Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Do You Know About God... or Do You Know Him? | The Gospels | John 17:1-5

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

What does it really mean to know God? Why does Jesus define eternal life this way? How can your faith move beyond knowledge into delight? In today's episode, Jeff walks through John 17:1-5 and invites us to exchange a distant faith for a living relationship with Jesus. Read the Bible with us! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and it's never too late to join! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passage: John 17:1-5

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jeff Parrott. Florence Miriam Bailey was different. When others settled for comfort and control, she signed up for challenge and adventure. And we know that because of the way Bailey approached the world around her, specifically how she approached the world of bird watching. Bailey was an orange, ornithologist studying birds in the late 19th century at a time when women weren't commonly recognized as specialists in the field. In her day, the prevalent method for studying birds was to shoot them from a distance and examine their dead bodies in the sterile setting of a laboratory.

Now, while this approach seemed like an up-close and personal experience of research, Bailey knew that there was actually a kind of distance that existed between the the scientist and the thing being studied. Yes, the lab allowed for the bird to be explored in a setting of comfort and control, yet there was also a chasm between the observation of this dead bird on a table compared to a living bird in its natural habitat. You could know about the bird in the lab, but you couldn't really know it. You'd miss the glory of what it's really like as a living thing. So in a rejection of the comfort of the comfort of the world, you'd be able to be able to be a living thing. So in a rejection of the comfort and control of the scientific status quo, Bailey went outside of

the lab to see what the living birds were really like. She took up an opera glass, a special set of binoculars originally made for the theater, and used it to give her a better view of the birds she studied. She exchanged the research lab for real life and eventually wrote a landmark book in 1889 entitled Birds Through an Opera Glass. Here's a short excerpt that gets at the heart of her approach from the book.

The student who goes a field armed with an opera glass will not only add more to our knowledge than he who goes armed with a gun, but will gain for himself a fund of enthusiasm and a lasting store of pleasant memories.

Now, notice two things that are at play in her observation here. the person who opts for real life instead of the research lab will not only have increased knowledge, but increased enthusiasm and pleasant memories. There will be increased delight. So yes, studying birds in nature doesn't offer the comfort and control of the laboratory. Instead, it offers a kind of real experience and real encounter that cannot be manufactured or manicured. It's wild. It's wonderful. It enhances. It enhances. advances both the knowledge and the enjoyment of the thing being observed. It's the only way to

really know the glory of birds as they really are. In many ways, the approach of Florence, Merriam Bailey is analogous to the invitation of the Bible. Many of us spend our lives trying to examine God via the comfort and control of a kind of spiritual research lab. We may think that we're encountering the substance of Christianity, but in the sterility of our study, we end up missing the wild, the wonderful, the life-giving power of the gospel. We might even know a lot about God, but we've never known him and his glory as the living God. Our passage today calls us to exchange the sterile distance of the spiritual research lab for the challenge and the adventure of being encountered by God in the wild, in real life.

The magnificent message of John 17 is that there is indeed a real and living God who is revealing himself. But to really see him, we'll have to get outside, away from our comfort and control, and take up the opera glass of faith. Doing so allows us to not only know the God of the Bible, but to delight in him as we discover his glory. Now as we approach God's word together, let's pause and ask for His grace to move through our time. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for the gift of life and breath in this new day. We thank you for the gift of your word. We bring before you our joys and our sorrows, our anxiety and our excitement, our calendars and our contingencies. Would you meet us in this space. Jesus, help us abide in you as we engage with your truth. Holy Spirit,

we ask you to move in and through this time in John's gospel account. And as we read your living word, may it read us and restore us to new abundant life with you. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, our passage today covers the first five verses of John chapter 17. at the very end of the upper room discourse. Now, the entirety of this particular chapter is referred to as the high priestly prayer. It's Jesus's prayer for his first followers and for you and me today. As we read through these first five verses of Jesus' prayer, let's notice how it draws us into something that is far bigger than the comfort and control of a sterile, distant faith. Here we go, John 17, verses 1 through 5.

When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son, that the son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God. and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

Wow, there's a lot going on here. What an amazing start to an astounding prayer from Jesus. Now, if we zoom out and just look at these five verses in total, you'll notice that one of the repeated words, in these verses is the word glorify. We remember that the biblical notion of glory carries this sense of weight or heaviness. Glory conveys substance, worth, and greatness beyond compare. And the proper response to glory is awe, worship, and trust in the one who is glorious. Now, if we pay close attention to the use of the theme of glory here, we recognize two big areas of emphasis, one at the beginning of the passage and one at the end. At the beginning of our text, there's a focus on the

glory of who Jesus is, his identity. Jesus is the son of God whose hour of victory has come as he gets ready to go to the cross. And as the son of God, he will glorify the father with the authority that the Father has given him. Now, while the beginning of the passage highlights the glory of Jesus' authority, the end of the passage illuminates the glory of what Jesus accomplishes. Look at verses four through five again. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. the glory of God is revealed in who he is and what he does. He is the creator who spoke life into existence.

He is the redeemer and the restorer who brings life out of death through sacrificial love. There is no glory like the glory of God, both in who he is and what he does in the work of redemption. Now, remember, the proper response to glory is awe, worship, and truth. and the one who is glorious. But how do we get to that response? How do we really encounter this glory? From a distance? With enhanced control that allows us to manufacture or manicure the life of faith?

No. See the middle of our passage again in verse 3. After Jesus affirms his authority to give eternal life, he says this, and this is eternal life, that they know you. the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. This is an astounding statement from Jesus. In this passage that's surrounded by the glory of God, we see the substance of a living and active faith.

It's the simple yet foundational reality of knowing God. This God of glory does not exist to just be studied from a distance to be looked at in a spiritual lab. He wants to be known by you. This intimate relational knowledge is so powerful that Jesus says it is eternal life. Think about that for a moment. Jesus wants his eternal life to fill your everyday life. Knowing him and being known by him grows a kind of abundance and life-giving connection that not only enhances our knowledge, but our delight. The life we were made for is only found with the author of life. But that can only happen if you know him. You have to get outside of your comfort, get outside of your control. You have to ultimately

get outside of yourself and see God through the opera glass of intimate gospel faith. perhaps this invitation to know Jesus hits you as you consider worshiping him and trusting him for the first time. Now, if that's you, what are some of the ways you need to let go of comfort or let go of control to receive the abundance of Jesus's life and love for you in the gospel? If that's you, I also encourage you to talk with somebody this week, maybe a friend, maybe somebody in your local church, to talk to them about how God is moving you to see his glory, to trust in his truth, and embrace the eternal life of Jesus. Or maybe for you, Jesus's words here are calling you to get outside of the sterile lab and into the challenge and adventure of a real faith

that really knows God. The kind of faith that goes beyond just knowing things factually and cognitively, but knowing them relationally. The kind of faith that goes beyond just knowing things factually and cognitively. the kind of faith that weaves the eternal life of Jesus into your everyday life. If that's you, what would it look like to connect with somebody else in the church who can encourage you as you rediscover the glory of Jesus in his eternal life? Jesus' prayer here in John 17 calls all of us to get outside, to take up our opera glasses, and see him, to know him, to delight. in him. And as we know him, we can make him known as the glorious God of eternal life and abundant love.

Heavenly Father, your glory is beyond compare. Help us know and delight in the weight of your wonder. Jesus, we thank you for not only praying for us, but for purchasing us back to yourself through your death and a cross, your victory over death. We want to see and save you. We want to see and save your eternal life more and more. Holy Spirit, weave us together as your people and help us get outside of ourselves to know you and make you known. We pray all of this because of your grace, for your glory, and in your story. In Jesus' name, amen.