Ep. 44 | Introduction to the Gospel of John

Speaker: Jesse Turkington

Summary: Welcome back! We are preparing a new series on the Gospel of John. This episode sets up our expedition and prepares our mindsets.

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Music created by Chad Hoffman
Artwork created by Anthony Kuenzi

Jesse’s Notes:

Introduction to the Gospel of John

Hey!

Welcome back to Pickled Parables. It’s been a hot minute since we took a break in December. It is good to be back.

My name is Jesse. I’m so glad that you’re here. We’re about to begin a new series. We’re gonna start going through the Gospel of John. 

Now as we begin this series, we still want to leave room for our other Bible teachers to come share the lessons that they’ve learned or the studies that they’ve been studying. So, the plan here is to get a running start in John by dedicating a couple of weeks to getting through the first chapter of John and then we’ll go back to the every-other week schedule where our fellow Bible scholars will share in between the weeks of John. 

So, with this plan in place we’ll have a dedicated series to go through while still having interweaving lessons throughout our time. 

So with that little announcement, let’s get into our lesson for today. 

Introduction

This introduction is meant to prepare our expectations and set up a healthy mindset as we begin this new series in John. 

We’ve studied through a book of the Bible before in this podcast, we went through the letter to the Galatians. The Gospel of John is a little different than the letter to the Galatians because this is telling a story rather than addressing specific issues. 

If you remember our series in Galatians; it was a letter addressed to the church of Galatia (that was a place) written by the apostle Paul. And there were specific reasons why Paul wrote that letter. There were issues he had to address so it was more didactic in its presentation - didactic meaning like it’s indented to teach. A lecture could be an example of something didactic and that’s kind of what that letter was. He was correcting and instructing through teaching.

The Gospel of John is different than Galatians because this book was indented to help people believe that Jesus was the promised Messiah. 

 There are four Gospel accounts in the Bible. John is one of them. There are also the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The exact genre of the Gospels has been debated for centuries (like, what kind of literature it is) and it’s still debated today. My stance on this situation is that they appear to be biographical in nature but more narrative driven in structure. That’s what I’ve observed. 

For instance, the Gospel of Matthew was written to a more Jewish audience and the author’s goal was to prove that Jesus was the promised Person of the Old Testament. He wanted to prove that Jesus was the prophesied King who would come and establish God’s Kingdom on Earth. 

So he starts out his book with a genealogy that starts with the father of all Israel, Abraham. He works his way in a stylized formant down to King David and then he works his way down again to Jesus Christ, who he is declaring to be the Messiah, the descendant of all these leaders and kings. It’s a three-part structure made up of a lot of sevens. It’s very Jewish in its design. 

He then details the virgin birth and makes claim that Jesus is the fulfillment of this ancient prophesy and then he immediately tells a story about some official wisemen coming from another country to Jerusalem because they want to worship and acknowledge the newborn King of Israel. 

That’s all within the first two chapters of Matthew. He’s using Jesus’ life and the events that happened in His life to tell a story about why we should believe that Jesus is the Messiah. 

Each of the Gospel accounts – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – use Jesus’ life like a biography but they don’t necessarily tell it in chronological order, and they instead rearrange events in order to tell a specific narrative. 

Another example could be the Gospel of Mark. This book was written to a more Gentile audience. His opening statement is: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But he doesn’t begin with the virgin birth like Matthew records! He instead starts with the ministry of John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus. The reason he does this is because Mark is telling the story of Jesus, but he has a different emphasis that he wants to make. 

A big theme throughout Mark’s Gospel is understanding who Jesus is. He’s a divisive character in the story. Some people want to follow Him, others want to undermine Him and still others aren’t really sure what to think about Him. 

The people who follow Him, specifically His disciples, (they) misunderstand Him. They see Jesus as this victorious conquering King who’s going to retake Israel from the control of the Romans, but Jesus keeps redirecting their attention away from that. 

Near the conclusion of the story, Jesus is dying on the cross and there’s a Roman centurion who is awed by Jesus’ cry and he is the first person in the book to declare, “Truly, this man was the Son of God.”

The four Gospels were each written for different audiences and because they were written for different people, they carry different emphasized points. Matthew wanted to show that Jesus was the promised King of the Old Testament who would bring God’s Kingdom to Earth. 

Mark wanted to make people ask, “Who is Jesus?” and then he emphasized the crazy claim that the Jesus who was crucified and then rose from the dead is the Messiah. 

The primary goal of the Gospel writers is the prove that Jesus is the Messiah, and they want to help you be confident as you put your belief behind that idea.  

This is important for us to acknowledge, especially among Western cultures. Because ever since the 17th century when Deism took a hold, we have been conditioned to defend Jesus’ deity and so now when we read through the Gospels our lenses have been shaped to look for evidence that proves Jesus is God. 

The Gospel writers and the people that they wrote to sat with a different historical perspective. They didn’t seem too bothered with the idea that God could have stepped into history as a God-man named Jesus. Now there were people who took offence at that and tried to stone Jesus but overall, especially in the Greek and Roman cultures, that wasn’t a big problem for them. 

Instead, the big question was: Is this Jesus of Nazareth the One anointed, appointed, designated, empowered and solely authorized to fulfill God the Father’s will on earth. They wanted to know if He was the Messiah.

I should note that these Gospel accounts do include the fact that Jesus preexisted as Deity as the second person of the Trinity, and we’ll see in the first chapter of John. There is plenty of evidence to show that Jesus is God in the flesh. But again, that was not their primary emphasis. And that’s good for us to recognize.  

Now Since the 18th century, Matthew, Mark and Luke have been known as the synoptic Gospels because they repeat a lot of the same stories, they have very similar wording and even their structure can be similar. 

John sits outside of the synoptic Gospels because it’s rather unique in comparison. Instead of being filled with Jesus’ parables it’s filled with metaphors and similes. Instead of having the Sermon on the Mount it has the Upper Room Discourse. It tells the story of Jesus but it’s different in how it goes about it. Again, this book is influenced by the audience that it was written for. 

As a Bible teacher, I would tell the story of Jesus differently to middle schoolers than I would to young adults. And that’s only me thinking within the category of age-gap. John is writing to people of different cultures and that influences a lot more than just an age-gap. 

So let’s talk about the author, the audience and the books purpose.

The Gospel of John

The Gospel of John was written anonymously. What I mean by that is that the author didn’t sign their name on parchment anywhere. The author simply referred to themselves as, “The disciple whom Jesus loved.” That was their identification. 

 Early church tradition credits the apostle John the son of Zebedee as the author of this gospel but of course since then there has been lots of debate about if it was a different John (like John the Elder) or if it was someone not even named John. 

I take the position that it was the apostle John the son of Zebedee. But if I was proved to be wrong it wouldn’t really shatter my world. 

I’ll share with you why I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s most likely John the son of Zebedee. 

Some of the language in the Gospel here denotes an awareness if not even a participation in the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ. In the fourth paragraph of John’s prologue, he says: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son the Father, full of grace and truth.” 

The pronouns that I’m looking for here are “us” and “we,” showing that whoever is writing this is including themselves with residing with Jesus (he dwelt with us) and seeing the glory of Jesus (we have seen his glory). 

So within this book the question is then asked, “Who is the ‘we’? Who did He dwell with and who saw His glory?”

That answer comes right after Jesus’ first miracle. It says in chapter 2, verse 11, right after Jesus turned water into wine: “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.” 

 So right there we’re told that Jesus’ disciples witnessed the manifestation of His glory and as a result they believed in Him. So, Jesus’ disciples are the “we.” And that conclusion can be collaborated with the identification of “The disciple whom Jesus loved.”

So, then the question becomes: “Which of the disciples wrote this gospel?”

 The first time the phrase, “The disciple whom Jesus loved” is used is in chapter 13 during the Last Supper in the Upper Room. It says: “One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus' side, so Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking.”

So there’s three immediate conclusions that I take from this, (1) this disciple is a man because Peter asked “him” to ask Jesus a question (2) this disciple was one of the Twelve because the Upper Room Discourse only had Jesus with His chosen disciples and (3) the identification of “The disciple whom Jesus loved” was not in reference to Simon Peter as he was the one asking him a question. 

By the same logic, it also wasn’t Judas Iscariot, it wasn’t Philip, Thomas or Judas the son of James. Because they’re all mentioned in the same way as Peter during this Upper Room discourse. 

Continuing this process of limitation throughout the rest of this book, we’re only left with Matthew, Simon the Zealot, James the son of Alphaeus and John the son of Zebedee. 

Matthew is credited with writing the Gospel of Matthew so he would be an unlikely candidate. Simon the Zealot and James the son of Alphaeus are kind of obscure figures throughout the New Testament. I don’t know a lot about them. I’m not sure there’s much to know about them. But I’ve never heard them suggested as possible authors for this gospel either by the early church fathers or by any kind of tradition. They’re not part of the debate. So that leaves us with John the son of Zebedee. 

That’s the internal evidence I see for John being the author. This doesn’t include the external, the extra-Biblical resources that help put John in this authorship seat. I won’t go over that. If you’d like to look at that, I would suggest looking at some of Polycarp’s writings. He claimed to be a disciple of John and one of the things that he said was that John wrote this Gospel while he was a resident at Ephesus in Asia. That’s one thing there but there’s more. There’s more to look at if you’d like. 

Let’s look at the audience now! 

The people that John wrote this Gospel for were both Jews and Gentiles. He’s addressing two different audiences at once. However, these two audiences seem to share a commonality: Greek influence. 

Besides Polycarp, there’s another church father named Irenaeus who also said that John published this Gospel while he was a resident at Ephesus. 

 Now, I’m assuming that the timing of this writing took place around 70 A.D. (maybe later) and I’m placing it there because it’s likely that this was written after the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. John seems to write about the temple as if it’s no longer there. 

After the destruction of the Temple, the practice of Judaism was slightly crippled. Judaism without the Temple meant Judaism without a fully functional sacrificial system, including the priesthood. So for Jews who were part of the diaspora (Jews who didn’t live near Jerusalem but rather lived out in other parts of the world) they would go to places that they felt like they could get along in. 

As it worked out, those who were not necessarily opposed to assimilating into another culture lived in places certain Ephesus and the more (we could call them) separatists lived in places like Galatia or Cappadocia. … I realize that’s kind of an oversimplified statement but here’s what I’m trying to say with it: Hellenistic Jews who leaned more towards Greek culture would get along better in places like Ephesus which had a significant Greek influence. 

The Jews of Ephesus were definitely people who had Jewish values and grew up with the Torah but they were also considered Hellenistic Jews because they had adopted certain Greek influences. 

Outside of the Jewish population, the demographic of Ephesus was definitely Greco-Asian. So think of pagan mythologies, Greek philosophy; this was territory under Roman control but it was a culture of Greek influence. 

So that was the audience. John is writing to two different cultures simultaneously and addressing both of them through certain phrases. This Gospel is an ingenious construction! I’m excited to show you how he managed to do this. I imagine that this book took him a long time to write because it is filled with intentionality, and it is very layered. 

 Finally, let’s talk about his purpose. What was John’s purpose in writing this book? What does he want to emphasize? 

At the very end of his book, John makes several statements, like: “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”

And also: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

I would say that this statement right here is the thesis of this Gospel. It was written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John has a very specific structure in this book that helps emphasize this main point. But we’ll look more at that as we get further along. 

Conclusion

As we end this introduction, let’s remember the mindset that we should have as we approach this Gospel. 

This book is kind of biographical in nature but more narrative driven in structure – meaning that the author wants to use the Good News of Jesus’ story to make a specific point for his audience. As we read through this, we should read it as it’s presented. It is a narrative. A story is being told. 

We should also remember the historical situation of the original audience. This was written to people who are no longer alive, but it is also meant for us here today. 

Sometimes that gets put backwards so that people say, “This was written to me, and it was for an ancient audience.” That is incorrect. It was written to an audience locked in time, yet its value is timeless and therefore beneficial for anyone alive today. 

So we should certainly be aware of that. 

 In addition, we should come to this study with an awareness that we have different cultural and historical perspectives compared to that of first century Christians. We have a different lens that we use to look at the Bible. So that is something that we should check at the door as well. 

 Lastly, we should come with an attitude of joy. Because this is joyful study. We’re going to look at the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it’s told by the apostle John. 

This is an incredible thing that we get to do and we should come with an excited reverence. 

 So starting next week, we’ll enter into John chapter one and we’ll look at the first 18 verses which is considered the books prologue. If you want to get the most out of this study, I would suggest reading through those first 18 verse in preparation. That would be a good help for you because then you’ll have a refreshed and better understanding of what I’ll be teaching through. 

So that’s totally optional. It’s up to you. But either way, starting next week, we’ll get into John chapter one.

Outro:

 Thank you joining me today! I’m excited for this new study. John is one of my favorite authors in the Bible because he uses a lot of imagery and he stuffs a lot of meaning into simple phrases. 

Next week we’ll start into the first chapter and go through the first 18 verses. This is going to be a pretty long study. This Gospel is 21 chapters long and we’re going to go through each sentence, verse-by-verse, until we get to the end of it. 

Something else that’s new and exciting is a new podcast by Parable Ministries called My Dusty Bible. If you remember our last episode in December, I mentioned that I’ll have a surprise for you when we come back in January. This is it!

My Dusty Bible is a podcast that is entirely focused on learning more about the Bible. It has a three-phase plan: phase one is to read through the whole Bible, phase two is to look at the structure and design of the Bible and phase three is to look at an overview of the Bible with all of its themes. 

So we’re in phase one right now. The first episode is Genesis. It’s 4 hours and 20 minutes long. So have fun with that. 

With all those announcements and updates, it’s time for me to bid you ado. So I’ll see you next week in John chapter one. I’ll catch you later.