Reading - John 14: 1-14 in English Language
The translation used here is from Eugene Peterson’s 2002 The Message. In his preface, Rev Peterson, writes of leaving a theological seminary, where he specialised in the biblical languages of Hebrew and Greek, and returned to congregational work to discover that nobody seemed to care much about the bible. He found many people knew virtually nothing about the bible, had never read it, and weren’t interested in learning. He found others who had spent years reading it, but for them it had gone flat through familiarity: reduced to clichés. Through all of this Rev Peterson recognised that he lived in two language worlds: the world of the bible and the world of today. This translation is his way of addressing this by ‘expanding the imagination of people with whom (he) was working to hear the language of the Bible in the language of Today, and the language of Today in the language of the Bible.’
Read by Freddy Samisoni in English Language.
The Road
14 1-4 “Don’t let this throw you. You trust God, don’t you? Trust me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home. If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I’m taking.”
5 Thomas said, “Master, we have no idea where you’re going. How do you expect us to know the road?”
6-7 Jesus said, “I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You’ve even seen him!”
8 Philip said, “Master, show us the Father; then we’ll be content.”
9-10 “You’ve been with me all this time, Philip, and you still don’t understand? To see me is to see the Father. So how can you ask, ‘Where is the Father?’ Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you aren’t mere words. I don’t just make them up on my own. The Father who resides in me crafts each word into a divine act.
11-14 “Believe me: I am in my Father and my Father is in me. If you can’t believe that, believe what you see—these works. The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I’ve been doing. You can count on it. From now on, whatever you request along the lines of who I am and what I am doing, I’ll do it. That’s how the Father will be seen for who he is in the Son. I mean it. Whatever you request in this way, I’ll do.