Home > Work > John for Everyone: Part One, Chapters 1-10
1 " it is possible to allow the study of the text, and of different interpretations of the text, to become a substitute for allowing the text to bring us into the presence of the living God. "
― , John for Everyone: Part One, Chapters 1-10
2 " genuine faith is always seeking the Word hidden in the flesh, not using the Word simply as a way of getting at the flesh. "
3 " When you’re with Jesus, it is as though you’re in the house of God, the Temple itself, with God’s angels coming and going, and God’s own presence there beside you. "
4 " The thought of a tent in which God lived would send Jewish minds back to the tabernacle in the wilderness at the time of the Exodus, and from there to the Temple in Jerusalem where God’s presence was promised. Verse 51, then, seems to be a tight-packed and evocative way of saying: ‘Don’t think that all you will see is one or two remarkable acts of insight, such as you witnessed when I showed you that I knew about you before you even appeared. What you’ll see from now on is the reality towards which Jacob’s ladder, and even the Temple itself, was pointing like a signpost. If you follow me, you’ll be watching what it looks like when heaven and earth are open to each other. You won’t necessarily see the angels themselves, but you’ll see things happening which show that they’re there all right. "
5 " In the beginning’ – no Bible reader could see that phrase and not think at once of the start of Genesis, the first book in the Old Testament: ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ Whatever else John is going to tell us, he wants us to see his book as the story of God and the world, not just the story of one character in one place and time. This book is about the creator God acting in a new way within his much-loved creation. It is about the way in which the long story which began in Genesis reached the climax the creator had always intended. "
6 " The Word challenged the darkness before creation and now challenges the darkness that is found, tragically, within creation itself. The Word is bringing into being the new creation, in which God says once more, ‘Let there be light! "
