What Does Luke 13:6 Mean?
He also told this parable. A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none.
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
He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none.THE KEY
Being planted in a vineyard does not make fruit appear; the search exposes the gap between a life’s setting and its yield.
THE MEANING
You may be surrounded by conditions for growth, and yet the fruit being sought is absent. The verse holds the difference between being planted and bearing what your life can produce, with the absence stated plainly.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being placed in a good setting means the fruit is already there.
THE ROOT
καρπός
karpos
GROWS FROM
καρπ-
fruit; produce; yield
English “fruit” can sound like a thing the tree possesses, but καρπός names the yield, what growth brings into view. Its word family can name both bearing fruit and being fruitless, so the same root frames either the emergence or absence of what a living thing produces.
ALSO GROWS
karpophoreō: to bear fruit; to produce
καρποφορέω
The noun’s root becomes a verb for bearing, shifting attention from where the tree stands to what it brings forth.
akarpos: fruitless; unfruitful
ἄκαρπος
The negative form adds ἀ- to the same καρπ- root, giving Greek a direct word for the absence the man finds.
THE PATTERN
A living thing’s planting is not its fruit; its life is known by what it brings forth.
And he becomes like a tree planted by the channels of the waters, that gives its fruit in its season; its leaf does not wither; whatever he does, he breaks through.I am the vine, and you are the branches. The one who remains in me, and I in him, this one bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.But the fruit of the breath is love, joy, wholeness, slowness to heat, kindness, goodness, trust,THE THREAD
But those on the good soil are the ones who, in a noble and good heart, having heard the word, hold it fast, and bring forth fruit by remaining beneath the weight.Luke 8:15 uses the same Greek word καρπός (karpos, fruit) and joins fruit-bearing with patience. It opens the image further: fruit is visible yield, and its emergence can unfold over time.
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