What Does Acts 18:11 Mean?
And he sat there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.
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
And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.THE KEY
The Greek verb behind “continued” pictures taking a settled place, so the word is taught from within a community rather than delivered in passing.
THE MEANING
God’s word is taught among people through a presence that lasts. The verse holds the message and its transmission together: what is spoken is given room to be heard over time.
THE ROOT
λόγον
logon
GROWS FROM
λογ-
log-
speech, saying, or account
The word translated “word” belongs to a family that also speaks of sayings and reckoning. Here it is not a stray utterance: it is a coherent message being taught among people.
ALSO GROWS
logion: saying, oracle
λόγιον
This branch links the word-family to a spoken message or declaration.
logizomai: reckon, account, consider
λογίζομαι
The shared family also carries the sense of content that can be considered or accounted for, not merely heard as sound.
ἐκάθισεν
ekathisen
GROWS FROM
καθιζ-
kathiz-
to sit down, settle
“sat” in this verse is ekathisen. The verb rendered “continued” carries the picture of sitting or settling in a place. That gives the teaching a setting of durable presence: the message is shared from among the people over time.
ALSO GROWS
kathisma: seat, place to sit
κάθισμα
The related noun makes the verb’s settled, seated image concrete.
kathisis: sitting, sitting down
κάθισις
This names the act behind the settled presence expressed by the verse’s verb.
διδάσκων
didaskōn
GROWS FROM
διδακ-
didak-
to teach or instruct
The verse pairs the word itself with the act of teaching it. The same family names both instruction and what is taught, showing the message as something passed among people, not left as an isolated saying.
ALSO GROWS
didachē: teaching, instruction
διδαχή
This noun names the instruction carried out by the teaching in the verse.
didaktos: taught, instructed
διδακτός
This branch describes what teaching makes possible: people who have received instruction.
THE PATTERN
The word is carried among people through sustained teaching and shared life.
And you shall sharpen them to your children, and speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.And they held fast in the teaching of the sent ones, and in sharing in common, and in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.Let the word of the Anointed One settle in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, in plucked songs, in hymns, and in songs of breath, singing with favor in your hearts to God.THE THREAD
Now the parable is this. The seed is the word of God.Both verses use λόγος (logos), translated “word.” Luke names the word as seed; Acts shows it being taught among people over a settled span, revealing the word’s sharing as part of its growth among a community.
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