The Gospel of John is my favorite book of all time. I may have said this before but it is worth repeating. One of the reasons is because John tells us how to read his book. Mind you he does not tell you until the end of the book but he tells you nontheless.

In John 20:31 John writes “But these are written so that you may believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in His name.” Now this may be a simple statement and maybe I am making a bigger deal out of it then I should but…

Let’s think about this and break it down into two parts. First, John says that everything he wrote he wrote so that you would believe Jesus is the Messiah the Son of God. So when we are reading something difficult like “in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” we can read it through the lens John provides and know that this is there so that we can beleive Jesus is the Messiah the Son of God. We can also look at a verse like John 8:56 where Jesus says that Abraham rejoiced to see His (Jesus’) day. We can read that and see again that Jesus is the Messiah the Son of God.

For the second part John says that he wants people to have life in His (Jesus’) name. Now this one can mean either life as in eternal life meaning being saved or life as in living the resurrection life of Jesus (think Gal 2:20). There is some really good discussion that you can have with that but for now I would say it does not matter too much for an intro to reading the book.

The important thing is that you read it with the lens that John wants to you to have life in Jesus name. For example, we can look at John 8:32 and read that Jesus says you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. In it’s most basic form it just means that Jesus wants us to be free in His name. We meet Jesus find out we are apart from God, find out God loves us, and find freedom (life) in Jesus. Another example, would be the story of the woman caught in adultry. We can read that and see that Jesus is not only the Messiah, because He can forgive sin, but that He has life in His name, because the woman is not stoned.

The book of John goes so deep but in truth it all starts with reading it the right way and through the right lens. My suggestion for you this week is to go back and re-read the Gospel of John but while you read it keep these three questions below in your mind.

What is John trying to point out here:

1. Jesus as Messiah?
2. Life in Jesus name?
3. A mix of both (this one happens the most)?

Enjoy!

Just a thought,

Mike