THE GOSPEL OF JOHN SECTION D 13:1-17:25

A re-cap here of Section B shows at the end of the paragraph pairs (c/f Reality Search analysis) Jesus has gone away from the grasp of "the Jews". In terms of the divisions within the community of John the writer, the "Hebrew Christians" who have valued the external traditions of Judaism above the "Word" of Jesus have, by this time, lost the sense of his presence and have been "left behind".

John starts out with his next section with the assumption that Jesus is taking his "true" disciples into the next stage of initiation.

Initiation into what? A re-cap of the gospel of Mark (c/f his Section C) recalls that the "type" of person who enters into the kingdom of Jesus is "the child" and for adults this is "the adult child". Mark sets out how one can become an 'adult child' by showing how Jesus challenges people to "raise the bar" of the three social commandments of "thou shalt not kill", "thou shalt not commit adultery", "thou shalt not steal". These three key social commandments include the right to life and self-determination, the right to a basic social group and the right to material supports. They are universal rights. For instance when helping people with mental illness to interact socially one can be warned to avoid the topics of "politics, sex and religion." Consider:

politics
sex
religion 		c/f distributio of wealth, c/f "thou shalt not steal"
c/f "thou shalt not commit adultery"
c/f self-determination c/f "thou shalt not kill"


In Mark Jesus challenges a would-be disciple to "sell what you have, give to the poor and come follow me". The would-be follower is challenged to move beyond the pursuit of material goods, the establishment of a family and his own self-advancement.

John has set out characteristics of living authority and the living word. It is likely his next section would deal with a combination of the two - the identity of the "adult child" who can move between both a law-based society (c/f time) and an order-based society (c/f place).

If one recalls the last section of Mark - "What the Power of One has to cope with", one is reminded that the life and difficulties of Jesus are re-lived in one's own life. In the Acts of the Apostles Luke shows that the presence of both authority and "the word" are to be found right across all sections of a community.

Does the following section encourage the 'true disciples' to recognise and grow these characteristics of Jesus within themselves?