The gospel of John does not follow the same line of the synoptic gospels, some people can say that this is something that runs against the apostle John’s account or we can see the gospel of John as a real complement for the synoptic and for the narrative of the Lord Jesus.
In the gospel of John, we know that the apostle is facing two significant challenges, confront Jews that do not believe that Jesus of Nazareth is God made flesh and Gnostics that do not accept that Jesus, as the revelation of God, took the form of a human body. I
In this gospel, we will see how the apostle John makes an effort to give testimony the nature of the Lord Jesus and the influence of the Kingdom of God in humankind. It is true that the gospel of John is the gospel
Throughout the book of John, Brown notes, one will find incidence that have twofold meanings, which are a double meaning in what Jesus says. Jesus will be found speaking to an individual and that conversation will take on one meaning while Jesus means another. Brown also mentions the careful structure of this Gospel, and he calls that inclusions, where John mentions a detail or makes an allusion at the end of a section that matches a similar detail at the beginning of the section. Brown notes, “John is a Gospel where style and theology are intimately wedded.”
Tozer, A. W. And He Dwelt Among Us: Teachings from the Gospel of John. ed. James L. Snyder
Gospel of John - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2015. Gospel of John - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_John. [Accessed 12 July 2015].
As John preached the word of God there was one thing he always made sure people understood; that there was someone greater than him whose sandals he is not worthy to untie. As John's popularity grew people started to think he was the messiah, but he assured them that he had come before Christ, and that when Christ comes his work would be finished. John was also very bold when speaking to religious leaders and kings.
Themes of John’s gospel 1. Light vs. Darkness a. The dual between light which is Christ and his ways and darkness which is Satan and the ways of the world is one of the more obvious themes in the Gospel of John. 2. Water/Life a. Water is one of the most significant elements in sustaining life.
The Gospel of John, the last of the four gospels in the Bible, is a radical departure from the simple style of the synoptic gospels. It is the only one that does not use parables as a way of showing how Jesus taught, and is the only account of several events, including the raising of Lazarus and Jesus turning water into wine. While essentially the gospel is written anonymously, many scholars believe that it was written by the apostle John sometime between the years 85 and 95 CE in Ephesus. The basic story is that of a testimonial of one of the Apostles and his version of Jesus' ministry. It begins by telling of the divine origins of the birth of Jesus, then goes on to prove that He is the Son of
John the Baptist is a significant and familiar character in the Bible. Even as significant and familiar as he is, very little is known about him. We are told that he was born to Zechariah, a temple priest, and his mother, Elizabeth, was a cousin to Mary, the mother of Jesus. From other bits and pieces within the Bible, we know he was an unusual character. He chose to live a rugged life in the mountainous area of Judea between the city of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. His clothes were made out of camel’s hair and his diet consisted of locusts and wild honey. Yum! Even though little is known of him, his coming was foretold over 700 years prior by the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah said, “A voice of one calling: ‘In the desert prepare the way for
The genre of John is The Gospels. The interpretive principals are: The Gospels are narratives. We should always think about the broader sweep of the narrative when we read, constantly relating the various events and teaching to those that precede and follow them. The Gospels demand some background information regarding history and culture. It is more relevant to understand the culture, values, and worldview of the people on the pages of the Gospels than to know the specific author or recipients. The focus of the Gospels is on Jesus, not on us. Our tendency in our reading of the Gospels is to reduce them primarily to sources of insight about ourselves. One of the primary goals of the Gospel writers is to prove that Jesus is the Messiah, not to prove that He is God. All of Jesus’ miracles attest the fact that He is the Messiah, the Anointed One who was long prophesied and long awaited by the people of Israel. With four different Gospels, we should do comparisons of the various Gospel accounts when appropriate. While all four Gospels share the central focus on Jesus, each writer nevertheless has the distinctive emphasis regarding the person of Christ. We must avoid the temptation to blur one Gospel account together with the other Gospels when they contain the same story. And we need to understand the centrality of the kingdom of God in the Gospels. Living obediently as a citizen of the kingdom presupposes our correct understanding of its nature. The sub-genre of
John as we know today was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. He was also the brother of James, who was also an apostle. John was the son of Zeebee and of Salome. His father was a fisherman while living in Bethsaida in Galilee on the border of the lake Gennesareth. John's mother was one of many women who gave to the maintenance of Jesus Christ. John's parents were very good people, they loved God and his son. It is said that john and his brother James were fishing when Jesus came and chose them. They were soon known as the fishers of men. The John of whom I am talking about is John the Evangelist.
While numerous scholars say that John is the Gospel to the world (and Matthew to the Jews, Mark to the Romans, and Luke to the Greeks), a Jewish scholar such as Israel Abrahams might very well believe that the Gospel of John is the most Jewish Gospel of the four by the way it reflects Jewish traditions and symbolisms. According to David Wenham[i], there is more attention given to Jesus as the Messiah in the Gospel of John than in any of other Gospels. In John, from chapter one onwards people are directly talking about Jesus as Messiah, and then there is intense public debate about whether Jesus is Messiah or not in John 7:25-31, 41-44[ii], which indicates that John is quite mindful of Jewish issues.
The essential problem Wright identifies in the introduction can be documented most clearly in six ordinary, but unsatisfactory responses often provided by the church to the query "What are the Gospels all about?, ” which are: 1) teaching people how to go to Heaven, 2) recording Jesus's exclusive ethical teaching, 3) depicting Jesus as a moral prototype for the people, 4) exhibiting Jesus as the perfect sacrifice, 5) telling stories with which humans can recognize and then find direction, and 6) signifying Jesus's spirituality. While each of these answers contains a portion of truth, Wright contends they all fail to hold the heart of the Gospel accounts. According to Wright, “the gospels tell of Jesus who embodied the living God of Israel and whose cross and resurrection really did unveil and initiate the Kingdom of God.” Wright then claims that the kingdom is apart of a greater eschatological theology, which is concerned with what is believed to be the final events of history, or the definitive destiny of humanity.
Johannine literature truly portrays Jesus as God, with the theme of His deity interwoven throughout numerous passages. In this respect, John’s style differs from the other four gospels, as Bickel & Jantz (1998) point out that the other three had been written prior to John’s gospel, therefore, “he wasn’t interested in just retelling the events” (p. 222). Since Jesus is the focal point of Scripture, a scholar of the New Testament with uncertainty concerning Jesus’ oneness with God will fail to perceive the crux of Christianity. Therefore, in spite of its importance, John does not focus on Jesus’ entrance into the
" Despite the massive assault on John's trustworthiness in the wake of the Enlightenment, especially by liberal German scholars, John's Gospel stands today widely rehabilitated as a reliable witness to the life, words and deeds of our Lord Jesus Christ."
For the Fourth gospel, the evangelist unveils Jesus’ ministry as “to make God known.” This implies that Jesus is the only one who is perfectly identified as the full revelation of God. He is the Word made flesh (cf. Jn. 1:14). He is the one as said in John 14:8 (Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us), and his response in verse 9 “[…] anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” It attests to the fact that Jesus is “the Father’s only Son” John. 1:18 and also reveals the unique relationship that exist between God the Father and Jesus. The second person of the Trinity through whom creation came to be becomes incarnate. Jesus who is identified as the Word in the Gospel of John takes on flesh to communicate to
The gospel of John does not have the birth story of Jesus as it is documented in the Synoptic gospels instead refers Christ as eternal word which became flesh. Gospel of John lacks records of Jesus’ Baptism by John the Baptist but instead records his baptism activities hence contradicting role of John the Baptist in Jesus’ Baptism. Another difference of gospel of John from the synoptic gospels is that there is no indication of temptation of Jesus by Satan but records that Jesus could not be tempted because of his unity with the Father. John indicates that Jesus taught without parables something contradicts synoptic gospels. There is no accounts of apocalypse in the gospel of John but instead indicates that Jesus completed his messianic role (Harris, 2014).