singular, present, indicative verb → it is CER* they are

ὅτ -> subordinating, causative conjunction → because

πολλοὶ -> masculine, plural, nominative adjective → many

ψευδοπροφῆται -> masculine, plural, nominative noun → false prophets

ἐξεληλύθασιν -> third person, plural, perfect, indicative verb → have come out

εἰς -> preposition taking the accusative for its object word → into

τὸν -> masculine, singular, accusative article → the

κόσμον -> masculine, singular, accusative noun → world

The meaning of this verse is,

Beloved, do not trust every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are from God, because many false prophets have come out into the world.”

.*CER:  indicates a non-literal, but good translation.  In the  example here, the verb “ἐστιν”, which is singular in number, but the noun “πνεύματα” is in the accusative  case and therefore clearly the direct object of the verb and is plural in number.  Therefore the rendering of the verb “ἐστιν” in this case is in the plural number .  The designation CER is equivalent to “Contextual English Rendering”.

**NRIEH:  For the sake of clarity the word is translated into English, but to avoid such odd constructions as applying a definite article (“the”) to a substantive sufficiently determined by its being a proper noun, or by the use of a qualifier other than the definite article. An example would be the basic translation “Peter said to the Jesus”; the word “the” is completely unnecessary. There are many examples of this in the New Testament. Another example is the use of “doubled negatives” or “negations” in Greek, which are not translated except in the correct English usage.  The designation NRIEH is equivalent to “Not Rendered Into English Here”.

Ἀγαπητοί, μὴ παντὶ πνεύματι πιστεύετε (I John 4:1) by Dennis Glover is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.