Two Year Gospel Study Week 79

The Gospel of John - Week 1
Scripture: An overview of John chapters 1-21.

The Gospel of John is different than the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The Gospel of John is unique as 90% of what is written in this gospel is found nowhere else. And John gives us a unique view of Jesus, too.

Pastor Dodge shares with us who John was, and the evidence around John being the author of this book.  John was considered Jesus’ best friend and one of Jesus’ inner circle.  Also, John and Peter often worked together in their mission work.

It is thought that The Gospel of John was primarily the gospel story written for gentiles. However, this view changed after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Pastor shares the interesting story of the young boy, tending his sheep, who discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls in Quman Cave 4 around 1946-47 on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea Scrolls contained copies of the Hebrew Scriptures. After there discovery, the Gospel of John was seen as a book that speaks to all, but was written to let the Jewish people know the Messiah has come.

Pastor shares that recent archaeological evidence points to the accuracy of the Gospel of John and shares several examples.

Simple Outline of John:
    ⁃    Prologue 1:1-18
    ⁃    Jesus’ ministry 1:19-11:57
    ⁃    Passion of Christ and Resurrection 12:1-21:25

From the opening verses of this gospel it is clear it is special. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  John 1:1-5

This book is all about God’s love for us, about Jesus’ identity, who He is and written in a way that proves Jesus is who He says He is.  John shows Jesus as being the One who fulfills everything that God promised to His people. We see John’s purpose in the end of chapter 20, “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” John 20:30-31.  

John ends his gospel with, “This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true. Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” John 21:24-25. Jesus did so much that if we wrote down everything the world itself couldn’t contain the volumes!

Next week we will dive head long into the Gospel of John and move from this broad view to a verse by verse study of the book!

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    ⁃    The Gospel of John study is part five of five of our Two Year Study of the Gospels. 
    ⁃    The Gospel of John may be one of the most powerful books ever written. Many people have come to faith after reading only this book of the Bible.  Scholarly and archeological discoveries in recent decades give us new insight on details in the Gospel of John. We can now understand it as the most Jewish rather than the most “Gentile/Greek” of the Gospels, and when we do that we see many things that we missed before.

Our 2 year study of the gospels is great for large group, small group or home group study and can be started at any time!