What Does Luke 8:14 Mean?
Those who fell among the thorns are the ones who hear, and as they go on their way, they are choked by cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to ripeness.
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 that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.THE KEY
The word is heard, yet divided concerns crowd around its fruit before it can reach maturity.
THE MEANING
The word reaches you, and growth begins; then cares, riches, and pleasures pull at your attention until the fruit is choked before it matures. Hearing is real, but hearing alone does not carry that fruit to completion.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the assumption that hearing the word guarantees mature fruit regardless of what occupies your attention.
THE ROOT
μερίμναις
merimnais
GROWS FROM
μερίζω
merizō
To divide or apportion; the Greek word for cares is traditionally connected with this root.
The word-family carries the sense of being divided among concerns. Here, cares join riches and pleasures as competing claims on the one who has heard, crowding the fruit before it reaches maturity.
ALSO GROWS
merizō: To divide or apportion.
μερίζω
This root makes visible how competing concerns can divide a person’s attention.
meros: A part or share.
μέρος
Each concern can claim its share, leaving the word’s fruit crowded by divided attention.
merismos: A division or distribution.
μερισμός
This related word echoes the division that the verse depicts as the seed’s fruit is choked.
THE PATTERN
Fruit matures where life remains nourished and competing pressures do not choke its growth.
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.For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, stretching out his roots beside the flowing stream; he shall not see when heat comes, but his leaf shall be green; he shall not fret in the year of drought, and he shall never move away from bearing fruit.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.THE THREAD
And Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are divided and stirred into an uproar about many things.The word translated “careful” belongs to the same Greek word-family as the “cares” that choke the seed here. Martha’s many concerns make the divided pull explicit, showing how the thorny ground can operate in an ordinary day.
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