Today, I am reading and commenting on John 17-18.

I am going to start off with the end of the passage where Jesus told Pilate that the reason He was born and came into the world was to testify to the truth and that everyone who is of the truth listens to Him.  Pilate replied by asking, “What is truth?” indicating that he did not believe there was such a thing as truth.  Now I want to go back to the beginning of today’s passage where Jesus prayed for His disciples, and for those who believed in Him because of what His disciples said about Him.  As I write about this, keep in mind that exchange between Jesus and Pilate.  In His prayer, Jesus asks the Father to sanctify those He gave to Him out of the world by the truth.  He also says that glory has come to Him through them (let us strive to live our lives so that glory may come to Jesus through us).   He then says that He has given us the glory that the Father had given Him so that we may be one, just as He and the Father are one.  He continues to speak in that prayer how those who believe in Him and have accepted the words He spoke were in the world, but not of the world.  He reminds us that the world hates us because we have accepted the truth which He spoke.  Jesus does not ask the Father to take us out of the world, but to protect us from the Evil One.  Note that Jesus does not ask the Father to protect us from the world, but from the Evil One, the one who wishes to deny that truth even exists.  Which brings me back to that exchange between Jesus and Pilate.  Pilate represents the parts of the world which want to pretend that they do not hate God, but, in order to reject His word, claims that truth isn’t really a thing.  We on the other hand are called to be one with each other and with Jesus and therefore to testify to the truth.  The Evil One will try to convince us that truth is not really a thing and that each of us can have our own truth.  The Truth is Jesus Christ, as He said in yesterday’s passage.  As we believe in Him and testify about Him, we will come to recognize other truths, truths which will point people towards Him.

Jesus Christ is The Truth.  If we believe in Him, we will understand that all other truth derives from Him, and that as we acknowledge those small “t” truths they will point us to Him.   The world seeks to deny small ‘t” truths because the Evil One knows that as people acknowledge those truths they will be brought to the One who is the capital “T” Truth.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

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Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 17-18.

I want to write about Jesus praying for His disciples, and for those who would believe because of the testimony of His disciples (which includes us).  However, I am not quite sure how to say what I want to write.  So, I am just going to start writing and pray that the Spirit brings it together.  Jesus says that the Father took His disciples (and those who believe in Him through their message*) out of the world and gave them to Him.   They accepted the words which Jesus spoke and thus gave glory to Jesus.  Jesus prayed that God would protect His disciples because the world would hate them.  Interestingly, He says that the protection God would give His disciples would make them one (or, perhaps, should unify them).  He goes on to say that He made God the Father known to His disciples, and that He would continue to do so.  In the middle of this prayer, Jesus asked God to make His disciples saintly by the truth, and that God’s word is the truth.  The translators note says that could alternatively be translated as saying that Jesus asked God to make His disciples saintly in order to live according to the truth.  Which brings me to what Jesus said when He was before Pilate, and Pilate’s response to Him.  Jesus told Pilate that He came into this world to testify to the truth, and that everyone who was on the side of truth listens to Him.  To which Pilate replied, “What is truth?”  By saying that Pilate implied that he did not believe there was such a thing as truth.  Pilate’s lack of belief that there was such a thing as truth led him to give into the crowd and order Jesus’ crucifixion, even though he knew He was not guilty of any crime.  Ultimately, we have a choice.  Either we accept that there is truth and listen to Jesus, or we give in to the crowd baying for the blood of the innocent.

*this parenthetical applies every time I use “His disciples” in today’s entry unless I specify otherwise.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 17-18.

I am going to start today’s blog from the end of the passage with Jesus’ exchange with Pilate about truth.  When Pilate asks Jesus for the second time if He is a king, Jesus responds by telling Pilate that “king” is his word, not Jesus’ word.  Then He tells Pilate that He to testify to the truth and that everyone on the side of the truth listens to Him.  To which Pilate replied with “What is truth?” and walked away without waiting for an answer.  Like so many people today, Pilate did not believe that there was such a thing as objective truth.  Which brings us to the first step necessary to faith in Christ: you need to believe that there is such a thing as objective truth.  You don’t have to believe that you know what that truth is, or even that you can know what that truth is.  You just have to believe that truth exists, and that Jesus embodies Truth.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 17-18.

A few weeks back I heard a sermon where the preacher said that our prayers should primarily be for our fellow believers.  I am really oversimplifying what he said here because he did not say that we should not pray for unbelievers (his point was not that we should pray for unbelievers less than we do, but that we should pray for believers much more than we do).  He based saying that on the fact that most of the prayers mentioned in the Bible are for believers (a large percentage of the prayers mentioned in the Bible are in Paul’s letters).  I fully agreed with everything that preacher said in that sermon, except his emphasis on focusing our prayers on believers (I didn’t exactly disagree, I just wasn’t sure that he was correct).  Which brings me to today’s passage.  In His final prayer before His arrest Jesus prays for His disciples, both those who followed Him during His ministry and those who followed Him based on the testimony of those who followed Him.

Jesus identifies those for whom He is praying by saying that they accepted the words from the Father which Jesus had given to them.  He prays that the Father protect them, but not by taking them out of the world, or even protecting them from the world.  Rather Jesus prays that God the Father will protect us (yes, those of us today who call upon His name are among those for whom He was praying) from the evil one.  We have been sent into the world by Jesus, but we are not to be of the world.  Jesus prayed that all believers would be brought to complete unity.  That unity should lead us to live our lives so that the world would know that He was sent by God.  I struggle with this because there are those who use Jesus’ call for unity among believers to interfere with rooting out of false teaching.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 17-18.

When John recounts Jesus final prayer at the Last Supper he brings us back to the transitive principle which played a large part in his accounts of Jesus’ teaching.  At its most basic, that transitive principle was that Jesus was in the Father and the Father was in Jesus, therefore anyone who knew Jesus knew the father.  Jesus further extended that by saying that He was in anyone who believed in Him and followed His teaching, and they were in Him.  In this prayer, Jesus takes this yet further by saying that those who believed in His words as communicated by His disciples entered into this transitive relationship.  So, just as Jesus’ disciples were able to be in Him and have Him in them, we also can be in Him and have Him in us.  Of course, if Jesus is in us that should impact the way in which we feel about the sins which we are constantly tempted to commit.   Hopefully we can come to see that the pleasure we might receive from the sins which tempt us is not worth the joy they will cost us.

Also in His prayer Jesus warns us that the world will hate us for believing in Him because we are no longer part of the world.  The world will try to reclaim us and cause us to recant of testifying to the truth.  We see a form of this hostility in Pilate’s response to Jesus’ statement that He came to testify to the truth.  Pilate asked “What is truth?” indicating that he did not believe there was such a thing as truth.   Our society today also rejects the idea that there is such a thing as truth and hates anyone who claims that there is.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on John 17-18

Before He was arrested Jesus prayed for His disciples, but not just for those who followed Him while He was here on earth.  John records that He said that His prayer was also for those who believed in Jesus through the message given by those who followed Him here on earth, which includes those alive today who believe in Him.  He warned us that the world would hate us because we are not of the world, just as He was not of the world.  However, He prayed that God would protect us and make us one.

Jesus’ prayer here has always given me great comfort, even though He warns us that the world will hate us.  If we follow Christ we are not of this world, but we should not seek to leave this world.  God will protect us from the evil one and make us one with Himself.  When we allow God to shape us through Jesus’ words we will be unified in a way which reveal to the world that God sent Jesus into the world, that Jesus has sent us into the world, and that He loves us.  I am not sure I have truly expressed why this prayer gives me comfort and joy, but hopefully as you read it today it does the same for you.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on John 17-18

In His prayer at the end of the Last Supper, Jesus makes a point which applies the promises and instructions which Jesus gave to His disciples to us today who believe in Him because of their message.  I fully believe that John intended for us to read it that way.  In addition to what He prayed for and taught His disciples, Jesus prayed for something specifically for those of us who came to Him through their message.  He prayed that we would have unity with each other and with Him and the Father.  The unity which Jesus prays for His followers only happens if those followers are in God and have God in them.  He does not pray for unity for unity’s sake.  Rather He prays for us to be united in Him, as He is united with the Father.

The world will hate us, just as it hated Jesus.  Nevertheless, Jesus sends us out into the world, just as the Father sent Him into the world.  Jesus gave Himself as a sacrifice so that we might be made holy by God’s truth.  Therefore, we should give ourselves as a sacrifice to bring glory to God’s name and so that others might be made holy by God’s truth.  Jesus teaches us that there is objective truth and that we can know that truth.  However, we must continually listen to the Holy Spirit as it reveals that truth to us.  Just because there is objective truth and we can know that truth does not mean that we do know that truth.  Or, to put it more exactly, just because we know some of the truth does not mean that everything we know is the truth.