John 16:18 · World English Bible
John 16:18 Meaning They Said Therefore
They said therefore, “What is this that he says, ‘A little while’? We don’t know what he is saying.”
What does John 16:18 mean?
Some words of God cannot be understood before they are lived through. Bewilderment is the honest state of anyone standing just before a sorrow, and it is a better place to stand than a confident wrong answer.
From the Orthodox reading below.
John 16:18 through 2 lenses
The same verse, read by 2 traditions.
Orthodox
Ego v. Being
ORTHODOX
Orthodox
Some words of God cannot be understood before they are lived through. Bewilderment is the honest state of anyone standing just before a sorrow, and it is a better place to stand than a confident wrong answer.
Sayings about dying and rising stay sealed until the Spirit opens them from inside someone who has been through the thing itself. A little while is also the measure the Church still lives by. The stretch between His leaving and His return is brief from God's side, however long it feels from ours, and that short measure is what keeps present grief from being the final word.
Orthodox lensGo deeper in the app
EGO & BEING
Ego v. Being
Mind measures time, truth is timeless.
Time-bound questions cannot reach a timeless answer. The confusion is structural, not a failure of intelligence.
Ego v. Being lensGo deeper in the app
Orthodox lens
Live John 16:18 today
- When something hurts and you do not understand why, resist the search bar for one evening. Let not knowing be where you actually are.
- If a friend is in the middle of something awful, drop the explanation you were about to offer. Say you do not know either, and stay.
- In the meeting where you are asked a question you cannot answer, say so plainly instead of improvising confidence. Then go find out.
What are you pretending to understand because confusion feels unbearable?
The same truth in other traditions
Zen
A student who answers too quickly has only brought back a borrowed sentence. The teacher keeps giving the question back, because not knowing, held honestly, is closer to the truth than a tidy reply.
Taoism · Zhuangzi
Zhuangzi says that the summer insect cannot be told about ice. Some things are not hidden from us by anyone; we simply have not yet lived in that season.
Sufism
The Sufi poets call the dark night of confusion a station on the road, not a wrong turn. The seeker who insists on clarity too early stops traveling.
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