John 1

Good Afternoon Brothers,

Starting a new book is exciting and overwhelming.  As I read through the first chapter, I realized that we are not going to be able to go verse by verse on this book.  However, I still want to continue a chapter per day.  It is not important how much I comment on the Bible, actually, it may be better for me to comment a little less and allow all of you to have more input.  The important function here is that we are all studying the Bible together.  What is really important is our walk with God.  I feel that a chapter per day is reasonable, any less than a chapter per day in a quiet time is restrictive.  How can we expect to get enough meat out of the Word if we don't spend the time in the Word to get it out?  In my opinion it is better if a person reads three chapters per day or so, this allows him to read from the Old Testament, New Testament and a favorite book.  Let's face it, reading doesn't take that much time.  It is study that takes time, the deeper that you dig, the longer it takes.  We need both quantity time and quality time in the Word.  Perhaps we should all contribute to an online discussion about what it takes to have a good and effective quiet time.  Write me with your suggestions.

A brief overview of John is best summarized by this statement:  

"John’s portrait of Jesus is the most theological of the four Gospels. He launches his work by presenting a Jesus who existed with God and as God before the creation of the universe. He entered His creation as a human being, lived among His creatures, and His every act and teaching calls us to believe in Him as Savior and Lord. John’s unique style features contrasting concepts that confront us with the necessity of belief. Christ is the focus of a cosmic struggle between life and death, light and darkness, truth and falsehood, love and hate. No wonder John is consumed with concern that we, his readers, respond to Jesus by placing our complete trust in Him—and live out that trust daily. In fact John’s key word, belief, occurs 98 times in the Greek text of his 21 chapters!

This feature of John helps us sense the Gospel’s value to you and me. Study of John’s unique portrait of Jesus can enrich our faith in Christ and enable us to walk trustingly hand in hand with our Lord." ^[1]

Looking at vs. 1-5  John addresses Jesus as God more than any other Gospel.  John hammers home the deity of Christ right from the beginning, so now we start our study.  Back to the basics folks,  The Greek is very specific in regard to the Word and who the Word is.  In Verse 1, English says that "the Word was with God, and the Word was God."  I think it is important to note here, that literally translated, the Greek says "the Word was with the God and God was the Word."  You see it makes a little different implication, a lot of cults will translate this verse in different ways to avoid the specific language written here.  The Greek word logos, translated Word, is where we get our English word logic.  Another interesting point here is that when Greek is translated into English, a lot of the redundant articles are dropped because they are understood in the English language.   Which is why it is translated "the Word was God" instead of "the God".

So much for a quick Greek study,  look at vs. 2,3  see also Colossians 1:16, refer also to John 1:14.  Jesus was the Creator.  He took on fleshly clothes so that He could come into the world to save us. 

vs. 4-5  He is the light that shines into our lives.  Think about this analogy, if you turn on a light in a dark place, you can see everything bad that exist there.  Jesus did that in our lives, this brought us to repentance. 

I am really going to cut this down, skip to John the Baptist.  He is a very interesting fellow, one thing that stands out to me is that the Pharisees confronted him.  You have to admire the Pharisees, they certainly were going to set the story straight.  Unfortunately, they were unwilling to accept the true light.  What would have happened if they had accepted Christ at face value?  Interesting thought.  The Jews would be saved right now, and we would probably be on the outside.  The Pharisees interest me because we see them in every church, even today.  These folks are meticulous with the Word, yet are they saved?  That is a question each one has to answer for himself, obviously these were not.  But in today's church, it is easy to be religious, learn head knowledge and not transfer that to heart knowledge.  These people are the ones I refer to as Pharisees of today. 

John the Baptist is an interesting study all by himself.  He was of a miraculous birth also, look at Luke 1:5-25, 57-80.  We could spend a lot of time on John alone,  but let's move on.

vs. 35-51 Jesus begins His public ministry.  One thing that stood out to me in this section was that He called the first disciples.  What happened immediately after calling the first disciples?  They went out to bring others to Jesus.  These disciples in their excitement about finding the Messiah were the first soul-winners.  Also, just as in the case of Nathanael, He knew that we were coming before we even came to Him.  Interesting the way this book started.  Jesus is God, Jesus came to save the world, and Jesus made disciples.  this is a major over-simplification.

Jesus is the Messiah, He is God.  These are the points that we will deal with through out this entire book.  These are the basic building blocks of our faith.  Without these truths, what point is there in Christianity?

Lord,As we study Your Word, we pray that you will remove the scales from our eyes.  Enable Your light to shine into each one of our hearts and let us set our focus upon Your light, Your life in ours.

In Him,

Joe Turner