HelpFinder Bible - Flipbook - Page 1321
John
“ W H AT I S H E L I K E ? ” How would you describe someone you know
to a stranger? What kind of word portrait would you draw?
For John, describing Jesus was an awesome task. How do you
describe the Son of God to people who have never seen him? John’s
approach was not to focus so much on what Jesus did here on earth but
to tell us the kind of person he was and is. John’s Gospel is not really a
biography of Christ as much as a portrait of Christ, like a beautifully
crafted painting. It is not so much a listing of the actions or events of
Jesus’ life as it is a descriptive insight into the Person of our Lord.
John starts with a stroke of his verbal brush that
takes our breath away. This Jesus lived from the
very beginning. He was always with God, yet he
is God. He is the Creator of the universe, the very
Word of God itself in the flesh. It is mind-boggling
to think about and, in many ways, beyond our
understanding, but John writes to tell us it is true.
While Matthew and Luke, in their Gospel
accounts, trace Jesus’ human lineage from early
Bible heroes through a Who’s Who of Scripture,
John leaps back over all of that and reveals the
amazing truth that even before the beginning of
time, Jesus was with God. He has always been
and will always be.
John’s purpose was not to write another biography of Jesus’ life on earth but to reveal Jesus as
God’s Son and even as God himself.
John skips Jesus’ birth, boyhood, temptation,
transfiguration, calling of the disciples, parables, and even the great commission to focus
instead on who this Jesus is: the Lamb of God;
the Bread of Life; the Light of the World; the Good
Shepherd; the Way, the Truth, and the Life; the
True Vine; the Resurrection and the Life; and the
Great I Am. Throughout John’s Gospel, witnesses
like Nathanael, Martha, and Thomas come to
realize that Jesus is the Son of God.
What you will be
reading about
1:1-18
God becomes a human
being
1:19 – 2:25
Jesus begins his ministry
3:1– 5:47
A religious leader, a Samaritan
woman, and a lame man
6:1–10: 42
Jesus is the Bread of Life,
the Light of the World, and
the Good Shepherd
11:1- 57
Jesus raises Lazarus from
the dead
12:1- 50
Jesus enters Jerusalem on
a donkey
13:1 – 17:26
Jesus teaches his disciples
on the night before his death
18:1–19:42
Jesus is arrested, tried, and
crucified
20:1– 21:25
Jesus rises from the dead
and appears to his followers
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