Saturday, November 5, 2016

This week here at CCSWM we will begin our study of The Gospel of John, and I for one, am very excited.  John’s gospel is one of my favorite books of the Bible for a variety of reasons, one of which is that John is very clear about why he wrote it, and another is that John offers a unique perspective on the life and works of Christ that stands apart from Matthew, Mark, and Luke in both content and design.

While some are critical of the differences between the synoptic gospels, as Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called, these differences are not contradictory, but rather complementary.  Of the three synoptic gospels, Mark was written first, and it seems clear that Matthew and Luke referred to Mark when penning their accounts of the life and ministry of Christ.  John was written last of these four, and though John had access to the preceding works, chose rather to compliment them than to simply repeat the things that had been written in them.  John acknowledges these differences, and expresses his purpose for choosing to focus on different details in John 20:30-31 where he writes, “And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name” (NKJV). 

John’s stated purpose in writing this Gospel, is to encourage belief in Jesus as the Son of God, and his profession is that those who do believe will have life in the name of Jesus Christ.  In this brief statement John communicates the heart of the Gospel.  It is my hope, that as we read together, we will be strengthened in our conviction that Jesus Christ is who this book professes Him to be, the only begotten son of the true and living God.  

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