This document is a summary of key teachings from John 15, where Jesus uses the metaphor of a vine and branches to teach His disciples about their need to remain connected to Him. The main points are:
- Jesus is the true vine and God the Father is the gardener who prunes branches to make them more fruitful.
- Disciples are called to remain connected to Jesus to bear fruit and have productive lives. Those who don't produce fruit will be cut off.
- Remaining connected means abiding in His love and teachings. Disciples are called to love one another as Jesus loved them.
This document is a summary of key teachings from John 15, where Jesus uses the metaphor of a vine and branches to teach His disciples about their need to remain connected to Him. The main points are:
- Jesus is the true vine and God the Father is the gardener who prunes branches to make them more fruitful.
- Disciples are called to remain connected to Jesus to bear fruit and have productive lives. Those who don't produce fruit will be cut off.
- Remaining connected means abiding in His love and teachings. Disciples are called to love one another as Jesus loved them.
This document is a summary of key teachings from John 15, where Jesus uses the metaphor of a vine and branches to teach His disciples about their need to remain connected to Him. The main points are:
- Jesus is the true vine and God the Father is the gardener who prunes branches to make them more fruitful.
- Disciples are called to remain connected to Jesus to bear fruit and have productive lives. Those who don't produce fruit will be cut off.
- Remaining connected means abiding in His love and teachings. Disciples are called to love one another as Jesus loved them.
This document is a summary of key teachings from John 15, where Jesus uses the metaphor of a vine and branches to teach His disciples about their need to remain connected to Him. The main points are:
- Jesus is the true vine and God the Father is the gardener who prunes branches to make them more fruitful.
- Disciples are called to remain connected to Jesus to bear fruit and have productive lives. Those who don't produce fruit will be cut off.
- Remaining connected means abiding in His love and teachings. Disciples are called to love one another as Jesus loved them.
Yeshua knew He was about to die, be resurrected and ascend to
the right hand of God the Father in Heaven. For His disciples to have productive lives, they would need to be united to Him and drawing divine life and power from Him by means of His Spirit living in them. He taught them these harder to understand truths by using easier to understand truths taken from growing grapes.
I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off
every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
In this illustration from growing grapes, God the Father is the
gardener. Yeshua is the vine. His followers are the branches. The fruit is being like Yeshua and valuing what He values and doing what He did. The branches that produce grapes are the followers Yeshua wants us to be. The branches that don’t produce grapes are false followers or useless followers. Just as there are wheat and tares (weeds that look like wheat), there are people who identify as followers of Yeshua but aren’t like Him and don’t do what He did.
Branches need to be attached to the vine to get nutrients so they
can produce grapes. We need to be connected to Yeshua to get life and strength from Him to have productive lives. 2 Branches that don’t produce grapes are removed. God the Father will remove the false or useless followers from Messiah’s Community.
Branches that are not pruned will produce a lot of small, barely edible grapes. However, if the branch is pruned, the nutrients from the vine flows into fewer grapes, and those grapes get bigger and tastier so that a lot of good grapes are produced. The same principle applies to us. God the Father will bring trials into the lives of Yeshua’s followers. If we endure those difficulties with patience and a good attitude, we will be improved. We will become more like Yeshua. Our priorities will become more like’s Yeshua’s.
You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
How do we stay clean?
Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit
by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches.
What does “remain in Yeshua” mean and how do we do that?
If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. The life of the one who is drawing strength from Yeshua will be very productive. 3
What does “apart from me you can do nothing” mean?
If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
How do we “not remain in Yeshua”?
What will happen if we don’t remain in Yeshua?
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever
you wish, and it will be done for you.
How do we get our prayers answered?
This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing
yourselves to be my disciples. Just as a human father is honored when his children are successful and productive, so the Father is honored when His Son has a lot of productive disciples.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. The Son of God has the same kind of love for us that God the Father has for Him - pure, perfect, intense, devoted, beneficial. 4
Is it possible to not remain in His love?
If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I
have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
Is Yeshua’s love for people conditional?
Why do we need to be obedient to Yeshua’s teaching to remain
in His love?
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
What does “my joy may be in you” mean?
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
Although we are to love everyone, we are to focus our love on the members of Messiah’s Community.
In what ways was Messiah’s love for His followers revealed?
5 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. There are various degrees of love. The greatest degree of love is sacrificing your life for those you love. That’s the great love Messiah has for us. And that’s the way He wants us to love our brothers and sisters in His Community.
Where is that kind of love to occur? What does it look like in
action?
You are my friends if you do what I command. Friendship is
characterized by love, confidence, shared interests and mutual support. A true friend is one of the greatest treasures in life. And, while it’s great to have a friend, it’s far greater to have as a friend the Son of God who created the universe and everything in it and who loved us enough to die on the cross for us.
Is Yeshua’s friendship conditional?
I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know
his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 6 Faithful service can change a person’s status from servant to friend. These men had been with Yeshua for several years. They had faithfully served Him. Friends confide important things with each other. Yeshua had made known to them everything He learned from His Father. These disciples were now His friends.
Yeshua wants His friends to have productive lives. And He
wants them to have their prayers answered. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit - fruit that will last - and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.
Who takes the initiative in salvation - God or people?
What is lasting fruit?
How does living a productive life (bearing fruit) affect our
prayers?
Yeshua repeated His command to love. This is my command:
Love each other. Everything Yeshua said was important. If He said something once, it’s important. If He repeated something, it’s especially important. It’s very important that His followers actively participate in a fellowship in which they are committed to each other and help each other in practical and spiritual ways. 7 To be faithful to Yeshua and His teachings, and to remain in Him (be united to Him, connected to Him, drawing life and strength from Him), we must expect and endure persecution. If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: “A servant is not greater than his master.” If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me.
What are the reasons we will hated and persecuted by the
world?
What can we expect from the world?
Are you hated by the world? Are you being persecuted?
If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin.
Did Yeshua literally mean that if He had not come and spoken to them, they would be not be guilty of any sin at all? 8
What did He mean?
As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. Most of the people heard Yeshua’s wisdom and teachings, saw His sinless life and miracles, and rejected Him. Their rejection was based on knowledge, which made their rejection worse.
Can a person love God and ignore, hate or reject Yeshua?
But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: “They hated me
without reason.”
Yeshua quoted Psalm 69. In Psalm 69, what are the similarities between king David and Yeshua? Why are those similarities important?
When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father - the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father - he will testify about me.
Describe the Trinitarian (Three In One) workings of the Father,
Son and Spirit regarding the sending of the Spirit. 9
How does the Holy Spirit testify about Yeshua?
The Holy Spirit testifies to us about Yeshua, and He directs us
to testify about Yeshua. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.
When we are filled with the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, living in the Spirit, close to God the Father, close to Yeshua, we will testify about Yeshua. We will want to tell people about Him and the things we know about Him, and how much they need him and how much He can help them. We will be compelled to testify. We won’t be able to prevent ourselves from testifying. We will look for opportunities to testify. We will make opportunities happen.
