Conservative Friends Bible Study of The Gospel of John #28
John 17:1-19
We walk slowly through John 17 and let the Greek sharpen what Jesus is praying for as he speaks about glory, authority, eternal life, and unity. We connect word studies like doxa, exousia, parousia, logos, cosmos, and hagiadzo to Quaker concerns about the presence of Christ, the true church, and being sent into the world without being shaped by it.
- Heaven as sky and as spiritual reality in the Greek word ouranos
- Glory and glorify as honor and as God’s manifested presence linked to shekinah
- Eternal life defined as knowing and experiencing the only true God
- Authority exousia as right, power, domain, and sphere of rule
- Parousia as presence and why translating it as coming can mislead
- Christ and the logos in relation to creation and pre-existence
- Cosmos as creation, humanity, and worldliness depending on context
- Name as essence and character, not only a label
- Unity as Jesus’s repeated prayer and a warning against sectarianism
- Sanctify hagiadzo as set apart, purified, and made holy in a Hebrew sense
- Quaker language of being favored and grace; charis as divine favor, not flattery
The quote in our introduction was paraphrased from the Eleventh Proposition of Barclay’s Apology.