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Start freeOne passage, two kinds of preparation
Cards tell you what a commentary said.
A study tells you what the text says.
John 17:13-20. On the left, the kind of curated cards a sermon tool hands you from a few commentaries, some of them centuries old, and your own old sermons. On the right, a few paragraphs from a Full Exegesis on the same verses in The Pastor’s Research Assistant: the Greek, the structure, and the reading of the passage from the Fathers to the present. Then ask which one a review of your sermon should be checked against.
What cards give you
Six cards on John 17:15-17
Outline
vv. 13-16: Joy, the word, and the world’s hatred. vv. 17-19: Sanctified in truth. v. 20: Prayer for those who will believe.
Cross-reference
1 John 5:18-19: the whole world lies in the power of the evil one, but the One born of God keeps him.
Exegetical
“Sanctify” means to set apart for God’s purposes. Jesus asks that the disciples be set apart by the truth of God’s word.
Historical
The high priestly prayer is spoken on the night before the crucifixion, after the Farewell Discourse.
Application
We are not taken out of the world but kept in it. Believers are sent as Jesus was sent.
Illustration
A ship is meant to be in the water; the trouble starts when the water gets into the ship.
Useful. Also exactly what you would get from the commentary on your shelf, cut to card length, with no Greek, no manuscript evidence, and no way to tell which claims the text itself will bear.
What a study gives you
From a Full Exegesis on the same verses
Text and translation, v. 15
οὐκ ἐρωτῶ ἵνα ἄρῃς αὐτοὺς ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα τηρήσῃς αὐτοὺς ἐκ τοῦ πονηροῦ.
I pray not that thou shouldest take them from the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil one. (ASV)
The Greek τοῦ πονηροῦ is grammatically ambiguous between masculine (the evil one) and neuter (evil as a principle). The KJV reflects the older choice; modern translations almost uniformly construe it as masculine on the strength of Johannine usage (1 John 2:13-14; 3:12; 5:18-19) and Matthew 6:13. Carson, Morris, and Michaels all favor the masculine reading. A sermon that preaches “kept from a person” is standing on the text; one that preaches “kept from bad things” is not.
Text and translation, v. 17
ἁγίασον αὐτοὺς ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ· ὁ λόγος ὁ σὸς ἀλήθειά ἐστιν.
Sanctify them in the truth: thy word is truth. (ASV)
The preposition ἐν is locative-instrumental and can support “in” or “by.” The distinction is exegetically significant: is truth the sphere of sanctification, the means, or both? A few witnesses read ἀληθείᾳ σου (“your truth”), harmonizing with the clause that follows; the shorter reading is preferred by NA28, supported by 𝔓⁶⁶, 𝔓¹⁰⁷, B, and C*. In v. 19 the anarthrous ἐν ἀληθείᾳ is more likely original, and the difference matters for how the two verses relate.
And then
Twenty more pages: structure, the Fathers on the prayer, the socio-rhetorical setting, the canonical thread from the high priest’s intercession to Hebrews 7, the traditions where they differ, and a bibliography you can check. Every claim attributed, so the review that follows has something to review against.
That is why the review is different.
Review Before Sunday reads your finished sermon against the study you ran, not against a general sense of the passage. Recap does the same with the sermon as it was preached. Neither is possible from cards.