July 28, 2014
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

Pathway and Presence

Please see the links to our EXTRA Bible Study notes at the bottom of the page.

Opening Prayer

Father God, Lord of my life, surprise me today with Your amazing grace and generous mercy.

Read John 14:1-14

For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.

[1] “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. [2] My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? [3] And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. [4] You know the way to the place where I am going.” [5] Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” [6] Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. [7] If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” [8] Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” [9] Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? [10] Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. [11] Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. [12] Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. [13] And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. [14] You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Reflect

“Thou art the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Grant us that Way to know, that Truth to keep, that Life to win, whose joys eternal flow” (G. W. Doane, 1799-1859).

In this corner of John’s Gospel, four of the disciples put questions or requests to Jesus: Peter (13:36, 37), Thomas (14:5), Philip (14:8) and Judas (14:22). In the two exchanges here, with Thomas and Peter, Jesus straightens out his friends’ misapprehensions, helping them to move to a new level of insight and to grasp his truth more deeply.

Thomas, ever the practical man, has realized that Jesus must leave the disciples. Now he asks for traveling instructions, so that he can follow on and arrive at the right place with his Lord. But, as Jesus explains, the disciples’ journey will not need a map. The path is not a mystery, with a sequence of cryptic clues leading to hidden treasure. It is a relationship rather than a route. Finding the way does not depend on formula, but on faith. It comes from trusting the guide and knowing that, in Jesus, we are sure of finding God (7).

Philip is more of a theologian than Thomas. He thinks and talks directly about God. Yet, like Thomas, his question misses something important. Just as Thomas needed to see Jesus as the pathway to God, Philip had to think of Jesus as the presence of God. He should stop wondering if there was something else to discover, stop looking beyond or behind the Lord he knew and start thinking of Jesus as the true face of God. The Father was not a remote, concealed figure, one step removed from Jesus. But in Jesus the very light of heaven was shining into history. “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (9). Philip need not look for a different reality. For him, as for Thomas, trust would be enough, in Jesus and in what Jesus had shown him.

Apply

In the light of 14:6, how would you respond to someone who says, “There are many ways to God”?

Closing prayer

Lord Jesus, You are truly the way to God, the truth about God, and the life in God. You are my all in all.

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