What difference has the gospel of John made to your life so far?
We are now at the end of our series on John's gospel so there will be no more posts to this blog. However if you would still like to comment I will recieve notification of your contribution.
Thank you to those who have contributed and the blog will remain here for you to revisit the talks from the last six months or so.
The Word became flesh John the Baptist not the Christ Jesus the Lamb of God Jesus' first disciples Jesus changes water into wine Jesus clears the Temple
6 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I was very taken with John 1: 39 today. The disciples spent the day with Jesus as a preparation for their work. It reminded me that Christianity is relational. It is important to just 'hang around' with other Christians and share our life together - God comes in that relationship if we get it right. I have been away for few days with a few other Spiritual Directors doing just that and it was great. Roy
My thoughts have been towards how Jesus is described by John and a few others so my question for Sunday will be 'What's your Jesus like?' I'll be giving some of my own thoughts so you might like to think a bit yourselves to be able to join in.
I was thinking about 'God ordained events' and that each day we have places God wants us to be and people God wants us to meet. When the discples got up the morning they first met Jesus they probably didn't have a clue that they were to meet the Messiah. I wonder what they were looking for that day. Maybe to just earn a living? Keep their heads above water? Survive? Keep going until the Sabbath? .....
But they somehow had the faith to repsond to Jesus even if he wasn't what they expected or maybe what thoguht they wanted. Do I (we)?
From Matthew: I have recently read John and I found it interesting that the first two paragraphs about the Word becoming Flesh and the life in the work and the light are themes that continue through the whole book. You see Jesus say things and the happen and the speech on the light of the world later on are in my opinion all explaining the first two paragraphs.
On John 1& 2: When I did read this, I realised why I had resisted reading it in the first place... there is so much there to take in and such strong images, and new things can reveal themselves. These are what struck me: [John1] starting with the famous "In the beginning was the word" we are suddenly presented with "there was a man called John". There is nothing of the creation of the world or of thousands of years of history, no gradual build up to explain his background. I wondered if the writer was trying to say that John's background was not the history or his circumstances, but his (and our) background is this same 'Word that was there in the beginning'. It is not history it is here now! It is the world we live in! [John2] "They have no more wine"... "What is that to do with me?"... Mary doesn't try to persuade, she don't even say anything to her son. Instead simply tells the servants to do as he tells them! Was this faith? Or something beyond faith? She just Knew that He would do what's best. I don't know how relevant this is, its just a few thoughts that may mean something to me one day. Tom.
Introduction to John's gospel by Eugene H Peterson taken from "The Message"
In deliberate parallel to the opening words of Genesis, John presents God as speaking salvation into existence. This time God's word takes on human form and enters history in the person of Jesus. Jesus speaks the word and it happens: forgiveness and judgement, healing and illumination, mercy and grace, joy and love, freedom and resurrection. Everything broken and fallen, sinful and diseased, called into salvation by God's spoken word.
6 comments:
I was very taken with John 1: 39 today. The disciples spent the day with Jesus as a preparation for their work. It reminded me that Christianity is relational. It is important to just 'hang around' with other Christians and share our life together - God comes in that relationship if we get it right. I have been away for few days with a few other Spiritual Directors doing just that and it was great.
Roy
My thoughts have been towards how Jesus is described by John and a few others so my question for Sunday will be 'What's your Jesus like?' I'll be giving some of my own thoughts so you might like to think a bit yourselves to be able to join in.
I was thinking about 'God ordained events' and that each day we have places God wants us to be and people God wants us to meet. When the discples got up the morning they first met Jesus they probably didn't have a clue that they were to meet the Messiah. I wonder what they were looking for that day. Maybe to just earn a living? Keep their heads above water? Survive? Keep going until the Sabbath? .....
But they somehow had the faith to repsond to Jesus even if he wasn't what they expected or maybe what thoguht they wanted. Do I (we)?
From Matthew: I have recently read John and I found it interesting that the first two paragraphs about the Word becoming Flesh and the life in the work and the light are themes that continue through the whole book. You see Jesus say things and the happen and the speech on the light of the world later on are in my opinion all explaining the first two paragraphs.
On John 1& 2: When I did read this, I realised why I had resisted reading it in the first place... there is so much there to take in and such strong images, and new things can reveal themselves.
These are what struck me:
[John1] starting with the famous "In the beginning was the word" we are suddenly presented with "there was a man called John". There is nothing of the creation of the world or of thousands of years of history, no gradual build up to explain his background. I wondered if the writer was trying to say that John's background was not the history or his circumstances, but his (and our) background is this same 'Word that was there in the beginning'. It is not history it is here now! It is the world we live in!
[John2] "They have no more wine"... "What is that to do with me?"... Mary doesn't try to persuade, she don't even say anything to her son. Instead simply tells the servants to do as he tells them! Was this faith? Or something beyond faith? She just Knew that He would do what's best.
I don't know how relevant this is, its just a few thoughts that may mean something to me one day.
Tom.
Good post.
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