Week 40 John 17
John 17 is a prayer – an audible prayer – prayed by Jesus. A lot of it was for or about the disciples.
One of the things Jesus asked was this: sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
Sanctify is a rare word. It’s an uncommon and mostly religious word so it’s not used much in everyday conversation. If I were to sanctify something I’d be setting it apart – earmarking or designating it for a religious or sacred purpose. It’s not a contemporary word or idea.
I checked quite a few bible versions to see if they’d switch-it-up but the majority – about 3-dozen – used ‘sanctify’. There were a few alternates like:
make them holy
set them apart (or set them apart for holiness)
make them ready for your service
dedicate them
consecrate.
Jesus prayed that his disciples would be sanctified – which is pretty special. But what really jumped out was the rest of the verse. The driver that motivated & gave momentum to sanctification was the truth. And then John added: your word is truth.
So sanctification – whatever-all that might actually involve for a person – is driven along by truth.
That’s welcome news for a bible-reader. I spend a bunch of time & effort reading with a specific goal of searching out truth. And it looks like when I find it sanctity will be piggy-backing along with it.
Note: quote from John 17:17 (CSB & NIV). Alternate words are from CEB CJB NTFE OJB ERV EXB ICB Mounce NABRE GNT NLV NLT & TLB.