John 17:20 · World English Bible
John 17:20 Meaning Not for These Only Do I Pray
Not for these only do I pray, but for those also who will believe in me through their word,
What does John 17:20 mean?
Faith reaches later generations through people, not around them. The prayer stretches forward to include everyone who would come to believe because someone told them, which means the handing on of the message is built into God's plan rather than being a backup arrangement.
From the Catholic reading below.
John 17:20 through 2 lenses
The same verse, read by 2 traditions.
Catholic
Esoteric
CATHOLIC
Catholic
Faith reaches later generations through people, not around them. The prayer stretches forward to include everyone who would come to believe because someone told them, which means the handing on of the message is built into God's plan rather than being a backup arrangement.
This is the root of what Catholics call apostolic succession, the unbroken passing of the faith from those first witnesses through bishops down to a parish today. No one invents Christianity for themselves. Every believer is standing at the end of a long chain of someone speaking and someone listening, and that chain was prayed over before it began.
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ESOTERIC
Esoteric
The word that carries belief from one to another is the vibratory teaching, the sound that awakens the same recognition in a further mind. The reach widens past the immediate circle to every consciousness that will later stir at that word, for the awakening spreads by resonance and not by nearness.
Those who come to believe through the word are the states of mind not yet quickened, waiting in a person for the teaching to reach them. What one awakened center holds, it passes on to every part still asleep.
The word: the vibratory teaching, the sound that awakens the same recognition in a further mind and spreads by resonance
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Catholic lens
Live John 17:20 today
- Think of the person who first told you what you believe, or what you love, and let yourself be grateful for someone you may never have thanked.
- Call or message one older person in your life and ask them something you have never asked, about what they were handed and by whom.
- When you are tempted to say something cynical in front of a kid, a younger colleague, or a new person, remember that they are downstream of you and say the truer thing instead.
Who is standing at the other end of the chain from you, listening?
The same truth in other traditions
Judaism · Pirkei Avot
The teaching was received and handed on, person to person, down a named chain. Nobody in it invented what they passed along.
Buddhism · Zen lineage
Understanding is transmitted from teacher to student, one to one, and the names of the line are kept. What you sit with today reached you through hands.
Hinduism · Guru parampara
Knowledge travels through a living succession, spoken and heard, not discovered alone. You enter something already running.
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