Gospel of John 14:1–31 Catholic Bible study Lesson 17

The Gospel According to John:
An Encounter with Grace & Truth

Lesson 17 I Am the Way, the Truth & the Life
the Gospel According to John 14:1–31

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)*
New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE)*
Catechism of the Catholic Church
ex libris (in our library)
Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World)
glossary for the Gospel According to John
cross references in the Gospel According to John
next lesson: I Am the True Vine

This material coordinates with Lesson 17 on pages 92–96 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.”—the Gospel According to John 20:30–31

welcome to our in-depth study of the Gospel According to John
We invite interested groups and individuals to check out the sample first lesson from this 25-lesson Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study. These online study pages link to our free lesson videos, as well as to a glossary and cross references in the biblical text. Other study aids include maps, additional commentary, and prayers based on the primary Scripture in each lesson. The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth has been granted an imprimatur and can be purchased from our website shop. If you have a Bible-related study question or comment, click on one of the “ask us your question” or “what do you think” buttons on any online study page.

open with prayer
It’s always wise to begin any Bible study with prayer, whether reading the Scriptures alone or meeting with others in a discussion study group. You can pray using your own words or use one of the opening prayers on our website. We especially like the following:

Lord Jesus, you promised to send your Holy Spirit
to teach us all things.
As we read and study your word today,
allow it to touch our hearts and change our lives. Amen.

let’s review—the Gospel According to John 13:1–38
In Lesson 16 A New Commandment I Give to You , Jesus eats supper with his disciples, but the Evangelist stipulates that this isn’t the Passover meal. Jesus washes the feet of his followers as an example of how they’re to treat others. Jesus is described as “troubled in spirit” because one of his disciples plans to betray him. Peter asks the disciple whom Jesus loved—believed by scholars to be John, also the author of the Fourth Gospel—to find out who the betrayer is. Although the biblical text describes Satan entering Judas and Judas leaving to betray Jesus, there’s no evidence that the disciple whom Jesus loved disclosed Judas’ identity to Peter at that time. Jesus announces once again that he’s going somewhere the disciples cannot follow, and he gives them a new commandment to love one another as he’s loved them. Peter vows that he is willing to lay down his life for Jesus, and Jesus responds by saying Peter is going to betray him three times before the cock crows.

map notes—another look at time & space
The last instance in which the Evangelist provided any indication about calendar time was the Gospel According to John 12:1, which states: “Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was … .” The Gospel According to John 12:12 then records that on the next day, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and was greeted by a crowd of people who had come to the city for the feast. It was common for people to go to Jerusalem several days in advance of the Passover in order to offer sacrifices and undergo cleanliness rituals so they would be purified to celebrate the feast. The Evangelist then records in the Gospel According to John 12:36b that Jesus departed and hid himself from the crowd, but no indication is given of exactly where Jesus went. The Passover now can be assumed to be occurring in no more than four days. That the section of the Fourth Gospel describing Jesus’ Passion contains a different chronology than that found in the synoptic Gospels According to Matthew, Mark, and Luke long has puzzled Scripture scholars. To learn more, refer to “The Start of Holy Week” on page 83 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth. Click on the image (right) to enlarge the map, which appears on page 94 of the study book.

preparing for the Church (45:20)
In the video for this lesson, Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps discusses why it is that Jesus has begun speaking privately to his disciples in what in the Fourth Gospel sometimes are called the Last Supper discourses but more accurately can be named Jesus’ farewell discourses. Although Jesus is aware that his Passion, death, and Resurrection are imminent, his disciples are not. In addition to wanting to ready them for the shock of what he knows is about to happen, Jesus also is leaving them with instructions that will enable them to establish the Church. In connection with this, Matthew points out that although the power given to us in the name of Jesus is unlimited, it’s not unconditional. To learn more, read “Something Is Changing” on page 96 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

The Scripture ranges for the videos that accompany this Catholic Bible study match the Scripture ranges for the sets of questions in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth. You can follow along with the video overview as Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps discusses Lesson 17, “I Am the Way, the Truth & the Life,” on pages 92–96 in the study book.

the popes inspire us—seeing is believing
Philip’s outlandish request in the Gospel According to John 14:8 reflects the basic human desire to see God, a desire that’s apparent throughout the Scriptures. Pope St. John Paul II frequently taught that this desire is grounded in the reality that it’s only by looking at God that men and women can understand their humanity. This religious mystery is further explained in Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World). Learn more by reading “Seeing & Believing” on page 96 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth. Visit ex libris—magisterial documents for links to other magisterial documents referred to in Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible studies.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT spiritual law?
In this section of the Gospel According to John, Jesus announces that he’s going to send a Counselor to the disciples. With the Fourth Gospel’s its heavy emphasis on matters of the law, it seems likely that Jesus intends for his disciples to understand the word “counselor” in a legal sense. We know this “counselor” to be the Holy Spirit, and the law in which he can be considered an expert is spiritual law.

? How would you explain basic spiritual law to someone who’d never considered the concept?
? About what particular issues of spiritual law would you like to ask the Holy Spirit for counsel and advice?

belief—you could look it up in our archives
In this section in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus gives his disciples a pep talk, urging them to keep faith. To learn what the original Greek suggests Jesus has to say about the idea of “belief,” read Lost in Translation, an online column in which Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps helps readers connect with ideas expressed in the original languages of the Scriptures. New Lost in Translation entries are posted on Mondays, and past entries are archived on our website. Contact us if you’d like to receive Lost in Translation by email every week.

read the Catechism—the humility of Jesus
Opposed as it is to pride, humility is among the most difficult of virtues for humans to embrace. How does Jesus demonstrate his humility in the biblical text uponwhich this lesson is based? Paragraph 144 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains how obedience is related to faith. Consider how humility is related to obedience.

144 To obey (from the Latin ob-audire, to “hear or listen to”) in faith is to submit freely to the word that has been heard, because its truth is guaranteed by God, who is Truth itself. Abraham is the model of such obedience offered us by Sacred Scripture. The Virgin Mary is its most perfect embodiment.

a heavenly mansion
In the fourteenth chapter in the Gospel According to John, we find the image of a veru large house or mansion used to describe the afterlife. Learn more about the Evangelist’s understanding of how we’re to reach this heavenly location by reading “Way” on page 94 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth and “Finding the Way to Heaven” on page 95. Our in-depth Catholic Bible study The Revelation of Jesus Christ: The Faithful Witness examines the biblical view of heaven as it’s described throughout the final book of the New Testament.

for additional reflection
In the Gospel According to John 14:26, Jesus promises that not only will the Counselor teach the disciples all things, the Holy Spirit also will bring to remembrance all that Jesus has said. The following questions are designed to help readers begin to form their own thoughts and ideas related to the Gospel According to John 14:1–31. For more reflection questions, refer to the introduction to Lesson 17 on page 92 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

? Why is it going to be important that the disciples be reminded of the things Jesus has been saying to them?
? How is memory tied to worship of God in the Old Testament?
? How is memory tied to worship of God in the New Testament?
? What memories do you have of God working in your life or in the lives of those you know?
? Consider what impact those memories have on how you practice your faith.
? What’s the strongest memory you have of a time when you were praying—either privately or in connection with liturgy?
? How does that memory connect to your current worship of God?

the best Catholic commentary about Scripture
To find out more about how Church teaching is supported by Scripture passages in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth, check out the Index of Citations in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Links to the primary Scripture passages in the lesson (Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition [RSVCE*]) and relevant paragraphs in the Catechism are provided here. Not every passage in the biblical text for this study is referenced in a Catechism paragraph, however.

ways our glossary might prove helpful
In addition to providing extra information about geographical locations, our glossary also points out persons and places mentioned in the biblical text under multiple names or spellings. If you can remember a name but aren’t sure in which lesson it shows up, you can find it in the glossary, which lists every proper noun that appears in the primary biblical text for The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

to learn more, read more Scripture
If you’re having difficulty with a passage of Scripture, it can be helpful to read the relevant cross references—but looking these up can take time. To make that easier, we’ve compiled the cross references from the Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition (RSV2CE)—the translation that we reprint in our study books. That list can be found at the top of every online study page accompanying this study, and it includes links to each of the cross references in the primary biblical text for The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

don’t forget about our indexes & extra online material
If you’re trying to locate information about a specific Scripture passage, you can look it up in the index at the back of the study book or sample lesson. If you want to find a particular commentary, you can look up its title in the topics index. To learn more about another book of the Bible for which there’s a Turning to God’s Word study, visit the online study directories to read the commentaries and watch any accompanying videos. Finally, if you have a question or would like to make a comment about any of our studies, you can use one of the “ask us your question” or “what do you think” buttons to email our authors.

ex libris—Church documents & books about religious topics
You can find links to magisterial documents referred to in Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible studies at ex libris—magisterial documents. This page includes a listing of significant recent encyclicals as well as a number of historical Church documents. Recommended books related to Scripture study can be found at ex libris—main bookshelf.

wondering how to pronounce some of these words?
The following link is to a reading from the New International Version (NIV) Bible. To listen, click on the audio icon above the printed text. Although not taken from the translations used in our study materials, the NIV reading provides an audio guide to pronunciation of words in this lesson’s primary biblical text. A close online version of the translation of the Bible used in Catholic liturgy in the United States as well as an audio guide for daily Mass readings for the current month can be found on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

the Gospel According to John 14:1–31 (NIV)

close with Bible-based prayer related to this lesson
Many of our Catholic study groups like to conclude their discussions with a prayer based on the scriptural focus of their lesson, and some participants include Scripture-specific prayer in their individual study. If you’re uncomfortable composing your own Bible-based prayers, you can follow our four easy steps, or you can use the following prayer based on this lesson’s text from the Gospel According to John.

God our Father, you sent your Son
to show us the way to eternal salvation.
Give us the wisdom and love
to seek only those things that are in accord
with Jesus’ holy name.
We ask this through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Lesson 18 I Am the True Vine—the Gospel According to John 15:1–27
Lesson 16 A New Commandment I Give to You—the Gospel According to John 13:1–38

you also may like our free Lenten study of Jesus’ Passion (digital only)
Jesus’ Passion: The Story of Redemptive Suffering is a five-lesson Catholic Bible study offering an in-depth look at the biblical foundations of the movie The Passion of the Christ. This revised study, which has been granted an imprimatur, contains all of the original material of the 2004 edition as well as many new features in an improved, reader-friendly format. Click on the book’s cover to view the introduction. Free digital lessons of Jesus’ Passion: The Story of Redemptive Suffering are available on the website during Lent.

start a Turning to God’s Word Bible study
Thank you for your interest in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth. Information about beginning a Turning to God’s Word Bible study can be found at start a Bible study. Tami, Matthew, and I are available to answer questions and offer support. Contact us if you’d like to start one of our studies or have your schedule listed with other TtGW study groups on our website. —Jennifer

*There are seven deuterocanonical books in the Old Testament—the Books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and First and Second Maccabees, as well as some passages in the Books of Esther and Daniel. Protestants usually refer to these works as “apocryphal,” a word that means “outside the (Protestant) canon” because they’re excluded from most Protestant Bibles. The word “deuterocanonical” means “second canon”; Catholics use that word to refer to any section of the Catholic Old Testament for which there are no extant, or existing, Hebrew manuscripts. All of the deuterocanonical books appear in the Septuagint, the earliest remaining versions of which date to the 1st century B.C. This Greek translation of the Old Testament was in common use by Jews at the time of Jesus. Learn more by reading How Do Catholic & Protestant Bibles Differ?

Turning to God’s Word printed Bible studies use the 2006 Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition (RSV2CE) translation for all Scripture references except those to the Psalms, which are taken from The Abbey Psalms and Canticles, prepared by the Benedictine monks of Conception Abbey and published in 2020 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). All Scripture links for the online study pages for The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth are to the 1966 Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE) translation. The New International Version (NIV) audio recordings follow the same chapter and verse numbering as the RSV Catholic translations, but the NIV translation doesn’t include the deuterocanonical books and passages.

The 1966 RSVCE uses archaic pronouns and verb forms such as “thee,” “thou,” “didst” in the Psalms and in direct quotations attributed to God. The 2006 RSV2CE replaces these with more accessible English. The few significant translation changes in the RSV2CE include rendering almah as “virgin” in the Book of Isaiah 7:14 and restoring the term “begotten” in the Gospel According to John 3:16.

Numbering varies for some passages in this Bible study. Turning to God’s Word studies (print and digital) follow the numbering in the Revised Standard Version Catholic translations (RSV2CE and RSVCE). Discrepancies in the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) are noted in the Index of Scripture Citations in the study book and the online sample.

You can learn more about the Psalms by viewing a sample lesson from the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study Sing a New Psalm: Communicating with God Through the Prayers of the Church—Volume I: Lauds & Vespers. The second part of that study, Sing a New Psalm: Communicating with God Through the Prayers of the Church—Volume II: Vigils, Day Prayer & Compline, is scheduled for publication in 2025. Some verse numbers may vary in different translations of the Psalms.