Introducing the Gospel of John
The Gospel of John is the fourth and probably last written of the four Gospels. Like the other three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) it tells the story of Jesus, but does so in quite a different way. It is written in fairly simple Greek and at one level is quite easy to understand. At another level it is the most profound Gospel and gives the impression of having been written by someone close to Jesus who has spent the rest of their life pondering more and more deeply about who Jesus is and what he said and did.
The Gospel of John is sometimes called the ‘theological’ Gospel as it reflects deeply on the identity of Jesus and his relationship with God. These are the two main themes of the story that John presents.
The Gospel of John seems to assume that readers already know the basic outline of Jesus’ life from reading one of the other Gospels and wants to add depth to the Jesus story.
This last difference perhaps explains why John rarely features in the weekly Lectionary of church readings, because there is often not much action and the monologues don’t lend themselves well to preaching week by week. If the structure of the first three Gospels is sometimes compared to pearls on a string (a series of self-contained incidents), then the fourth Gospel is more like a complex piece of music that features just a few main themes with multiple variations on these themes.
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