005 - The Butler Did It!

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there something here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink!

Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages. Welcome to More Than Ink! Hey, so guess what? The button did it! No! Oh, you wrecked it for me! Went to the last page, read the last page. Oh, you read the last page first! Yeah, and saved you from having to read the entire thing.

I want to read the book! Yeah, but you know what? We're going to look at John's Gospel today, and did you know that his Gospel starts off with a weird thing like this?

He tells us his conclusion at the very beginning. Yeah, today. Today, let's talk about that on More Than Ink. Well, good morning, and welcome to More Than Ink.

Welcome! We're glad you're back. This is Jim.

And this is Dorothy. And we're glad you joined us. We're going to dive into the Bible this morning and do some great exploration together. And actually, we came up with an idea of what to do to carry us through, boy, almost the next six months, I guess it is.

It's going to be a while. Yeah, because we want you to actually get into the Word yourself and to read the Word yourself and we always recommend that people sit down if you've never done it before and find a Gospel. There's four of them. You can pick and read through a Gospel from front to back. And we often recommend doing the book of John. So we are going to do the book of John with you.

So that'll be kind of a blast. And we'll start with John 1 today. We'll do a chapter a week. It'll take us half a year to do a chapter a week.

And actually, I think as I plotted it out, we will get to just the beginning of the Passion Week in John when we get to the end of this year, and then when we flip into 2021, we're solidly in the Passion Week all the way up to Easter, so that'll be kind of great. So interestingly enough, when you look at the book of John, sometimes it doesn't do exactly what you think it would be when someone tells you, well, this is a kind of a, it's a biography, it's a historical account of Jesus' ministry. And so you expect when you're going to do a historical account, it'll start with the beginning of Jesus' life, then go to the end of Jesus' life, which is roughly true. Well, that's what we expect of a biography, but that's really not, biography the way we know it, really wasn't happening in the first century.

No, no. So if you're looking at it that way, and if someone told you, well, the gospel is just about the life of Jesus, well, it is, it is, and it's largely chronological. But if you do that with that understanding, and then you jump into John and you read the beginning of John, your head starts to spin. Yeah, it's a much, much bigger story. Because if you were going to write a story of my life, it would start in Maryland many decades back. Yours would start in California.

In California. Yeah. And that's kind of the way, actually, the gospel of Luke starts.

It does. Well, we're in this place at this time, and I want you to know these facts in the order that they happened. So each gospel begins a little bit differently according to the author's purpose. Right, right. And so Mark starts right off with, hey, let me tell you about the Son of God.

Boom. And you're in the action. And he starts with a genealogy, placing Jesus in Jewish history. So John's gospel begins before creation. There is a different beginning in John's gospel. So that's why we wanted to do this with you. Because if you just ran into John and you got this at the beginning, you'd go, well, wait a second. What is this? Aren't we supposed to start with the birth of Jesus and Christmas and stuff like that?

No. So this is a different kind of start, and we'll explain it in a second. But we thought it would be really good just for me to read for you the entire section we're going to look at today. And it's actually just the opening verses of John's gospel. Yeah, and all 18 verses at the beginning, which is John's introductory statement, which he opens every box he's going to then continue to fill for the rest of the 20 chapters. So we need to listen carefully.

And that's kind of the Bible study skill we're going to concentrate on today. How do you listen? What do you hear when you listen? Can we learn to listen well, seeking to hear the author's intent? How do you read a story? How to pay attention to how the author introduces the characters?

Where are you? What's happening? All of those details are important. So when John begins his gospel, he lays out pretty much the entire story in these first 18 verses. And then he will go back and illustrate it through the next 20 chapters. So we'll talk more about that in a second.

But just listen carefully and see how strange it would be if you're expecting for the story of Jesus to start with a baby and a manger, and this is how it starts. Right. Oh, interesting.

Because he really is going to tell us the whole story in microcosm and then go back and illustrate it. Right. So here we go. John 1.1. I'm reading out of the English Standard Version in case you want to follow with this. So listen, listen carefully.

Right. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.

He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and it dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness about him and cried out, This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me. For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, the only God, who is at the Father's hide.

He has made him known. So what did you hear? That's the question I love to ask a group after we read aloud a portion of Scripture. And I frequently read a large portion aloud so that I can read it very fluently and all they do is listen.

So here we're asking you, what did you hear? And I think the first time I read this I was shocked by the fact that this one word keeps coming back. Which is? Word. The Word. Yeah. So, I mean, it's natural to ask yourself, why would John, why would John characterize Jesus as the Word? In fact, is it even fair to say that when he says the Word he's talking about Jesus? Well, absolutely it is. It is.

Yeah. Because he says that at the beginning of the statement, right? And the beginning was the Word and then as he's coming to the end of his introduction he says, and that Word became flesh and dwelt among us so we could touch him and see him and hear him.

And that's his segue into after you get after verse 18 all of a sudden, boom, you're talking about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. So yeah, the Word became flesh. So why would he choose that word? The word word? Well, what is a word?

A word communicates something, right? And the word, the actual term that John uses here is the word, the Greek word logos, which means an utterance, an intelligent communication of something, a word which means something, which communicates something. So he's saying right at the beginning, God is speaking and he has always been speaking but he has spoken in a particular way by becoming flesh in the Son. Yeah, and he says at the outset, he says the Word is with God and the Word was God, which is a little confusing at first but if you just, my point here is the fact, if you look at the time scale of things, when we talk about in the beginning, you know, if you ask anyone in the Bible where do you find the words in the beginning, they say, well, Genesis 1. Genesis 1, 1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. So John's doing a deliberate mess with our heads in terms of taking all of time's history starting back from creation and saying, you know, in the beginning, what's creation?

Of course, Genesis 1, 1. But then John 1, 1, the Word was there too. So he's saying that Jesus has some kind of eternal component to him that takes us all the way back to the creation of the universe.

And that's just a gigantic mind expander when you want to talk about the life of Jesus. Okay, so John's going to talk about the communication of God being from the very beginning God has always been communicating and he communicated in his Son. And then came the Son to communicate. So that's something we heard.

Something that I heard. Which implies now as we read this to John, there's some message from God coming. There's a message.

There's a word coming. That's an eternal message from God that's coming. So we're going to listen for that.

One of the skills we need to develop is as we read, remembering what we read before, right? All the things that John puts in his introduction are important. And as I've been paying attention to that recently, I'm astonished at how carefully he brings forward in the rest of his gospel, all of the things he lays out here. So one of the things that I heard is this repetition of light. Lots of light. And light.

Light and life. He introduces the idea of being born, being born of God, not just born as a human. He introduces the idea of a witness. He comes back to that two or three times and he says there was a witness sent by God. Other than the Son himself, there's this witness, this guy named John, whom we know as John the Baptist. Although they just knew him as John. The baptizer actually is the way he was known.

The dunker. He's an important character in the story. Yeah, and he's detailed at the end of this chapter. But another thing about the word we forget about, words are communicated for sure. So we need to expect the fact that in the coming chapters, Jesus is going to have a message for us, some kind of eternal message for us.

So we've got to watch for that. There's something more than just a minute going on here. But another thing about the word, which we know but we seldom think about, is the fact that a word is a command often. And in ancient times, the only people in ancient times who could give a command and it would be obeyed was a king. So they would give the word. Like when you have your second in command who would say, okay, let's do this and that. Just give the word. You give the word. So it's a command. So there's a, Star Trek, Captain Picard says, engage. Make it so.

Make it so. You know, so it's this whole command idea, so when you say word, we're not just communicating information, we're actually talking about an imperative. And again, when you go back to Genesis 1 to compare, when you see God creating the universe, God doesn't use sticks and stones and welders and weights, but he just uses his word. So you know, God said, let there be light. He just said.

Yeah, and actually Hebrews 11 says that's an important component of faith that we understand that it's by the word of God that creation came to be. He spoke. He spoke. And reality happened.

Yeah. So as a Jew, you would naturally be making that connection as you read this right here about the fact that God can command and things happen. Well that command word that created the universe is Jesus.

How about that for a mind blower? Okay, so that opens another thing that occurs over and over and over again in this introduction. When you don't pick it up, it's a little bit between the lines, but there's a little word that John has used over and over again.

He uses it eight times. It's the Greek word ginomai, and it gets translated as made several times here. It's translated as came to be. It's translated as can become.

It shows up as he has a higher rank, but the word means it happened. It came to be. Made. Make it so.

Ginomai. Hey, we're back to Picard. I know. Make it so. Well, see, that's what made me think about the fact that I heard that, and I always listen for that.

And I actually, in reading John 1 aloud, I actually prefer to read it from the New American Standard because it comes out a little more clearly in verse three. All things came into being. That's that word ginomai. They happened into being at the speaking of the word of God through him. Right. Right. That's the same word that he says later in verse 12, all who received him, he gave the right to come into being children of God. That's right.

Right? It's the same word that shows up in 14, and the word came into being as flesh. See, when we begin to read with that level of understanding, oh, we see the unity of John's introduction. Yeah, and it highlights again this point that we're not just talking about words that talk about stuff. We're actually talking the stuff itself, the real content of the universe is happening here. Let's talk about John's purpose.

Yeah. Let's move to his purpose. And if you're reading carefully as you're watching this, that what you just mentioned should be a real enticement because he says that we can become children of God. That sounds like an extraordinary promise to us, and maybe that hints at something of his purpose for Jesus' coming as well as John's trying to convince us of that purpose. Well, and the whole purpose is that we might hear the witness and believe the truth of it, believe the truth about this one who became flesh. So that's really John's whole purpose, and he alludes to it actually in chapter, well, in one in verse seven when he says, he, John the Baptist, came for a witness that he might bear witness of the light that all might believe in him. Right.

And then you jump to 12. Right. All who did receive him who believed in his name. And we'll talk about the name thing later. He gave the right to become children of God. So it seems like what's critical here is belief, and that belief benefits us, this incredible thing about becoming children of God. It'd be nice to know what that's all about.

Okay. Well, and John's going to start unfolding that for us very shortly when the actual action begins. We're still kind of in his prologue here. But John himself put his purpose very clearly at the end of the book, but he tells us that purpose at the beginning in this prologue. But then way at the end in chapter 20, he says at the very end, the only things remaining is the last resurrection time. Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Ah, so there's his point. So I'm telling you this so that you may believe the truth about this one who came, and thereby have life in his name. Yeah, so this just isn't a simple biography that you're going to put on the History Channel. Like FYI, isn't this an interesting life?

John's saying that what I'm writing to you is going to contribute to your ability to believe who Jesus is, and in your believing who Jesus is, the benefit to you is you become a son of God. Wow. An eternal life.

Yeah, right. So this is gigantic. This is gigantic.

So John's got a purpose, and John's purpose in a real sense is to take what he lays out there in the first chapter we just read, which it's almost outrageous. It's huge. It's eternal. It's dynamic. It's creation. It's like, what? It's almost unbelievable. And if your response when you read this first section through verse 18 about, well, this is either crazy or it's bigger than I ever expected, then what he's hoping you do is say, okay, so prove that to me.

I mean, how did you get to that conclusion? And that's what the rest of the book is about. Because he says, this word became flesh and dwelt among us that we could see his glory full of grace and truth. And then he says it again in verse 17, the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth were realized, were brought into our real experience through the only begotten. Which at this point, too, we sort of know what truth is, but we don't know much about what grace is. Well, I'm not even sure we always know what truth is accurately. But since we were talking about the word and the word's communicating content, maybe we're going to get true content.

So that's one of our expectations. But then again, grace. I mean, what is grace?

He just drops the word out here, and I thought we were going to talk about a biography. What does grace have to do with it? Well, he says, I'm going to show you what grace is in reality. Yeah, exactly.

And when he says he's the only one, the only begotten who's in the bosom of the Father, he has come to explain him, to fully declare, make completely understandable the character and the nature of God full of grace and truth. Well, truth is the way things really are. Reality. Not the way I think they are. Reality. Not the way I'd like them to be.

People then told me they were. It's real reality, the way things are. There is an absolute truth, and Jesus is the one who came to declare it. He seems to set the standard as well as seems to set the highest bar about where you get your truth from.

I mean, this is what John's claiming right here. So those should set our expectations very high too. We should be, when we read the rest of this book, maybe get a view into reality that we didn't have before because we have a new emissary, Jesus, who's going to give us a view into that reality.

So that's a high expectation for me. So we're not just going to have biography, we're going to have truth about something that's far beyond even what I can presuppose. So this is really sort of exciting. And this truth is life changing. And it's life changing. It has to do with having life, having real life the way God intended it, not just gutting your way through your experience here on earth.

Yeah. So this isn't just tips how to live a full life. Because, you know, that does bug me a lot because a lot of people say, well, the Bible is a handbook about how to live life and I get where they're coming from. But from John's perspective, when he's starting this, that's not what he's saying. What he's saying is we're going to focus on Jesus and through who Jesus is, who is this word, command as well as information, as well as truth, as well as embodied grace, as well as an understanding of who God the Father is, that's going to change everything. And that has everything to do with understanding who God is because it says that he's going to make known who God is.

Yeah. And something about knowing who God is gives us an understanding of who we are. And that's kind of what John is doing here by placing it in this eternal context. And how do we fit in that? How do we fit?

Where are we? Which is the Son of God part. You know, how can we become sons of God that way? So I mean, these children, how can I be a child of God? I mean, really?

Yeah. Because it says just being born as a human is not enough. Is not enough. Just being born because you were a wanted child is not enough.

Just being born because people should have children. That's not enough. Yeah. Yeah. So this, if you, you know, we looked at these first 18 verses, they really, they really throw a boulder in our path trying to get into the biography of Jesus. So you know, in Bible study, when you see something like this and it makes you trip and you go, wait, what was that? Well, what we've just been talking about is sitting down and going back and just re-chewing on these things and saying, wait a second, you know, is he saying this? Is he saying this? Is he, is he saying there's a possibility we can become the children of God? Is the, is he saying that Jesus has, has some kind of connection with creation itself in the beginning?

I mean, is he more than just a man's or an eternal? I mean, all these questions come up when you read these 18 and instead of just tripping on it and falling on your face and saying, well, I don't know what that is. Let's keep going. Well, yeah, because you might not get an answer, right? Some of those questions are going to linger in the air as you continue to read. And so John has just opened all these boxes to draw you in. Yeah. And so you should be excited about saying, okay buddy, prove it to me.

I am. Every time I read John one, I'm just kind of stopped in my tracks. I'm like, oh, let's read more.

I know. I mean this, so really when you look at this intro to John's account of Jesus' life, what you're looking at from John's perspective is his conclusion about Jesus. And we normally put conclusions at the end of things, John decides to entice you to read the account by putting his conclusion at the beginning of things. And it's, and it's no holds part.

I mean, he goes hyperbolic everywhere. He says, you know, Jesus, Jesus, you know, in the beginning was the word and this guy is the word. So it's like, what? So he decides to just sort of blow you over at the beginning, hoping that it raises a billion questions when we've opened a bunch of them already. And you know, what does it mean to me? What does it mean about who Jesus is? About why he came? What's the purpose? Does God have a purpose? I mean, it raises all these questions.

That's good. Have those questions in your mind and then write them down on a piece of paper or something and say, okay, John, prove it to me. And so John launches into the life of Jesus and says, well, listen. And until he gets to 20, chapter 20, what you just read and says, so did you see it? Did you see, I wrote about all these things and Jesus did a lot more signs than this. I could have written a whole bunch more, but I've done this much so that you might believe that Jesus is this promised Messiah. He's the Christ indeed, the son of God. So at that point in chapter 20 says, so did I do it for you?

Did I convince you? That is the same gospel. It's the same message that the other gospel writers wrote about and the same purpose.

But John's approach is different and he's very selective in the signs that he chooses to write about. They're not all the same things that had already been written about because the other gospels, what we call the synoptic gospels, were all written much earlier than the gospel of John. So the gospel of John was written very late, maybe 90.

Yeah. And so we presume he has actually read the other gospels. The other gospels were in circulation.

He knows their content. And from his perspective of walking with Jesus, he also knows the stories that were not told. So that's why John's gospel seems to have the highest amount of what we call unique accounts or things that aren't mentioned in the other gospels because we think he's filling in the gaps for us.

Okay. Well, and something else to kind of to keep in mind is who John is or was. He was the disciple who has identified as one of those very, very inner circle one. Peter, James, and John were those three that were the closest to Jesus. And of those three, John is constantly referred to as the one Jesus loved.

Right. So he was... A special position. Perhaps Jesus' closest friend in the flesh. And he was among the youngest of the disciples, and he lived the longest. Lived the longest.

We know that for sure. So we get the perspective an old man looking back on his life with Jesus with very clear remembrance of what he did and what he said, and he brings into it his understanding of what those things mean. Right. And who is Jesus in the end. So he's had a whole lifetime to ruminate on those three years he walked with Jesus. And when he does, he picks up his pen and he writes down, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, and the word became flesh.

And this is the person I walked with for three years. And he realized in our experience the grace and the truth of God. Right. And what do those mean? Well, we're excited to find out. We're going to see that. So we're hoping you are too, because next week we're going to jump into chapter two. So we want you to read with us. So finish out reading chapter one, and then read chapter two next week. And as you read chapter two, before we come back together next Saturday, jot down for yourself what you heard when you read it, and ask questions about it. And we're going to do exactly the same thing, and then we're going to come together and talk about John two.

Okay, but we won't always take the time to read a long passage aloud. But I want to point out to you that right after verse 18, John starts into telling the story. He says, okay, here's John the Baptist, the witness, and look at what John the Baptist said and did.

And he shows us how that transfer was made from John the Baptist to Jesus. Right. And then before they get to the end of chapter one, Jesus will be walking with the first five of his 12 apostles.

So when you jump into chapter two, it's only Jesus and five guys. Right. But here we go. But here we go. So we don't want you to miss that.

Just really exciting. And keep asking yourself these questions. Ask yourself, well, God proved to me in what I'm reading in the rest of John that what John is claiming at the outset is exactly the same conclusion that John came to. Show me why. Show me why John is telling us this story.

And how does that contribute to this view of who Jesus is? So we're out of time. We are out of time. So join us next time and make sure you read John two, and we'll see if we can talk about it together. And write down your questions and you can email us. And we'd love to hear from you. Go to our website, morethanink.org and you can contact us. So thanks for being with us. Thanks for being with us. We love you. More Than Ink is a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City and is solely responsible for its content. To contact us with your questions or comments, just go to our website, morethanink.org.