What Does Matthew 7:24 Mean in the King James?
Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
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 teaching becomes the ground beneath you when it takes shape in what you do.
THE MEANING
You hear these sayings now, and they take shape in your life through what you do. Doing gives the heard word structure beneath you; the rock image names ground that holds when pressure comes. Wisdom here is a life shaped around what it hears.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief is that hearing or agreeing with the teaching already makes a life secure. This verse locates stability in the teaching put into practice.
THE ROOT
ποιεῖ
poiei
GROWS FROM
ποιέω (poieō); stem ποιε- (poie-)
to do, make, or bring about
“doeth” in this verse is poiei. The Greek word holds doing and making together. Its branches connect action with what takes shape through action: the teaching heard becomes part of the life being made.
ALSO GROWS
poiētēs: A person who does or makes
ποιητής
James uses this word for a doer of the word, showing how hearing becomes visible in action.
poiēma: Something made or formed
ποίημα
This branch links doing with a formed result, opening the image of a life taking shape through what it enacts.
ᾠκοδόμησεν
ōikodomēsen
GROWS FROM
οἰκοδομ-
oikodom-
to build a house or build up
“built” in this verse is ōikodomēsen. This word family names both house-building and building up, holding literal shelter and formed structure together. The verse presents doing as the work that gives the heard word a dwelling able to bear a storm.
ALSO GROWS
oikodomē: A building or the act of building up
οἰκοδομή
The branch carries the house image into the idea of a life or community being built up.
oikodomos: One who builds a house
οἰκοδόμος
The builder branch keeps the focus on active construction: the hearer gives the teaching a lived structure.
THE PATTERN
A life takes durable shape when wisdom is practiced and its foundation is sound.
Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established:He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock.But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.THE THREAD
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.Matthew’s “doeth” is ποιεῖ (poiei), from ποιέω (poieō, “do, make”); Ephesians calls the reader God’s ποίημα (poiēma, “workmanship”), from the same word family. The shared root holds action and formed work together, opening Matthew’s building image as a life whose shape emerges in what it does.
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