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John 14:27

World English Bible

Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, give I to you. Don’t let your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful.

What surrounds this passage

John 14 is part of one long conversation on the last evening, after the meal and before the arrest. The room is frightened and Jesus keeps saying so out loud. The verse sits between a promise that they will not be left on their own and a warning that the world is about to close in, which is why it does not read as a promise that nothing bad will happen.

The verses on either side

John 14:24-30, World English Bible

  1. He who doesn’t love me doesn’t keep my words. The word which you hear isn’t mine, but the Father’s who sent me.
  2. I have said these things to you, while still living with you.
  3. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you.
  4. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, give I to you. Don’t let your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful.
  5. You heard how I told you, ‘I go away, and I come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I said ‘I am going to my Father;’ for the Father is greater than I.
  6. Now I have told you before it happens so that, when it happens, you may believe.
  7. I will no more speak much with you, for the prince of the world comes, and he has nothing in me.

A question to sit with

What would change if peace were something handed to you rather than something you have to produce?

Why this one, and not these

5 passages were considered for this and turned down, each for a reason written at the time.

Philippians 4:6-7
The passage people reach for first, and it opens with an instruction: be anxious for nothing. Offered to somebody who cannot stop being anxious, it names the thing they are failing at and attaches a condition to the peace. The verse is not at fault; the position it puts the reader in is.
Isaiah 26:3
'Perfect peace' is made conditional on a mind that stays fixed, which is precisely the capacity somebody in a hard stretch has lost. It hands the reader responsibility for producing the state they came looking for.
Colossians 3:15
'Let the peace of God rule in your hearts' is again addressed to the reader as something to do. It also sits inside instructions to a congregation about how to treat each other, so lifting it out for private comfort changes who is being spoken to.
Psalm 29:11
A single line about God giving strength and peace, with almost no situation around it. This site exists because of the surroundings, and there is very little here to describe.
2 Thessalonians 3:16
A benediction at the close of a letter. It is a blessing spoken over a church rather than a description of anything, so there is nothing to explain about what was happening when it was said.

Written about this passage

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