What Does Luke 6:40 Mean?
A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully mended will be like his teacher.
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
The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master.THE KEY
Here, perfection is the completion of formation: the learner bearing the teacher’s shape.
THE MEANING
You are being formed through what you learn, and maturity takes the shape of the one who teaches you. The word translated “perfect” also carries the sense of being fitted, equipped, or restored into readiness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse dissolves the belief that being fully formed means standing above the one who formed you; here, maturity is measured by resemblance.
THE ROOT
κατηρτισμένος
katērtismenos
GROWS FROM
καταρτίζω
katartizō
fit together, mend, restore, or equip
“fully mended” in this verse is katērtismenos. The word translated “perfect” describes someone fitted or equipped. Its word family also describes mending nets, giving maturity the texture of something restored and made ready for its purpose; here, the learner becomes like the teacher through that formation.
ALSO GROWS
katartizō: mend, restore, or fit together
καταρτίζω
The same verb family describes restoration, illuminating “perfect” as a state of being made ready and whole.
katartismos: equipping or preparation
καταρτισμός
This related noun names the work of equipping, showing the formative process within the learner’s maturity.
μαθητής
mathētēs
GROWS FROM
μανθάνω
manthanō
learn
A disciple is, at root, a learner. The word places the person inside an ongoing relationship with teaching, where maturity grows through being formed by what is learned.
ALSO GROWS
manthanō: learn or come to understand
μανθάνω
This verb makes learning the core of the disciple’s identity in the verse.
mathēteuō: make a disciple or train as a learner
μαθητεύω
The related verb shows that discipleship is a formative process, not merely a title.
THE PATTERN
Formation reaches its fullness as the learner comes to resemble the one who teaches.
Speak to all the assembly of the children of Israel, and say to them, You shall be set apart, for I, the LORD your God, am set apart.But we all, with uncovered faces, mirror the weight of the LORD, and are being reshaped into the same image, ever increasing in weight, even as from the breath of the LORD.The one who says he remains in him ought himself also to walk, just as that one walked.THE THREAD
Brothers, even if a person is caught in a stumble, you who are of the breath, mend such a one in the breath of gentleness, watching yourself, lest you also be tested.“Restore” comes from the same Greek verb family as “perfect” in Luke 6:40: καταρτίζω (katartizō), to fit, mend, or restore. The shared root reveals maturity as a work of restoration and formation, bringing the learner into the teacher’s likeness.
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