That insight has been freshly appreciated by recent scholars. The risen Lord does not hand over his mission to his disciples and leave them to it; “he only gives the disciples a share in it … with the assistance of the Paraclete” (Schnackenburg, 3:324). It is this setting that is presupposed in the striking words of 14:12–14: the disciples go forth to their mission and seek the Lord’s aid therein, and in response to their prayers he will do through them “greater things” than in the days of his flesh,
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