Welcome to Studies with Stearman.

Join us as we look deeper into the Bible.

Strengthen your faith with us, even as we see the day approaching.

And now, here's Gary.

We've been doing a series called Top Chapters of the Bible, started with 1st Corinthians 15,

which talks about the resurrection. Jude talks about false teachers, Romans 1,

talking about secularism, humanism. Now this morning we're going to talk about a subject in what has to be one of the top chapters of the Bible, John 17.

And what John 17 talks about is relationship.

We're going to study that in a moment, and I'm going to do something a little different this morning.

In Christ's upper room

discourse which culminates in John 17, Jesus is talking in the most open way that he ever talks

in scripture, just absolutely having an open conversation in which we get to be sort of the fly on

the wall. We get to hear everything of the fly on the wall.

We get to hear everything that happened in that upper room discourse.

And I'm going to precede the study of chapter 17, which is our chapter of study this morning,

by reading chapter 16 in a modern language translation of the Bible.

Just to sort of set the scene.

John 16 is talking about, if you will, bringing comfort in the context of what's about to happen. Jesus has talked about the relationship of

believers to himself, the relationship of believers to each other. He's talked about the relationship of

believers to the world. He's talked about the promise of the coming Holy Spirit. And then in John

16, he says, I told you this so that nothing will upset your faith. You'll be put out of the

synagogue. Yeah, the time will come when anyone who murders'll be put out of the synagogue.

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