The Gospel of John

We began the study of the Gospel of John this past Sunday during our Fusion Sunday morning service.  I am really excited to begin this journey with the students.  For almost 4 years, we have gone through series about a particular subjects, studied a section of Scripture, but never went through an entire book.  This journey began for me back a couple of weeks ago, when we took a group of middle school students to Fuge camp.  The camp pastor, Tim Bertram, used the Gospel of John each night during worship.  That week revealed some things to me that I had never picked up on in reading before.  So in the weeks ahead, we are going to look at John as he revealed two specific purposes for writing this Gospel-Who Jesus is and why we should believe in Him.

Some facts about John:

In Matthew, you read the words of a believer that loves Jesus
In Mark & Luke, you read the words of writers that used some eyewitness accounts.
In John, you read the words of one of Jesus' closest friends.
John, his brother James, and Peter were the inner three of Jesus.
John's Gospel was one of the last books written in the New Testament.  John was an old man that wrote this Gospel around 70A.D.  Theologians say that John wrote this in Ephesus after the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed.
John didn't give a chronological history of Jesus: birth, life, death, resurrection.  John passionately wrote about the love of Jesus. 
  The theme for the entire Gospel of John is summed up in John 20:30-31.  John writes,

"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."

My prayer as we go through this Gospel is, that we will have a greater understanding of who Jesus is and that the students faith will increase, thanks to the words written in the Gospel of John.