We are diving into John’s gospel and I am going to pull some information and background from 3 sources, which are my typical stomping grounds for information - the videos put out by The Bible Project, my ESV Study Bible, and Logos Bible Study Software.

To start, it appears there has been a little debate over which John is specifically the author here, whether it is John the Elder or John Son of Zebedee.  Evidence seems to be much more in favor of John Son of Zebedee, so that’s what we will assume.  This John was one of the 12 disciples, which is important to remember because that places him in Jesus’ midst...right there in the middle of the daily action with Jesus.

Even a casual reader will notice the differences between Matthew, Luke, and John - with John being much more of a theological presentation, Luke an historical presentation, and Matthew a little of both.  Whereas Luke clearly identified his audience in his opening verse, we can figure Matthew’s was mostly Jewish Christians from his writing, and we can see that John is trying to present the story and the ethos of Jesus to everyone and then go on to prove his point.  As we start John’s Gospel, we will see its divergence from Matthew and Luke immediately, where John sets Jesus up as a the Word, the Son of God...he doesn’t bury the lead.  He is telling us who the main character is and then he goes on in his letter the describe why he feels that is the case, and more importantly, why you should agree with him.

Let’s talk about John really quickly though...who was he?  John is traditionally regarded as the author of five books of the Bible: the Gospel of John, the epistles 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John, and the Book of Revelation, although some Bible scholars dispute which of these he actually wrote. He is also believed to be the only disciple who died of old age (the others were allegedly martyred).  He is generally thought to have been referred to as several other names including John of Patmos (because he was banished to the island of Patmos), John the Evangelist, John the Elder, John the Presbyter, and the Beloved Disciple; to be clear though, it is unclear if all of these names do in fact refer to this John. It’s also worth noting: John the disciple of Jesus is not the same person as John the Baptist, who was Jesus’ cousin.

So, tomorrow we will dive in, and the way John starts is much the same as the way the entire Bible starts...in the beginning.  It is pretty cool.