John 7:16 · World English Bible
John 7:16 Meaning Jesus Therefore Answered Them
Jesus therefore answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.
What does John 7:16 mean?
The teaching of love claims no private author, and this is the secret of its power. An ego always says my truth, my insight, my possession, because owning is how it props up a separate self.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
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The same verse, read by one tradition.
Christian Psychology
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
Christian Psychology
The teaching of love claims no private author, and this is the secret of its power. An ego always says my truth, my insight, my possession, because owning is how it props up a separate self. Love makes no such claim; it points past itself to the Source it merely carries, and by keeping nothing back for itself it stays wholly true. What is not held as personal cannot be distorted by pride.
A mind that would teach as love does must let go of authorship in the same way. It is not the origin of what it offers, only a clear channel, and its clarity depends entirely on that release.
Source: the one Author of truth, from which the teaching wholly comes and to which it entirely points, holding nothing as its own.
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Live John 7:16 today
- Today, when you pass on something true that helped you, say where you got it. A book, a friend, a hard year. Let the credit go where it came from.
- In a meeting or an email, hand the idea to the group without your name welded to it. See if you can care more that it works than that it was yours.
- When someone disagrees with something you believe, defend the thing itself and not your standing as the person who said it. Those are two very different fights.
What would you say differently today if you did not have to own it?
The same truth in other traditions
Tao Te Ching 2
The wise work and take no credit, and because they claim nothing, nothing is ever taken from them.
Sufism · Rumi
The reed flute makes beautiful music only because it is hollow. Its song belongs to the breath that moves through it.
Zen
The finger pointing at the moon is useful only as long as you do not mistake it for the moon.
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