John 15:21 · World English Bible
John 15:21 Meaning But They Will Do All These Things
But they will do all these things to you for my name’s sake, because they don’t know him who sent me.
What does John 15:21 mean?
They are asleep, not evil. Hostility comes from unconsciousness, not malice.
From the Ego v. Being reading below.
John 15:21 through 2 lenses
The same verse, read by 2 traditions.
Ego v. Being
Esoteric
EGO & BEING
Ego v. Being
They are asleep, not evil.
Hostility comes from unconsciousness, not malice. People are moved by conditioning they cannot yet observe in themselves.
Ego v. Being lensGo deeper in the app
ESOTERIC
Esoteric
The persecution a seeker meets comes from those who cling to the letter of a name while missing the nature it points to, for the name here is not a label to be spoken but a way of being, an inward road to the source. People strike at the messenger of the kingdom-within precisely because they have no acquaintance with that source, having looked for a distant ruler in the sky instead of the higher mind that sent every teaching. Ignorance of what animates a man turns him against anyone who carries its report.
The conflict is not really about doctrine at all but about direction. Those who do not know the sender cannot recognize the sent, and so they attack in the name of the very thing they have never met. The meaning is plain: hostility toward the inner teaching grows out of never having looked inward to find who is doing the sending.
Name: the way or nature of the higher self, an inward road to the source, not a literal word to be spoken
Esoteric lensGo deeper in the app
Ego v. Being lens
Live John 15:21 today
- Think of the person who annoyed you most this week and imagine the pressure they were under that morning. You are not excusing anything, you are just seeing more of the picture.
- The next time someone is short with you at a counter or on a call, say something warm anyway. Half the time you will watch their tone change mid sentence.
- When someone cuts you off in traffic or buries you in a thread, drop the word "deliberately" from your account of it. Most of what hurts you was done by someone not paying attention.
Who in your life might be acting from something they cannot see in themselves yet?
The same truth in other traditions
Buddhism · Dhammapada
The teaching says people act out of a mind they have not yet looked at, and suffering follows them like a cart behind an ox. What looks like cruelty is mostly sleep.
Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius
Marcus began each day reminding himself he would meet the rude and the ungrateful, and that they act that way through ignorance of the good. He planned to meet them without surprise.
Zhuangzi
Zhuangzi says that if an empty boat drifts into yours, no one shouts. The bump is the same, the anger depends entirely on whether you put someone in the boat.
Free · No account needed
Read all of John 15 through 17 lenses
Lensightful opens every verse of the Bible through the traditions you choose. Save readings, ask a follow-up question, and get one verse a day.
Get Lensightful on the App Store