Digging Deeper Days
Finding the original intent of Scripture and making good application to our everyday lives as we become equipped to correctly handle the Word of Truth!
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The Questions
1) Who is Jesus praying for in these verses?
2) What does it mean to not be of the world, but sent into it?
3) What does it mean to be sanctified by the truth?
John 17:15-19
15 I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19 I sanctify myself for them, so that they also may be sanctified by the truth.
Original Intent
1) Who is Jesus praying for in these verses?
If we look back to John 17:6 and 17:9 we see Jesus is praying specifically for “the people the Father gave Him from the World”, who are His disciples. Jesus knows what the future holds, He has told these men what is coming, and He knows the time is drawing near for His death, burial, and resurrection. He knows the next few hours and days and weeks will be confusing, difficult, and fearful for them. He is praying for the men He has walked closely with during His three years of public ministry when He called them to Himself and transformed their entire live. It is with these men, He has spent the most amount of time pouring into. Jesus also knows what will come after His arrest, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection when He will ascend back into Heaven, and He is praying for that time when He is no longer physically walking daily with them.
2) What does it mean to not be of the world, but sent into it?
Jesus didn’t pray God would take the disciples out of the world, but is instead praying His disciples would go out into the world. Jesus knew for the Gospel to go forth, His disciples would also need to go forth; they would be required to leave their homes, their area of comfort, and share the truth of Jesus with the world. Jesus is praying they would go out into the world as His representative and not be conformed to the ways of the world. He is praying they would look and act differently than those who don’t believe, while still going out and sharing the truth and good news of the Gospel with them. Jesus knew there would be temptation to become like the world instead of like Him, and He is asking His Father to help them remember who they are in Him.
3) What does it mean to be sanctified by the truth?
In order to understand this verse, we must first understand sanctification. Webster defines sanctification as, “the state of growing in divine grace as a result of Christian commitment after conversion.” Basically, it means becoming more like Jesus moment by moment as His Spirit transforms us by His power. In these verses Jesus refers to truth as the bedrock anchoring power of sanctification. The truth comes from the word they have been taught both by Jesus and the truth they grew up knowing as Israelite children through study of the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament), as well as the biblical prophets. Jesus is praying that as they continue to grow in knowledge of Him, and in relationship to Him, that the Holy Spirit would continuously transform them through the truth of the Word of God (all of Scripture), which would result
Everyday Application
1) Who is Jesus praying for in these verses?
While Jesus was praying specifically for His disciples in those moments, He is also praying for those followers would come after them, meaning us if we’ve surrendered to Him! Jesus prays a specific prayer for future believers in the verses directly following this in John 17:20-26 and the language He used in praying for His immediate disciples, in some ways, continues on into those verses. He knows there will be those who come to faith after He ascends and that the work is not over until He comes back again. Jesus knows what the future holds for each of us as we follow Him with our everyday lives. The trials we will face and the fears we will walk in, and He prayed for us before going to the cross and purchasing our redemption. What an incredible thought to know that Jesus prayed for you and me over 2,000 years ago while He was still walking on earth!
2) What does it mean to not be of the world, but sent into it?
What a contradicting picture to go into the world while being reminded we are not of the world. However, that is exactly what Jesus is praying for His followers and for us. Jesus knows we do not get to go home to Heaven the very day, or moment, we place our faith in Him. No, we stay in the world and are given an intentional calling Jesus gave to all those who believe in Him. In Matthew 28:18-20 as He was ascending into Glory, He commanded His first disciples and all those who would come to follow Him, to go into the world and make disciples of the nations from Jerusalem to Judaea, and the rest of the world. There is a clear calling to go out into the world. However, Jesus also knows the temptation to become like the world we are sent out into. They look different from us, behave differently from us, and it is much easier to become like them than follow Christ in full surrender. However, Jesus does not want us to begin to look and act like them, so He is praying we would look so much like Him that we represent Him well in the world.
3) What does it mean to be sanctified by the truth?
You and I have never had the privilege of walking on this earth with Jesus in His physical form. However, that doesn’t mean He left us alone to figure out our faith or grow in it by our own strength as we are supposed to become more like Him. No, He left us His word, the very living, breathing word of God, and the fueling power of God Himself by depositing His Spirit within our hearts. As we spend time in His word, getting to know Him better, we begin to look more like Him as the Spirit does His work of transformation that only He can do. We are sanctified by the truth as we grow in relationship with the God of the universe by the unifying power of the Spirit. While we will never be perfect on earth, we are daily, and even moment by moment, being conformed to look more like Jesus than we ever have before. This is the process of sanctification. We should never be comfortable where we are in our faith journey, instead allowing the word of God and the work of the Holy Spirit to continuously shape us to look more like the image of Jesus. Sisters, I pray for you and me that we would continue to let God work to transform us and use us as the women He is calling us to be!
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Digging Deeper is for Everyone!
1) Take this passage (or any other passage).
2) Read it, and the verses around it,
several times
3) Write down your questions
as you think of them.
4) Ask specific culture related questions and be ready to dig around for your answers. Google them, use www.studylight.org, or look them up in a study Bible and read the footnotes (click on the little letters next to a word and it will show you
other related verses!). (www.esvbible.org)
5) Check your applications with other trusted Christians that you are in community with and embrace the fullness of God
in your everyday!
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Why Dig Deeper?
Finding the original meaning is a huge deal when we study Scripture and can make all the difference in our understanding as we apply God’s truths to our everyday lives.
In our modern-day relationships, we want people to understand our original intention as we communicate; how much more so between God and humanity?!
Here’s a little bit more on why we take Digging Deeper so seriously.
Study Tools
We love getting help while we study and www.studylight.org is one of many excellent resources, providing the original Hebrew (Old Testament) or Greek (New Testament) with an English translation.
Want to know more about a specific word in a verse? Click on “Strong’s Interlinear Bible” then click the word you’d like to study. Discover “origin”, “definition” and hear the original pronunciation – That Is Awesome!
Want more background? Click “Study Tools”, then pick a few commentaries to read their scholarly approach, keeping in mind that just because a commentary says it, doesn’t mean it’s true. (just like the internet :-))
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