In considering John 14
● notice that almost the whole chapter consists of the words of Jesus with only three interjections from disciples (5, 8, 22) that help drive Jesus’ discourse,
● hear early and late (1, 27) Jesus’ concern for his own: “Let not your hearts be troubled,”
● delight in being reminded that Jesus acts for his own: He goes; he prepares (2, 3), and what he prepares is a place,
● register the next “I am” declaration: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (6),
● ponder how a person can be a way, much more the way, discerning how Jesus claims that knowing him means knowing the Father (7) and that seeing him means seeing the Father (9),
● understand the role of the “Helper” (16, 26),
● reckon with Jesus’ repeated insistence that keeping his commandments (15, 21, 23) accompanies any claim to love him, and especially with the pesky “if” (15, 23),
● delight in Jesus’ declaration that his own obedience- “I do what the Father has commanded me” (31)- is itself a declaration of his love for the Father, and
● hear the similarity between “we (the Father and Jesus) will come to him and make our home with him” (22) and the familiar “I stand at the door and knock … I will come in to him” (Revelation 3:20).
Thank you,
Randy Tumlinson