What Does Luke 14:27 Mean?
And whoever does not bear his cross and comes behind me, cannot be my learner.
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 whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.THE KEY
Jesus makes being his learner inseparable from coming after him while carrying the cross, the instrument of execution.
THE MEANING
This verse confronts the reader with a hard condition: carrying one’s cross and coming after Jesus belong together in being his disciple. The cross is an execution instrument, so the path named here holds the threat of death. Jesus says that without this carrying and following, a person cannot be his disciple.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the idea that admiration or agreement alone makes someone Jesus’ disciple: the verse names carrying the cross and coming after him as necessary.
THE ROOT
σταυρόν
stauron
GROWS FROM
σταυρ-
staur-
Cross; an instrument of execution.
The noun σταυρός (stauros, cross) and verb σταυρόω (stauroō, crucify) share the same stem: one names the instrument, the other the act done with it. The word keeps the threat of crucifixion inside the image of what the disciple carries.
ALSO GROWS
stauros: cross
σταυρός
The noun names what the verse says the disciple carries.
stauroō: crucify
σταυρόω
The related verb names the act associated with the cross, holding the verse’s image to its executional force.
βαστάζει
bastazei
GROWS FROM
βασταζ-
bastaz-
Carry, lift, bear.
“bear” in this verse is bastazei. The verb βαστάζει (bastazei, carries) can name the concrete act of lifting and carrying. John 19:17 uses the same verb for Jesus bearing his cross, and Galatians 6:2 uses it for carrying one another’s burdens, keeping the image weighted and embodied.
ALSO GROWS
bastazōn: carrying
βαστάζων
John 19:17 uses this form of the same verb as it describes Jesus carrying his cross.
bastazete: carry
βαστάζετε
Galatians 6:2 uses this form for carrying one another’s burdens, showing the verb’s concrete sense of bearing weight.
μαθητής
mathētēs
GROWS FROM
μανθαν- / μαθη- (manthan- / mathē-)
Learn.
The word μαθητής (mathētēs, learner or disciple) belongs to the family of μανθάνω (manthanō, learn). The verse presents discipleship as a learner’s following of Jesus, a relation that includes carrying the cross.
ALSO GROWS
manthanō: learn
μανθάνω
This verb makes the learner sense within μαθητής visible.
mathēteuō: make disciples; be a disciple
μαθητεύω
This related verb shows the same word family describing the formation of disciples.
THE PATTERN
Scripture pictures a faithful path through suffering by saying that its weight is borne.
Indeed, for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.And he said to them all, If anyone wants to come after me, let them say no to themselves, and lift up their cross day by day, and follow me.So let us go out to him, outside the camp, bearing his insult.THE THREAD
And carrying his cross, he went out to the place called the place of a skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha.The same verb βαστάζω (bastazō, carry or bear) describes Jesus carrying his cross. John holds the image close to its bodily reality: the cross is an execution instrument carried on the way to Golgotha.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us