Chapter 13: John 13

Read John 13:1-20.

At the Passover, lambs were sacrificed for the sins of the people.  So on the day of the Passover, Jesus, the Lamb of God, was going to die for the sins of the world.  But first He must teach His disciples a lesson.  They had been arguing over who would be greatest in His kingdom.  Jesus wanted to teach them that true greatness is to serve others.

It was the custom for a servant to wash the feet of the guests.  Or one friend might honor another by washing his feet.  But not one of the disciples was willing to do the work of a servant and wash the feet of the others.  So Jesus washed their feet!

How ashamed they were!  Jesus, the Son of God, was doing the work that they had thought they were too good to do!  Their Master was taking the place of a slave to make them more comfortable!  If we are going to follow Jesus, we must be willing to humble ourselves and do whatever needs to be done to help others.  This is our way of “washing their feet.”

Jesus taught another lesson:  we must let Him cleanse us daily from our faults.  The disciples had bathed just before going to the place where they ate, but they had gotten their feet dirty walking along the dusty streets.

Getting saved is like taking a bath.  When we accept Jesus as our Savior, He washes away all our sins; they are gone forever and forgotten.  But day by day, as we walk through life, we sometimes “get our feet dirty.”  We do things we shouldn’t do.  We don’t need to get saved all over again but we must take our faults and failures to Jesus and let Him wash them away.

Read John 13:21-30.

Jesus knew how He would be betrayed.  Judas, one of His own disciples, would turn against Him.  One trouble Judas had was his love of money.  He was treasurer and stole from the general funds.  This may seem like a little thing but one sin leads to another.  Judas turned Jesus over to His enemies for thirty pieces of silver.  He sold his own soul, his place in Christ’s kingdom.

“For the love of money is the source of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10).

Read John 13:31-35.

Jesus again told His disciples of His death, that He would go where they could not go at that time.  They had to stay on earth and live in such a way that all men would know they had something different about them.  They were to love one another, even as He loved them.  This is still a very important command that we must follow daily.

Read John 13:36-38.

You have already learned that Jesus was the Prophet that God had promised.  God shows prophets things that are going to happen.  Then the prophets predict these events, or tell about them before they happen.  You have read several of Jesus’ predictions.  He said that He would be “lifted up,” crucified; Judas would betray Him, and Peter would deny that he knew Him.

Peter thought he was stronger spiritually than the other disciples.  Jesus knew how weak he was and was praying for him.