StrongerBible

diakrisis

διάκρισις

GreekG1253“discernment, distinguishing, ...”

Appears 3 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Rom 14:11Co 12:10Heb 5:14
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradedee-AK-ree-sisnoun

What diakrisis means

1

discernment: the trained ability to tell things apart and judge their true character

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

At its core this word names an act of sorting: taking things that look alike and telling which is which. In the New Testament that sorting is always evaluative and skilled, not a passive hunch. It is the settled capacity of a mature person to separate good from evil, or the God-given ability in a gathering to tell a genuine spiritual influence from a false or merely human one.

The two New Testament uses in this sense share that core but aim it at different objects. In Hebrews the object is moral: a grown believer, through long practice, can distinguish what is good from what is harmful the way a trained palate tells foods apart. In First Corinthians the object is the source and worth of what claims to be Spirit-prompted speech in the assembly. Scholars still debate exactly what that gift weighs (see the note on that verse), but the underlying idea is the same evaluative act.

The common English word "discern" can suggest a vague intuition. The Greek is more active and disciplined than that: a worked-at skill of judging, closer to practical wisdom than to a spiritual feeling.

Nuances

1athe settled moral discernment of a mature person, able to tell good from evil
Heb 5:14
1bthe Spirit-given ability, exercised in the gathered church, to tell a genuine spiritual influence from a false or merely human one
CertaintyContested
1Co 12:10
1Co 12:10

What the gift called "distinguishing of spirits" in 1 Corinthians 12:10 actually evaluates.

  • majorityThe origin of an utterance: whether a pneumatic utterance comes from God, from a demonic spirit, or from a merely human source. The closest conceptual parallel is 1 John 4:1, and the background is the Qumran Two Spirits treatise.; Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT, rev. 2014), 596-97; Hans Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians (Hermeneia, 1975), 209-10; Christopher Forbes, Prophecy and Inspired Speech in Early Christianity (WUNT 2/75, 1995), 218-29
  • minorityThe content of prophetic utterances, weighed for truth; the "spirits" are the prophets' inspired utterances themselves, closely tied to the cognate verb in 1 Corinthians 14:29 and to 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21.; Wayne A. Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in 1 Corinthians (1982); D. A. Carson, Showing the Spirit (1987), 93-100
  • minorityThe interpretation of symbolic Spirit-revelations, a decoding gift standing to prophecy as interpretation of tongues stands to tongues, on the analogy of dream-interpretation in Jewish tradition. Largely rejected in English-language scholarship after Grudem's critique.; Gerhard Dautzenberg, Urchristliche Prophetie (BWANT 104, 1975), 122-48
2

quarreling: wrangling that breaks out over differing opinions

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintyContested

The same word had a second, quite different life in everyday Greek, where it could name a decision reached by conflict and, from there, a dispute or quarrel. This is the sense most translators give to its one appearance in Romans, where Paul tells a divided church to welcome one another and not turn that welcome into an argument over contested matters like food and holy days.

This meaning rests on a single verse, and its reading there is genuinely debated (see the note and the recorded dispute on that verse): a strong minority takes the word in its usual "discernment" sense instead, as passing judgment on a weaker believer's private scruples. The two readings end in a similar place pastorally, since critical judging quickly turns into open dispute, but they are not the same idea, which is why this is treated as a distinct meaning of the word.

Rom 14:1
Rom 14:1

Whether Romans 14:1 warns against verbal quarrels over disputed matters or against passing inward judgment on the scruples of the weaker believer.

  • majorityVerbal quarrels or disputes over opinions: welcome the weaker believer, but not in order to argue over contested matters such as foods and holy days. This is the modern lexical consensus.; BDAG, 3rd ed. (2000), s.v. διάκρισις, p. 231; Robert Jewett, Romans (Hermeneia, 2007), 834-43; Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT, 1996), 826-30
  • minorityPassing judgment on the inner reasonings of the weak: the noun keeps the "discernment/evaluation" sense it carries elsewhere in the New Testament, so the warning is against a welcome that turns into forensic mental judgment of another's scruples.; C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans (ICC, vol. 2, 1979), 697-710; W. Sanday and A. C. Headlam, Romans (ICC, 1895), ad loc.

What scholars say about diakrisis

The lexica converge on a small sense-tree but distribute the three NT occurrences differently, and that distribution is the interpretive debate in miniature. LSJ organizes the entry around physical separation (opposed to synkrisis, from Empedocles and Plato onward), decision/determination, and quarrel/dispute, placing Heb 5:14 and 1 Cor 12:10 under the ethical/evaluative branch and Rom 14:1 metaphorically under "decision." BDAG (3rd ed., 231) collapses the NT-relevant range to two senses: the ability to distinguish and evaluate (1 Cor 12:10; Heb 5:14) and engagement in verbal conflict, i.e. quarrel (Rom 14:1); Louw-Nida encode the same split across domains 30 (Think) and 33 (Communication). TDNT III.949-51 (Buchsel) traces the secular tree of separation, decision, and dispute. Moulton-Milligan and Spicq stress the papyri, where the dominant Koine sense is administrative audit or verification of accounts. Hebrews 5:14 is the least contested: essentially uniform agreement that it means a trained ethical-intellectual capacity, close to Aristotelian-Stoic phronesis, with the Hellenistic backdrop (hexis, aistheteria, gymnazo) documented by Attridge (Hermeneia), deSilva, and L. T. Johnson, and J. A. L. Lee (NovT 39 [1997]: 151-76) correcting hexis to a settled state rather than "practice." 1 Cor 12:10 divides scholars into three camps: discerning the origin of an utterance (divine, demonic, or human), the dominant Anglophone reading (Fee, Conzelmann, Forbes, Turner); weighing prophetic content, tied to 1 Cor 14:29 (Grudem, Carson, Dunn); and Dautzenberg's interpretation-of-revelations thesis (BZ 15 [1971]), largely rejected in English-language work after Grudem's response; Thiselton offers a synthetic reading of a Spirit-formed habituated discernment. Rom 14:1 divides commentators between "quarrels over opinions" (the modern majority: Jewett, Moo, Schreiner, Dunn, following BDAG) and "passing judgment on the weak's inner scruples" (Cranfield, Sanday-Headlam, Denney, keeping the word semantically continuous with Paul's other uses). Spitaler (NovT 49 [2007]: 1-39) argues that the middle-voice "doubt/waver" sense of the cognate verb diakrinomai is a Latin-driven modern fiction, sharpening the family's center of gravity toward discrimination and dispute.

In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDAG, 3rd ed. (2000), s.v. διάκρισις, p. 231lexicon
  • LSJ, s.v. διάκρισιςlexicon
  • F. Büchsel, TDNT III.949-51, s.v. διακρίνω, διάκρισιςdictionary
  • Louw-Nida, Greek-English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domains, 30.108; 33.412lexicon
  • Harold W. Attridge, Hebrews (Hermeneia, 1989), 158-61commentary
  • Paul Ellingworth, The Epistle to the Hebrews (NIGTC, 1993), 305-08commentary
  • J. A. L. Lee, "Hebrews 5:14 and Ἕξις: A History of Misunderstanding," NovT 39 (1997): 151-76article
  • Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT, rev. 2014), 596-97commentary
  • Wayne A. Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in 1 Corinthians (1982)monograph
  • Gerhard Dautzenberg, Urchristliche Prophetie (BWANT 104, 1975), 122-48monograph
  • Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC, 2000), 964-70commentary
  • Robert Jewett, Romans (Hermeneia, 2007), 834-43commentary
  • C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans (ICC, vol. 2, 1979), 697-710commentary
  • Peter Spitaler, "Διακρίνεσθαι in Mt. 21:21 ... the 'Semantic Shift' That Went Unnoticed," NovT 49 (2007): 1-39article

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of διάκρισις

accusative f p

διακρίσεις

Rom 14:1

accusative f s

διάκρισιν

Heb 5:14

nominative f p

διακρίσεις

1Co 12:10