John 15:16 — Community Reflections

JOHN 15:16 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.”

You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, a fruit that will last; so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in the name of me — the disciples' election flows from Jesus' sovereign choice, not from their merit or initiative. The choice of disciples by the rabbi is itself remarkable; the disciples of John and Jesus usually came to seek out the teacher. Jesus reverses this: he chose them before they could choose him, establishing that grace is prior to all human response. The appointment (tithēmi—place, set) to bear lasting fruit gives the disciples their vocation and meaning. Their prayer, grounded in this election and mission, will be heard by the Father.

Church Fathers on John 15:16

Having said, If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love, He shows what commandments they are to keep: This is My commandment, That you love one another.
Theophylact · 11th century

But when all our Lord’s sacred discourses are full of His commandments, why does He give this special commandment respecting love, if it is not that every commandment teaches love, and all precepts are one? Love and love only is the fulfillment of every thing that is enjoined. As all the boughs of a tree proceed from one root, so all the virtues are produced form one love: nor has the branch, i.e. the good work, any life, except it abide in the root of love.
Gregory the Great · 6th century

Where then love is, what can be wanting? Where it is not, what can profit? But this love is distinguished from men’s love to each other as men, by adding, As I have loved you. To what end did Christ love us, but that we should reign with Him? Let us therefore so love one another, as that our love be different from that of other men; who do not love one another, to the end that God may be loved, because they do not really love at all. They who love one another for the sake of…
Augustine · 4th century

Read all 19 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

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