⁶ “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. ⁷ Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. ⁸ For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. ⁹ I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. ¹⁰ All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. ¹¹ I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. ¹² While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.  ¹³ “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. ¹⁴ I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. ¹⁵ My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. ¹⁶ They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. ¹⁷ Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸ As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹ For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.  (John 17:6 – 19, New International Version)

Theme:  Discipleship

Context:

Thanks for your comments yesterday about the impression Jesus would have left on His disciples.  Woven together, your responses say that Jesus confirmed His credentials, His care for His disciples, and His care for His Father. He provided these confirmations in an unmistakable fashion that would have left a lasting impression on His disciples.   You also indicated that Jesus demonstrated the importance of prayer by the example He set. 

Having set the stage for our discussions this week, we now turn to Jesus’ prayers during Passion Week, and we will start with Jesus’ prayer for His disciples in John 17.    In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell wrote that ten thousand hours of practice leads to a level of expertise on a subject.  What subjects would Jesus have wanted His disciples to be “experts” in based on the many hours they spent together?   John 17 captures the longest recorded prayer of Jesus in the Bible, and it provides great insights into some of the subject matters that really mattered to Jesus and His disciples.  As Jesus prays for His disciples, one subject leaps off the page as a clear priority, the word of God. 

Bible Passage:

As mentioned yesterday, Jesus’ prayer in John 17 has three distinct sections.  We considered the first section yesterday, where Jesus prayed for himself.  Today and tomorrow, we are focusing on the two sections where Jesus prays for His disciples.  Please prayerfully read the passage above and consider the questions below.          

Questions:

• Please highlight the references to the word of God in the passage above.  How many references do you see?
• What key messages should we take from the references to the word of God that you highlighted?

Sharing your thoughts could be a big help to someone else.  Please leave a comment on the blog.