Gospel of John Bible Study

Gospel of John Bible Study

The Gospel of John was written by John, who was not only one of Jesus' twelve disciples, but along with his brother James and Peter, one of the three disciples who were closest to Jesus even among the twelve. So the Gospel of John is an eyewitness account written by someone who was very close to Jesus.

Interestingly, John actually never identifies himself as "John" in the Gospel of John, preferring instead to refer to himself simply as, "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (John 13:23, 19:26, 20:2, 21:7 and 21:20). But from the context of those and other references in this Gospel, John is clearly the writer.

One source of potential confusion for those studying the Gospel of John for the first time is that John writes in the very first chapter about John the Baptist, who is another person very close to Jesus. To be sure, John who wrote the Gospel of John is a person different from John the Baptist.

John wrote this Gospel after the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke already had been written, and assumes the readers' familiarity with some of the details - e.g., the birth of Jesus - in those other Gospels. This study will draw from those Gospels, as well as the other books of the Bible as appropriate.

A "Gospel" by the way simply means "good news". Hopefully, you will enjoy the good news brought to you by a man whose reference to himself as someone Jesus loved made his name - "John", "Jean", "Giovanni", "Juan", "Johan", etc. - the most popular male first name in the Western world.

Please select John chapter 1 or from below.