The Gospel of John has always been my favorite book of the New Testament. I love how it describes Jesus’s personal feeling for his disciples and for all people. I love how it explains the teachings of the Lord in the last week of his life, and I have always loved how much it emphasizes the divinity of Jesus Christ.

As I dug into the first chapter for this week’s lesson, I was particularly struck by the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. John had built himself quite a large following of disciples. He was teaching of the coming Messiah, he was baptizing, people were listening and following him. He even had the Jewish leaders sending people to watch and listen to him and report back. He was very influential. It seems likely that they knew each other, if they were cousins, and likely from an early age John knew Jesus would be the Messiah. Whether they lived around each other or not, it would have been easy to be jealous of the attention or deference he was taught to give Jesus. I am also certain that John may have been tempted to feel pride and status with his growing group of disciples. Yet, when the time was right, he willingly and passionately convinces his disciples to follow Jesus and leave his following.

We know he spends the rest of his life finding, teaching, and sending people to the Savior, costing him his own life. Yet, he not only seems willing to defer and send his disciples to the Savior, you can tell he feels joy in his humility before Jesus and has great love for him.

When I was a missionary, I remember speaking to my mission president about something and he said something I have never forgot. He said one of the most difficult emotions to overcome is the feeling we have when someone else is more successful, more important, or even has more than us and we wish it was us or that it wasn’t them. It is a combination of jealousy, schadenfreude, and guilt for not being happy for someone else. I have seen this and felt this feeling so much in my life. What is clear with John the Baptist is that he had no sign of that feeling. He loved the Savior, was content and happy with his role as the “Perparer of the Way”. 

I think that is something we can take into our lives. We can learn to be happier for others, we can learn to celebrate their achievements, and we can be better at realizing someone else’s success or attention does not lessen us, and in fact if we celebrate and help them it will only enlarge our hearts and souls.

CHAPTERS FOR STUDY WEEK 3 – John 1

Focus:
– Christ’s divinity is an essential part of his ministry and it is the basis for John’s testimony.

– Becoming a Disciple of Jesus Christ requires us to “Come and See.” We must be a participant in His ministry.

– Whether we are the most beloved disciple, or the disciple no one knows, being a disciple will yield the fruits of joy, peace, and love.

Context and Timeline:
– The Gospel According to John is over 90% different than the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and Matthew. This makes it such an interesting companion to those other books. It is also told from the point of view of an unnamed disciple and his experience with Jesus. It is much more of a testimony and spiritual witness than a history. Tradition holds that the unnamed disciple is John the son of Zebedee, but he never names himself or other key people like Jesus’s mother Mary. That could be read as an act of humility, but it also could be a literary device that encourages us to put ourselves into his position and be on the journey with him. The “Disciple the Lord loved” can be us. I think that is a comforting and spiritually rich way of reading the book. 

– Unlike the other Gospel accounts John’s book refers to a wider group of people as disciples. In fact, Nathaniel, who is one of the first disciples we encounter, is not one of the 12 apostles, and is not heard from again until he is a witness of the resurrected Lord on the shores of Galilee. 

– Not all scholars agree that Jesus and John were cousins. This is mainly due to the different actions and words ascribed to John in the various Gospels when he encounters Jesus. In Luke they are family, in Mark John doesn’t seem to recognize Jesus, in Matthew John recognizes him but it is clear they haven’t collaborated on the events, and in John it seems like he recognizes Jesus as the Son of God but maybe not his cousin. I think it most likely that they were related, but may not have spent as much time together, and certainly didn’t plan their ministries together, but that God led them both to the place in their lives that brought them together again. Mark likely just didn’t emphasize their familiarity with each other, but the other accounts seem to make sense. We will discuss more when we do the lesson on Jesus’s baptism. 

– There was a sect at the time of John the Baptist who were preaching the apocalypse was upon them and that baptism was a key component to their beliefs. The Pharisees might have thought John to be a part of that group as he became known as the Baptist. 

– The first 18 verses of the Book of John are called the Prologue Hymn or the Hymn of the Logos (Word). It is likely that this was a commonly sung hymn, potentially written by John, by Jesus’s disciples and using it at the beginning of the book would have been very meaningful to the readers. From available resources, John’s book was one of the most prevalent books during ancient times, as more copies exist of it and Matthew than others. 

Story:
The chapter begins with the Prologue Hymn spoken through the mouth of John the Baptist. This can be confusing at first glance because we think this is being said by John the author of the book, but it is actually being portrayed as John the Baptist speaking or singing this hymn to his disciples.

John declares to his disciples that Jesus Christ, the Messiah, was not only with God before life, but he is God, the creator of all things, and is with us now. Emmanuel, one of the names for Christ, is translated “God with Us.” John then continues to explain that Jesus was sent to be the light, translated a little differently than just light as a thing, but light as an experience. So, he was to be the light (experience) for all of us, and that the darkness would likely not comprehend the light. 

John then explains that he, himself, is not the light, but his role is to witness to everyone that the light is here now (Jesus) and that it is for the benefit of all humanity. The Savior’s role is to help all humanity become the children of God, not in the sense of blood, or in the sense of will of flesh, or will of men, but the will of God. Then more boldly, John declares that Jesus is the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. In retrospect we can see that John the Baptist is encouraging his audience not to see Jesus as a threat to the Law of Moses, but that he comes to bring more than the Law, he is bringing the ability for all of us to see God. This is important, because to ancient Jews only the High Priest could see God. Jesus made it possible, according to John the Baptist that they all could, through Him, see God’s face. 

This declaration and testimony of divinity was powerful and many of John the Baptist’s disciples are there to witness it, and so are the Pharisees, who were there to spy on John. They quickly confront John, seeing that his words are powerfully influencing the people. They ask who he is, and if he is the Messiah, or “that prophet” (Elijah returning for the end of times), and he denies being any of them. They then ask why he is baptizing if he isn’t. He explains that he is just preparing the way for someone that is worthier than he. 

The next day John sees Jesus and points him out to his disciples and says, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.” He then explains to the disciples that he baptized Jesus the day before and knew he was the Savior when he saw the Spirit descend like a dove upon him, which was a confirmation of something God had told him would happen when he baptized him. I think this is such a cool experience. John and Jesus had only glimpses and inspiration pointing them forward, but as they exercised their faith and they actually perform the baptism together, they are blessed with a miraculous confirmation from God.

We get our first introduction to the unnamed disciple next, when he and Andrew are following John and hear him point to Jesus and declare that he is, in fact, Jesus is the Christ. They ask Jesus where he lives and Jesus responds with his famous words, “Come and see.” So, they spend the day with him. They then start spreading the word. First to Simon (Andrew’s brother), who Jesus renames Peter. Then they travel and come across Phillip who Jesus says to follow him. Phillip immediately runs to his friend Nathaniel and explains they have found the Messiah. Nathaniel is skeptical, but Phillip says, “Come and see.” As Nathaniel approaches Jesus, He quips about Nathaniel’s skeptical and honest personality, “here is an Israelite who truly does not lie!” Nathaniel is taken aback and asks how Jesus knows him. After Jesus, explains He saw him in his mind’s eye sitting under the fig tree, Nathaniel is convinced Jesus is the Son of God. 

Jesus then says something incredible. “If you think that is miraculous, you haven’t seen anything yet. You will see the heavens open and see Angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” Jesus has his first disciples, thanks in large part to John, but also in part to the word of the other disciples who believe. Jesus’s ministry had begun.

Questions:
What can we learn from John the Baptist and his deference to the Savior’s ministry over his own?

What does it mean to have a personal relationship with Jesus? Are the examples of the disciples something we can use to help us be closer to Jesus? 

Spend some time considering Nathaniel and what we can learn about discipleship. He was a skeptic, receives a testimony of Christ, never has any meaningful leadership or roles in the functional ministry, but in the end is counted among those who witness the resurrected Lord. What can we learn from this?

How do you think it would have been like following Jesus from the beginning, without much to go on at first other than testimony of others? What does that say about us moving forward in our own faith, even if we don’t have much to go on at times? 

How do you think the Pharisee’s reacted when John started telling people that Jesus was the Messiah? How do you think the Sanhedrin and the corrupt leaders of the land felt about the potential rise of a military savior?

What can you learn from this story as you put yourself in the shoes of the unnamed disciple?

Spend some time considering Nathaniel and what we can learn about discipleship. He was a skeptic, receives a testimony of Christ, never has any meaningful leadership or roles in the functional ministry, but in the end is counted among those who witness the resurrected Lord. What can we learn from this?

How do you think it would have been like following Jesus from the beginning, without much to go on at first other than testimony of others? What does that say about us moving forward in our own faith, even if we don’t have much to go on at times?

How do you think the Pharisee’s reacted when John started telling people that Jesus was the Messiah? How do you think the Sanhedrin and the corrupt leaders of the land felt about the potential rise of a military savior?

What can you learn from this story as you put yourself in the shoes of the unnamed disciple?

Key Moment or Scripture: John 1:14
¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. 

When I think about Jesus being full of grace I think of his love, of his compassion, and his limitless patience with us. I think about how we could all do better at emulating that love, compassion and patience with each other. It inspires me. 

When I think of Jesus being full of truth, I think of him being reliable, trustworthy, somebody I can build my foundation on. There are so many things and people we can build our foundations on but with Jesus it is firm, it is reliable, and it is eternal.

Final Thoughts:
It takes faith to follow Jesus and Phillip’s invitation to “Come and See.” In our time we have so much information overwhelming our senses daily, and we have so many options of what we can choose to do. I believe that if our foundation is on the Savior that we can withstand anything that comes our way. He came to be the light, even in darkness, but it takes us making the effort to follow him. I want to finish with this great quote from Jeffery R. Holland:

“My desire for you is to have more straightforward experience with the Savior’s life and teachings. Perhaps sometimes we come to Christ too obliquely, focusing on structure or methods or elements of Church administration. Those are important, but not without attention to the weightier matters of the kingdom, first and foremost of which is a personal spiritual relationship with Deity, including the Savior.”