Luke 6:46 asks why people address Jesus as “Lord” while refusing to do what he tells them. Jesus is confronting the gap between confessing him with words and living under his teaching. He speaks these words to the crowd gathered around him on the plain, in the middle of his sermon, right after describing how a tree is known by its fruit.
“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do the things which I say?
Luke 6:46 (WEB)
What Luke 6:46 Means
The question opens with “Why do you call me,” which assumes the listeners are already speaking to Jesus with respect. The title “Lord” is the word they use, and Jesus does not dispute it. What he questions is the mismatch: the name is used often, but the commands go unheeded. The repetition of “Lord, Lord” suggests a rehearsed or emotional form of address that costs the speaker nothing in practice.
The second half, “don’t do the things which I say,” shifts the focus from speech to action. Jesus is not describing people who never hear him. He is describing people who hear and nod along but do not change how they live. The verse does not promise that every believer will perfectly obey, and it does not say that a single failure disqualifies anyone. It exposes a pattern of calling Jesus Lord in name while keeping authority over one’s own life.
The Context of Luke 6:46
Luke wrote this Gospel to a Gentile audience, possibly a man named Theophilus, and he presents Jesus as the compassionate Savior who teaches with authority and welcomes outsiders. Luke’s Sermon on the Plain is his shorter parallel to Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, and it includes teaching on love for enemies, mercy, and judging others before this passage.
Verse 46 sits within a short unit about fruit and foundations. Verses 43 to 45 say that character shows itself in what a person produces. Verses 47 to 49 then tell the parable of two house builders, one who digs deep and builds on rock, and one who builds on bare ground. Read this way, the question in verse 46 is the hinge: the one who calls Jesus Lord and the one who hears and obeys are the two builders, and only the second has a foundation that holds in a storm.
Key Phrases in Luke 6:46
John 14:15
If you love me, keep my commandments.
(WEB)
Jesus links love for him directly to keeping his commands. The verse makes the same point as Luke 6:46 from the other side, showing that obedience is the natural expression of a real relationship with Christ rather than a burden added to it.
Matthew 7:21
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
(WEB)
This parallel passage in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount warns that calling Jesus Lord does not by itself gain entrance into the kingdom. Reading it alongside Luke 6:46 confirms that the concern is with doing the Father’s will, not with the correctness of the title used.
A Short Prayer From Luke 6:46
Lord, I have said your name many times, and some of those words were true. But I also know the places where I have kept your teaching at arm’s length, where I say I trust you yet hold on to my own plans. Show me the gap between my words and my actions, and give me the courage to close it. Help me hear what you have said and do it today, in small ways and large, so that my life matches the name I speak. Amen.
