As we begin our study in the gospel of John, it is important to consider the context of this gospel and how it fits with the other eye-witness accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus.
First, let us consider where we find the Book of John in the Bible.
The Bible is divided into to sections: the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Each Testament is divided into further sections. The Old Testament has five sections: the books of the law, the books of history, the books of poetry and wisdom, the major prophets and the minor prophets.
Similarly, the New Testament can be divided into five sections: gospels, history, Pauline epistles, general epistles and the book of Prophecy.
The book of John is found in the first of the five sections of the New Testament. It is one of four gospels, namely Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The author of the book is, not surprisingly, John. What may be surprising or confusing, as I have found from teaching the ladies in the jail, is who this “John” is. He is NOT John the Baptist. John the Baptist was not a major play in the ministry of Jesus. His own words describe what happened to his ministry when Jesus showed up on the scene, “He must increase and I must decrease.” That is exactly what happened.
John, the author of the Gospel of John, was an apostle and a disciple of Jesus. He was very young at the time Jesus was alive, and he lived to a very old age. He is also the author of four other books found in the New Testament: 1 John, 2 John, 3 John and the book of Revelation.
In our next post, we’ll consider how the gospel of John fits into the four-gospel picture of the life of Christ.
