Introducing John

Jn 20:30,31    Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name        
    
John’s Gospel is very different from the other three, that we call the ‘Synoptic’ (from the same point of view) Gospels. Down through history many scholars have made many suggestions as to why John’s Gospel is so different to the other three. The reason, we believe, that stands out above all others is the suggestion that John wrote many years later than the others when he was in old age. Once we accept this, various other things fall into place.      For instance, if the Synoptic Gospels had been around in the church for a number of years, accepted as reliable sources of what had happened, there would be little reason to produce a further Gospel covering the same things.       
 
If John had reached old age, it is likely he would have had those many more years experience of the Lord and time to dwell on the things he had experienced. They do say that elderly people find their memories functioning best for things in the far past rather than the recent past. It would be quite natural for God to take this natural process in John to take him back to those most vivid days of his life and to rerun various things that had happened, and to see them in the light of all the wisdom and experience that he has accumulated over the years. John now realizes Jesus is far more than they had originally thought. He recalls phrases and things happening that the others had not picked up on in those earlier years. As he ponders on those things he realizes, with a new sense of significance, that Jesus was seeking to convey so much more to those who had ears to hear and who would reflect on what he was saying.       
  
Thus we find John picking up on things the others hadn’t covered or putting fresh emphasis on some of the things that they had observed. John realized that the healings and the miracles weren’t simply just good acts in themselves; they were ‘signs’ for whoever would see them and think about them, and come to realize the wonder of who Jesus was.      But John was writing in a world that had moved on – culture never stays the same – and John himself has a much wider world view now than his fellow disciples had had years before. John is writing for the whole world, not just for the Jewish people as Matthew had been, for the world that had a greater Greek flavour to it. He’s also writing in an age when heresies are starting to flourish as fewer and fewer of the original apostles are left alive. So, with his wider world view, his understanding of Greek culture and thinking, and countering the heresies that were growing, we find that John comes with a very much more philosophical Gospel to the other three.     
   
It’s a Gospel full of ideas and concepts, with such words as light, life, love, grace and truth, and concepts such as Son of God, Son of Man, King of Israel, the gate, the good shepherd. There is no doubt that John ‘saw’ Jesus more clearly and understood who he was more clearly than the earlier writers. They sought to simply recount the things that had happened. John wants you to realise WHO Jesus was and as you realise so you will believe in him and receive his life. He’s quite blatant about his reason for writing!    

Many Gospel Writers

      Lk 1:1   Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us  
    
One of the ideas behind writing meditations is that we can explore more deeply some of the thoughts that come out in the verses before us. I suspect that this first verse of Luke is one that normally gets swallowed up in the first four-verse introduction. It bears looking at on its own!
   
   The whole subject of the inspiration of Scripture is fascinating. Paul was to write, “All Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Tim 3:16 ), but how did it come about. It is quite clear from the different Gospels that the four different writers brought their own understanding to bear on what they included, but exactly how much God nudged or pressed them to write will be a mystery this side of heaven. Matthew clearly wrote with the Jewish community in mind. John writing much later wrote for the church; that also is clear. Mark, it is believed, wrote for the Gentile community and Luke for the world at large. There are different characteristics in each that lead to these conclusions.  

Exact dates for the writing of each are impossible to discern but suggestions have been made, which we’ll use here, that they were written in the following order: Mark sometime between AD 40 and 65, Luke between AD 61 and 63, Matthew between AD 63 and 66, and John somewhere between AD 80 and 98.
        
    Luke obviously drew from Mark’s Gospel with approximately 320 verses being used from Mark’s approximate 660 verses. He and Matthew seem to have drawn on some other common material not used by Mark. Of the approximate 1150 verses of Luke, approximately 630 of them are unique to Luke – i.e. a little over half the Gospel – and it is from these verses we are taking these meditations. These are the verses that bring out Luke’s special insights. Now having said that, it is quite possible, if not probable, that some of these verses come from other existing sources of which we know nothing, but the point is that Luke uniquely uses them because he ‘sees’, with eyes of understanding, the importance of this aspect of the truth.  
   
The truth is that none of the Gospels fully report the life and activity of Jesus. As John said as he closed his Gospel, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” (Jn 21:25) There is much overlap of the three Synoptic Gospels and each of them conveys much valuable information, although incomplete. John, writing many years later, wrote with the benefit of years of contemplation and insight and growing realization of the importance of many of the things that Jesus has said, that the earlier writers just hadn’t realised. Thus the Synoptic Gospels give us a sharp, unvarnished factual account of what took place. John adds the significance.  
   
So here is Luke, a scholar who has become a Christian, and has travelled with Paul’s apostolic team and who, like others, realises that the time has come when it would be useful to actually put into print what the early church already knew and taught. False teachings were already beginning to arise as the enemy sought to sow seeds of confusion, and the apostles were getting older with a growing realisation that they would not always be around to defend the truth and testify to what had actually happened.  
   
Luke hadn’t been one of those apostles but he was clearly a scholar who wrote using both classical Greek and Hebrew styles of writing. He writes with great integrity. Although others had written, his sources show there are aspects of the Gospel story that have not been put together previously, and his analytical mind wants to ensure they are included. As a doctor he comes with insights and understandings about people that are absent in Matthew and Mark. There is a touch of humanity in his writings that go beyond that of the others.  
         
How delightful that God should prompt these four different writers to produce an account of the most wonderful and also most terrible period of all of history. How wonderful that He takes and uses the different characteristics of these men to bring out different facets of the story. If we had just had one Gospel account it would have been very flat. With the four we have a very much more ‘3-D’ account!  Luke reaches out to the various sources around him and produces this wonderful Gospel account.