This book was written by John.
Not John the Baptist, but one of the 12 disciples. He was the brother of James,
the son of Zebedee, and a nephew of Mary the Mother of Jesus, so that makes John,
and his brother James, first cousins of Jesus.
John was the only one of the disciples
to die a natural death. Judas committed suicide, and history tells that the
other 10 were all martyred. Not only that but it turns out that he was the last
of the twelve to die; he was probably way over 90 when he died.
As well as this book John also
has 4 other books in the New Testament, the book of Revelation and 1st,
2nd, and 3rd John. The common theme in all the books is
the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Gospel is a factual look
back telling just a tiny amount of Jesus life and ministry. The three letters
of John were written to deal with ongoing issues in church life, and Revelation
is looking to the future. So John is
also the only Biblical writer to write books in the past, present, and future
tenses.
It’s likely that John wrote
his Gospel in Ephesus around about 85-90
A.D., before he was sent by the
Romans to the isle of Patmos. The church at Ephesus had young Timothy as its
Pastor and as well as John, they would have had Jesus mother Mary in the
congregation.
John’s Gospel is very
different from the others in that it shares only a tiny amount of their content.
Obviously John would have been pretty familiar with Matthew, Mark and Luke’s
books.
The other Gospels were all
written decades before and share a lot of the same information, albeit, they
were written with different focus.
Just for a bit of wider
background it’s probably worth us spending a minute or two looking at how
Matthew, Mark, and Luke, (collectively called the synoptics) are different to
John’s Gospel.
·
John has his focus on
Jesus’ ministry in the Southern area of Israel known as Judea, and a lot of the
action is in Jerusalem, where the synoptics have a focus on Jesus’ ministry in the
Northern region of Galilee.
·
John contains lots of
long sermons, while the synoptics, have shorter saying and parables
·
The Passover is
mentioned once in the synoptics, but John mentions 3 Passovers, which give us a
clue to the fact that Jesus’ public ministry was about 3 or 3½ a half years
Purpose of the synoptic authors:
·
Matthew: to prove that Jesus is the Messiah, the
King of Israel
·
Mark: written first for a Roman audience (from
Peter’s perspective)
·
Luke: written to give a reliable and precise
record of the history of Jesus Christ's life. Also likely to have been used by
Paul’s lawyer in court…
But what was John writing for?
The word BELIEVE is
used 101 times and Jesus is the I AM 31 Times In John’s Gospel.
John’s Gospel is both full of
heavy in theological ‘stuff’, and easily understood. It’s been said that John’s
gospel is “shallow enough for babies to
wade in, but deep enough for elephants to drown in.”
Whilst the synoptics focus on
the facts of Jesus’ ministry. John digs into what His ministry means, he’s
interested in application. And as well as that, John is seriously wanting to get the message out, he’s very evangelistic.
The key verses in
understanding the whole of this book are:
John 20:30-31
The disciples saw Jesus do many other miraculous signs in addition to the ones recorded in this book. But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name.
The disciples saw Jesus do many other miraculous signs in addition to the ones recorded in this book. But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name.
And in his opening verses he lays out just what it was that God did:
John 1:14
So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.
So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.
John was a fiery character in
early life and he and his brother, James, were known as the “sons of thunder,”
They’re even recorded as wanting Jesus to call fire down from heaven on their enemies.
But this young, passionate idealist, was transformed into the mature, patient, valued
‘apostle love’. John stressed the
love of God more than any other writer in the bible.
Jesus love transformed John
personally and it’s still a love that can transform us today as we meet Jesus Christ
in the Gospel of John.
