Bible Study - Gospel of John

About The Gospel of John

The Gospels record Christ's ministry written to four different audiences.

Matthew was written for the Jews, especially those who loved the Scriptures and the prophecies of God. They would only listen to one of their own. So Matthew speaks to the Jews as well as the deeply religious of our day.

Mark spoke to the Romans. These were the leaders, so leadership and action spoke to them. They knew nothing of Scriptures but everything of power. So to this group comes the action-packed Gospel of the powerful ministry of Christ. Mark uses the word "and" 1,375 times to tie together the endless actions of Christ. Like our modern successful business men and women, they want a God who can powerfully meet their deepest needs.

Luke was a Greek speaking to the Greeks. The Greeks loved culture, beauty and ideas. Happiness could be found in the pursuit of truth. Luke fills his book with insights, interviews, songs, and details that fascinate the inquiring mind. So today the truth seekers find Jesus in Luke.

John wrote to everyone, because everyone needs to meet God and only Jesus can reveal Him. As such, the wording does not assume a Jewish reader. In this book we meet an absolutely powerful God in human flesh who controls and rules the Universe He created. The best known verse in the Bible is found in John, that God loves all and offers all His Son as their only hope.

The Gospel of John makes it clear that Jesus and the Father are one. Jesus is shown to have equality with the Father, yet has humility and submission to the Father at the same time. The term "born again Christian" comes from this gospel, although without the modern baggage that has attached to it. While some call this the love Gospel, it offers the blunt and unvarnished truth, contrasting truth with falsehood, light with darkness, and life with death. And that is real love. John packed his Gospel with a lot of theology. A careful study of John would correct a great many of the errors that currently exist.

The author of this Gospel is John, one of the first four of the 12 disciples that Jesus choose, along with his brother James. James and John were called the sons of thunder by Jesus. These two brothers along with Peter were Jesus' inner circle of three. While none of the Gospels are signed as such, they were not written anonymously. Signing was not necessary as it was known by all the churches who wrote each one. However, the Gospel of John does identify the author as the disciple who Jesus loved and who reclined on Jesus' chest, making it clear this was John. Extra-biblical writers also document who the Gospel writers were.

The most likely location for the writing of this Gospel is Ephesus as textual comparison and the writings of John in Revelation support this. However, the location of its writing is not important. As to when it was written, some scholars have tried to argue that it wasn't written until the third century, placing it 200 years after the events recorded. And this was used to justify questioning its accuracy and authorship. However, the discovery of the Rylands fragment P52 containing John 18:31-33 and 37-38 was relatively recently discovered in Egypt and is dated to the beginning of the second century, proving those scholars and skeptics wrong. (There are also other manuscript fragments that predate the incorrect conclusion of those skeptics.) This is the earliest manuscript fragment of any gospel yet found. And this proves the Gospel of John was written closer to the historical events it records than nearly all historical documents in existence.

The problem with skeptics and critical scholars is they apply a standard of evidence to scripture that no historical document could meet, including all of the hundreds of thousands of documents they do not question. None of these scholars question the accuracy of the two historical accounts of Alexander the Great which were written 400 years after the death of Alexander. The fictional legendary versions of Alexander didn't start appearing until 600-800 years after his death. Clearly the problem is not scripture, but the bigotry of these skeptics. Their hypocrisy is shown by the blatant double-standard they use. Of course, their motivation is understandable. If they admit that scripture is accurate and true, then they would become accountable to God. And that is something they will not accept.

Gospel of John Bible Study