Bible Strands
John 15:19
If you were of the world, it would love you as its own. Instead, the world hates you, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Jesus speaks these words to His disciples during the Farewell Discourse, directly following His declaration that the world hated Him before it will hate them (John 15:18).
The words — The Greek κόσμος (kosmos) refers to the world system, while ἐκ (ek) marks extraction or origin. Jesus contrasts natural alignment with the world against His deliberate act of choosing the disciples out of it.
The thread — This pattern of divine selection meeting worldly hostility appears in John 17:14, where Jesus confirms the world hates the disciples because they do not belong to it, and in 1 John 4:4, which grounds their standing in the greater power of God within them.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to identify the source of their identity as Christ’s choice rather than cultural affiliation, making opposition a logical outcome of that distinct origin.
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 were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
Cross-references
- 1 John 4:4 You, little children, are from God and have overcome them, because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
- John 17:14 I have given them Your word and the world has hated them. For they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
- Ephesians 1:4 For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence. In love
- Titus 3:3 For at one time we too were foolish, disobedient, misled, and enslaved to all sorts of desires and pleasures—living in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.
- John 15:16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will remain—so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you.
- Ephesians 2:2 in which you used to walk when you conformed to the ways of this world and of the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the sons of disobedience.
- 1 John 5:19 We know that we are of God, and that the whole world is under the power of the evil one.
- 1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
- Luke 6:32 If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.
- 1 John 3:12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did Cain slay him? Because his own deeds were evil, while those of his brother were righteous.