Bible Strands
John 14:15
If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Jesus speaks to his disciples in the upper room on the night before his crucifixion, within the Farewell Discourse (John 13–17).
The words — τηρήσετε (tērēsete), "you will keep," comes from τηρέω, which carries the sense of guarding or watching over rather than merely following. The commandment is not a suggestion to be acknowledged but something to be held and protected.
The thread — John 14:21 reverses the logic: keeping commandments is the evidence of love. 1 John 2:3 and 5:2 make the same link in the Johannine corpus, tying love of God to obedience as a test rather than a reward.
Why it lands — The verse is a conditional, not a promise: it offers no comfort, only a standard. It asks the reader to check whether their professed love has produced kept commandments, and to accept that the answer may be no.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
If ye love me, keep my commandments.
Cross-references
- 1 John 2:3 By this we can be sure that we have come to know Him: if we keep His commandments.
- 1 John 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God and keep His commandments.
- John 14:21 Whoever has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me. The one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him.”
- 2 John 1:6 And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the very commandment you have heard from the beginning, that you must walk in love.
- John 15:10 If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love.
- 1 John 4:19 We love because He first loved us.
- 2 Corinthians 5:14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, therefore all died.
- 1 Peter 1:8 Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and rejoice with an inexpressible and glorious joy,
- Galatians 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. What matters is faith expressing itself through love.
- Matthew 25:34 Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.