Judas leaves the Last Supper with a moneybag in hand, as the devil enters at the right. Pieter Pourbus (c. 1523–1584). The Last Supper. 1548. Cropped. Groeningemuseum, Bruges, Belgium. Photo by Vassil, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Groeningemuseum_Pieter_Pourbus_Last_Supper_01052015_1.jpg.
Tom Faletti
May 15, 2026
Read John 13:21-30 Jesus announces that he will be betrayed
In verse 21, Jesus is troubled for the third time (see also 11:33; 12:27). What does he tell the disciples?
How do the disciples react to the statement that one of them will betray Jesus?
In verse 22, we see the first reference to “the one whom Jesus loved.” We will also see this “beloved disciple,” as the scholars call him, at the foot of the cross, at the empty tomb, and in other places. He is traditionally considered to be the apostle John. How do you think he came to be known as “the one whom Jesus loved”?
The beloved disciple is reclining at Jesus’s side – literally, “in the bosom of Jesus.” (At festive meals in Jesus’s time people would lie on their sides on cushions around a low table. If they laid on your left side in order to eat with their right hand, the one to Jesus’s right who be able to lean back into the bosom of Jesus.) Look at the social dynamics between Jesus, this beloved disciple/John, and Peter. What can we learn about the relationships between them from the clues here?
Background on “the disciple whom Jesus loved”
Besides here in 13:22, we also see “the one whom Jesus loved” identified in the same way several other times:
In 19:26, he is standing at the foot of the cross with Jesus’s mother Mary. Jesus says to Mary, “Woman, behold your son,” and to him, “Behold your mother.”
In 20:2, he runs with Simon Peter to the empty tomb, enters the tomb, and believes.
In 21:7, after the Resurrection, when he and some other disciples are fishing, he is the first to recognize that the man who calls to them from the shore is Jesus.
In 21:20, the authors of the final chapter of this Gospel identify him, the beloved disciple at the Last Supper, as the one who wrote the first 20 chapters of this Gospel.
There are some other passages that might be referring to the same person:
In 18:15 there is someone called “another disciple” who, is known to the high priest, goes into the high priest’s courtyard after Jesus is arrested, and asks that Peter be allowed to come in also.
In 20:2, the one who runs with Peter to the empty tomb is called “the other disciple whom Jesus loved,” which suggests that the “another disciple” in the courtyard is the same as “the one whom Jesus loved.”
In 1:37, the first two people to follow Jesus are an unnamed disciple and Andrew. Andrew was the brother of Simon Peter, and the unnamed disciple could be this same disciple who is not named throughout the Gospel.
In all of these places, this disciple has traditionally been thought to be the apostle John, although some modern scholars have suggested that he might be someone else – perhaps an unnamed disciple who is not one of the 12 apostles.
At Peter’s suggestion, John asks Jesus who it is that will betray him. How does Jesus show them quietly who it is?
Dipping a morsel was one of the rituals of the Passover feast (dipping a bitter herb in salt water). Although John does not tell us about the moment when Jesus offers the bread and the cup, his story is consistent with this being the Passover meal described in the other Gospels. The fact that Jesus offers the morsel to Judas could have been taken by Judas as a gesture of fellowship and friendship, and Judas could have turned away from his plans for betrayal and chosen to be reconciled to Jesus, but Judas was no longer open to changing his mind.
Verse 27 says that after Judas takes the morsel into himself, Satan enters him. Satan’s action was possible because Judas opened the door. In our everyday lives, we don’t usually face such soul-defining moments. But are there ways that we either shut the door to Satan or open a door that allow him to gain a foothold in some piece of our lives? How?
Jesus knows that Judas’s mind is made up, so he tells him to go and do it quickly. The disciples have no idea what that interaction is about. We are sometimes oblivious to the evil going on around us. Sometimes that’s a good thing, but other times, we might be able to intervene if we had eyes to see the wrongs that are being done. How can we learn to see what is going on around us at a spiritual level – to see as God sees – when we have opportunities to do something to protect someone from being mistreated or help them see how God is working in their life?
God does not override human free will to prevent people from doing evil. What does God do instead? Without violating our free will, how does God nudge us to resist temptation and evil?
Sometimes we are very aware of the evil being done around us ,but we are powerless to stop it. How can we handle being in situations like that, and what lessons can we learn from Jesus?
Read John 13:31-35 Jesus gives us a new commandment: Love one another as he loves us
Jesus says again that he is about to be glorified – that is, he is about to sacrifice his life for all people. That is the context in which he offers them what he calls a new commandment. The Old Testament has commands to love God and love your neighbor. How is this commandment new? How does Jesus’s command go further than the Old Testament command to love your neighbor?
When the Law said to love your neighbor, that was understood to mean their fellow Jews, not Gentiles. Christians understand Jesus’s love command to include Gentiles. Jesus also teaches that our neighbor includes anyone in need who we can help (Luke 10:25-37), and that we are even called to love our enemies (Matt. 5:43-48). In addition, he tells us to love as he loved, which is a far greater love than the Old Testament’s love of neighbor.
How much does Jesus say we should love one another? As much as he has loved us. What does that kind of love look like in practical terms?
Jesus tells us to love as he loved us, and then he shows us how great his love is by dying for us on the cross. What does that tell us about the kind of love he wants us to show?
Where might you have an opportunity to rise to a higher level of love in some particular area of your life?
In verse 33, Jesus calls the disciples his “little children.” But in verse 34, he tells them that he won’t be with them much longer. In 14:18, he will assure them that this does not mean they will be orphans, because he will return and because his Spirit will live in them. But here, his statement that he won’t be with them much longer proceeds this new commandment to love one another. Why does the fact that Jesus is no longer with us physically make it all the more important that we love one another?
When we love each other, Jesus isn’t really gone; he is present in and through us.
What does verse 35 say? What will be the effect, if we have this kind of love for each other?
To what extent do you think it is true today that people can know who the followers of Jesus are because of their love for one another?
What could we do personally, and what could our churches do, so that more people would know by our love or each other that we are Jesus’s disciples?
Read John 13:36-38 Jesus predicts Peter’s denial
Peter is troubled by the idea that he can’t follow Jesus wherever he goes. He wants to know why. What bold claim does Peter make in verse 37?
Peter is being overconfident, but he is undoubtedly speaking sincerely: he truly believes what he says here. What does this tell us about him? What does it tell us about the kind of faith he wants to have in Jesus?
What is Jesus’s response to Peter in verse 38?
Look at the end of verse 36. Jesus tells Peter, “You can’t follow me now, but you will follow afterward (or later).” What does that mean? In what ways will Peter follow Jesus later?
In what ways are we called to follow Jesus?
Why do you think John placed Jesus’s command to love one another between Jesus’s discussion of Judas’s betrayal and Peter’s denial of him?
Take a step back and consider this:
It is intriguing that Jesus’s command to love is surrounded by Jesus’s announcement of Judas’s impending betrayal of him and his caution to Peter that he will soon deny Jesus. Did John place these three events in this sequence in order to highlight that the commandment to love one another may be difficult but that Jesus has shown us the way of embracing it anyway?
As we try to live a life devoted fully to Jesus, we may be betrayed by someone we thought was a friend. We may be ghosted or have someone act like they were never our friend. We may be rejected by people we thought were allies in our service to God. Even so, we are still called to love as Jesus loved.
As John put it in 13:1: “Having loved his own, he loved them to the end.” In following Jesus, we also must love those whom God has given to us and love them to the end.
Have you ever felt betrayed or denied by someone whom you thought was on your side? Have you ever been the one who denied or betrayed someone else? What would Jesus want you to do about it?
Why do you think Jesus sticks with us, even though we often fail him?
How can you have the same attitude toward others that Jesus has toward you?
Bibliography
See John - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/john/bibliography.
Copyright © 2026, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this.