IN THE WORLD

One of the tendencies of people of faith across the generations has been to withdraw from the world around them. In Jesus’ time, there were sects, such as the Essenes, who believed that the way of faithfulness was to establish their own communities away from the surrounding society and devote themselves to studying and practicing purity.

But this was not the way Jesus set out for His followers.

He acknowledged the tensions and trouble that would be part of His disciples’ relationship with the world around them, but Jesus was explicitly not asking that they be taken out of the world. Instead, He commissioned them to step boldly into the world in His name. “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world” (John 17:18).

By virtue of being human, we are not only in the world; we are of this world—it was good enough for the incarnated Jesus; it must be enough for us.

In a sense, we do not belong to the world as it is (see John 17:14), yet in a larger sense, this world rightfully belongs to God and to His people, so we are engaged with our world and its people. Again acknowledging the troubles in this world, Jesus prayed for the protection of His disciples from the evil one. Throughout His ministry, Jesus had confronted evil in various forms, including direct temptations by Satan and various evil spirits who were causing great damage in individual lives. Jesus acknowledged the realities of those powers but demonstrated that they should not hold us in their sway or in fear. They, too, were overcome and would be defeated. Jesus’ prayer was for our resistance and resilience against their attacks and temptations. Jesus seemed to be saying that the disciples did not need to be rescued and removed as much as they needed to be reassured and resourced. That’s what He prayed for.