An Introduction to the Book of John

This certainly makes rereading John much more satisfying.

It is astounding that we have the direct words of Yesua at all.  Yet while i am sure he wrote as needed, he did not write for actual distribution, but presented material in public while memorizers listened.  It was all planned and organized within the presepts of the day.  those memorizers were then awsome.

John clearly had intent, likely had other eye witness reports to hand and wanted to make his arguements which he did skillfully.  He had decades to reflect on what had happened and also witnessed the ongoing expansion of hte CHURCH.  He really wanted to get it right for us because he now knew it mattered.

Recall in his world Plato still matterred five centuries on.  Writing a gospel was not new.

An Introduction to the Book of John

The other three gospels are similar to each other; however, the book of John is unique

John tells us the purpose of the book (John 20:30-31) is to document the miracles and message of Christ so that people will come to believe in Him and have life in His name (eternal and sanctified). This is a non-Jewish gospel written to the church at large. There are no parables, but he does use allegories. There are seven miracles recorded in the Book of John (five were not recorded in the other gospels). In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus teaches about the Kingdom of God (or how to get into the kingdom of God) and in John, Jesus teaches about himself (or now that you’ve gotten into the kingdom of God, how to live your life).

There are documented stories of 25 different interactions with individuals instead of groups which encourages us that God is interested in “us” individually. John’s writing is somewhat theoretical and talks about most of Jesus’ ministry in southern Israel (Judah) whereas the other gospels talk mostly about Jesus’ ministry in northern Israel (Galilee).

John (meaning “YAHWEH has been gracious") was the son of Zebedee and is the author of the book of John. He was an eye witness and wrote about what he saw. He also wrote 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John and Revelation. John was the beloved disciple whom Jesus loved. Peter and John were always together. John was one of the “sons of thunder” and his brother was James and they were fishermen. He might have initially been a disciple of John the Baptist. At the last supper John sat at the first position of the table so that when he leaned back his head rest on Jesus’ chest. At the cross, Jesus charged John to take care of his mother and he was the first Apostle to visit the tomb and the only Apostle that was not martyred. He died around the age of 100 as a pastor in Ephesus.

The book of John was the last gospel to be written around 90AD. The other gospels were written around 66-68AD. The book itself is written simply and easy to read and revolves around seven signs so that we would believe. Each sign is specifically chosen to give us a message. The word "believe" is the key word in the book of John and is used 99 times. The meaning is to “commit” your life to Christ. “Life” is another key word in John to take on Jesus’ life within us. We have no life without Christ (we must be connected to the vine as the branch cannot live apart from the vine).

The essence of all that we can study of the scriptures is “That we may know God and to know Jesus Christ whom God has sent” – on this, everything else hinges. John tells us the seven “I AM’s” that Jesus says, showing that He is everything to us and all we need. John clearly shows us that Jesus is a personal savior.

In the first chapter of John, he wants us to understand the difference between the law (given through Moses) and grace and truth (given through Jesus Christ). The law shows us that we needed a savior as we have no ability to keep the law as we are born into sin and have sinful flesh natures. In the Old Testament, the law was given to us and in the New Testament, Jesus is the fulfillment of the law. Jesus IS the way, the truth, and the life.

John explains who Jesus is in Seven different ways

John starts by telling us that Jesus is the Word, is God himself, and the creator of the universe! The wording of the first verse is similar to the initial verses in Genesis. God had no beginning and existed before the foundation of the world. Jesus is God and the perfect example of who God is. The person of Jesus is God in physical form. If you desire to know God, then know Jesus who is God. Jesus is our all and all. John describes Jesus using seven different attributes in the first chapter:

The Word - verse 1, 14

The Light – verse 5,7

The Lamb of God – verse 29, 36

The Son of God – verse 34

The Christ – verse 41

The King of Israel – verse 49

The son of man – verse 51

Do you Want to know God better? We must Read His Word.

It is through studying God's Word that we are able to get closer to Him and studying His Word is required by God! (2 Tim 2:15) God's Word in the New Testament is the original Koine Greek but very few of us can read it, and hence, it is difficult for most of us to know what was actually said as it was written over 1,900 years ago. We then rely on our favorite "translation" to tell us. To make matters worse, there are over 450 different English translations today which all contradict each other in thousands of places but also contradict themselves in places. Even the KJV, which, in my humble opinion, is the best compilation of verses in the last 400 years, has hundreds of word discrepancies and thousands of unapplied parsings. In other words, there is no such thing as a perfect "translation" so it is extremely important to let the Holy Spirit guide you into all truth as you read. What would be helpful is to have access to the best word-for-word extraction of the original meaning of the Word (the KJV textus receptus) that one can possibly obtain.

What is God's Word and What do we need to study?

The root of the problem is "translations" themselves. A "translation" is when man has "decided" what each verse should, or should not say, and you can GUARANTEE that they will be wrong every time! This has been the case ever since Koine Greek has been an obsolete language and lost to time around 350AD. Even Shakespeare later made the phrase "It's all Greek to me" popular in a play. He took this phrase from the Italian Monks around 550AD when they were handed a Greek scroll to translate. They said that, not because Greek was difficult, but because Greek was a lost language, and no-one knew what it said. Without anyone being the wiser, the Catholic Church created over 649 different "translations" during the dark ages and none of them referenced God's Word (because Greek was a lost language) but were all made for political, religious, and social control of the masses to push their current agendas of the day. As those agendas changed, so new “bibles” were created to reflect their new agendas.

Through the grace of God, 47 scholars and clergymen under the direction of King James, compiled the Authorized King James Version in 1611 by referring to nearly 5,000 retrieved English and Latin documents and chose the wording of each verse based on past writings with the goal to create a compromise that both the Puritans and Protestants could agree upon and hence bring peace to England. It was also known that all prior "writings" were not based on the Greek either but the best opinions of the various writers attempting to “strip-out” Catholicism from the hundreds of the prior “Bibles” made over the past 1,200 years.

Since the KJV scribes were honest men they openly admitted that no-one knew Greek but instead selected existing verses from many previous English and Latin writings and putting them together from many authors and documents over the prior centuries the best way they wished to create the compromise they needed and to be approved by King James. They also did not keep track of which document each verse was pulled from when they were all concatenated to form the KJV authorized version. Thus the preface to the first edition says that the translators never set out to make a translation, but to make "out of many good ones", one principal good one. Interestingly enough then, the King James Bible reflects the spoken English of the early 1500's rather than the early 1600s in which it was printed. Scholars agree, that though the translation work was done by a committee, this large group of men, with diverse resources, produced a better version of the English Bible than had previously been available. It certainly was not perfect nor was the English text inspired, but it was carefully done, faithful as possible to the available texts and manuscripts.

[  If you ever wondered why King James english is so different than Shakespearian english as I have? arclein]

Is there something better which more closely matches the Inspired Word?

Since a "translation" (ie, determined by man) is the problem, what is needed is to go back in time and determine the primary meanings of original Koine Greek words, and apply them to each of the 140,745 words of the KJV textus receptus and the parsing of each of the words in sequence. The Pure Word project was started to do just that. The project took 22 years and when the precise meanings of each of the Greek root words was applied along with the original parsings, an in-depth clarified meaning emerged that is not shown in most other translations. [It wasn’t until 260 years after the King James Version was made that the parsing of each of the words were determined in 1894 by Dr. Scrivener using upwards of 100 scholars spending decades of work on the task.]

After 22 years of research determining the original meanings of each Greek root word, The Pure Word was then created in a single second by automatically applying the meanings and parsings word-for-word assigned to each of the 140,745 words in the KJV textus receptus Koine Greek. It is for this reason, that we can not call this a "translation" as no man had any input on a single verse and due to the very nature of how it was created, traditions of man and opinion have been 100% eliminated wherever they previously existed and previously incorporated over the centuries for political, religious, or social control. The Pure Word is an "extraction" of the original text and printed as is. This process removed all known discrepancies and provides a consistency and clarity of meaning that was never before possible.

The Pure Word is a Resource All Christians Should have

I would strongly suggest that every Christian obtain a copy of The Pure Word and use it alongside your favorite Bible version to see the original meanings and open your eyes like never before. Watch the official introductory video now and see exactly how The Pure Word is an invaluable resource that should be used by every Christian, pastor, and Bible study group. Experience the gospel as they did in the first century, during the time of Christ, the Apostles, and the birth of the Church!