Gospel of John
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.
What is interesting about the Gospel of John is that John actually never
identifies himself as "John", preferring instead to call himself,
"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, it is clear that
John is the writer.
One source of potential confusion for those reading the Gospel of John for
the first time is that he talks in the very first chapter about John the
Baptist, who is another person very close to Jesus. Just to be sure, John
who wrote the Gospel of John is a person different from John the Baptist.
John wrote this gospel after the Gospel of Matthew, Gospel of Mark and
Gospel of Luke had already been written, and assumes the readers are familiar
with some of the details - e.g., the birth of Jesus - in those gospels. We
will refer to verses from those gospels, as well as other books of the Bible
when they help shed more light on the passages being covered.
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" in English, "Jean" in French, "Johan" in
Dutch, "Giovanni" in Italian, "Juan" in Spanish, etc. - the most popular
first name in the Western world. Please click here for
John chapter 1.
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