Bible Strands
Luke 18:21
“All these I have kept from my youth,” he said.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The young ruler addresses Jesus after reciting the moral commandments in Luke 18:20 and immediately before Jesus commands him to liquidate his assets in Luke 18:22.
The words — The speaker asserts “ταῦτα πᾶντα” (tauta panta, “all these”) and “ἐφύλαξα” (ephulaxa, “I kept”) from “νεότητος” (neotētos, “youth”), marking a continuous, personal preservation of the law since adolescence.
The thread — The identical claim surfaces in Matthew 19:20 and Mark 10:20, while Philippians 3:6 parallels his self-reported legal righteousness with Paul’s later reckoning of it as loss.
Why it lands — The text records a man’s confident inventory of moral compliance before Jesus exposes the idolatry his wealth reveals, demanding the reader examine what he trusts to keep him righteous.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up.
Cross-references
- Philippians 3:6 as to zeal, persecuting the church; as to righteousness in the law, faultless.
- Matthew 19:20 “All these I have kept,” said the young man. “What do I still lack?”
- Mark 10:20 “Teacher,” he replied, “all these I have kept from my youth.”
- Luke 18:11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—swindlers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.
- Luke 15:7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous ones who do not need to repent.
- Luke 15:29 But he answered his father, ‘Look, all these years I have served you and never disobeyed a commandment of yours. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.
- Romans 10:2 For I testify about them that they are zealous for God, but not on the basis of knowledge.