Staying focused…

Finishing the Book Of Numbers we are again headed back into the New Testament. The Gospel of John is a very fascinating book to me personally because of the close relationship of John with Jesus. Both internal and external evidences, as well as the earliest church historians like Irenaeus (130-c. 200) and Clement of Alexandria (150-c.215), agree that John the son of Zebedee is the author. The Monarchian Prologue to the Gospel of John Fourth Gospel states that John wrote the gospel sometime after his exile of the island of Patmos so it was written very late in his life. John’s purpose for writing the gospel was to convince the reader that Jesus is the Messiah and for the reader to find salvation. He says so in John 20:30. “Jesus did many other things of which I did not write…. but these thing write I unto you, that you may know that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of the living God. And that by knowing might have life through His name.“ John gets right into it the very first verse of his gospel by writing, “In the beginning was the Word.” That begs the question, ‘The beginning of what?’ The answer, ‘The beginning of everything.’ In other words, this Word of God is eternal in that He has always existed. John thinks and writes in the biggest, broadest, most sweeping terms. This Jesus was always there; ceaselessly, forever, perpetually. Not from the beginning of our planet earth, continents, seas, and life. Not from the beginning of the cosmos, stars, stellar space and galaxies. Not from the beginning of the angelic world including cherubim or seraphim. But from before anything we can even think of as a starting point! Big thoughts. Big God … Blessings, Pastor Ed