John’s Letters
The apostle John (not to be confused with John the Baptist) is one of Jesus’s twelve disciples and part of Jesus’s inner circle, along with his older brother James and his friend Peter. But there’s more. In his biography of Jesus, John refers to himself as the disciple Jesus loved.
Imagine that.
Consider that Jesus has many followers. He picks twelve of them to be his disciples and three of them to be in his inner circle, but beyond that John rises above them all as the disciple Jesus loves. (The word love occurs often in John’s writing, which we’ll cover throughout this book.)
John also wrote five of the New Testament books. Only Paul wrote more.
As far as the New Testament’s content, John wrote about 20 percent of it. Only Paul and Luke wrote more, about 33 percent and 25 percent respectively. This clearly places John as one of the top three authors in the New Testament and a leading source of our Scriptural understanding of Jesus and our faith.
It’s interesting that Paul wrote only letters (epistles), while Luke wrote only historical accounts (the books of Luke and Acts). John, however, wrote in both of these genres, as well as a prophetic book, making his contributions to the Bible more holistic.
John is best known for his beloved biography of Jesus (his historical book). Many cite it as their favorite gospel for its poetic language and unique content.
John is also well known for his epic vision of the end times, called Revelation (his prophetic book). Its evocative imagery intrigues and perplexes readers.
John’s three letters—1 John, 2 John, and 3 John—however, are not as well known. This is unfortunate as they present valuable insights to help us grow in our faith and understanding of what it means to follow Jesus. This is most true of his longest letter, 1 John.
We’ll dig deep into these three letters to mine simple truths and profound insights to move us forward on our faith journey.
JOHN’S FIRST LETTER
Some refer to the book of John as the gospel of love because he mentions the word love thirty-nine times, more than Matthew, Mark, and Luke combined and more than any other book in the New Testament. In all the Bible, only the lengthy 150-chapter book of Psalms uses love more often.
In John’s much shorter letter of 1 John, love shows up twenty-seven times (and seven more times in 2 and 3 John). John, it seems, is all about love. And as followers of Jesus, so should we. That is, we should love one another. This is what Jesus tells us to do and what John repeats to us.
Unlike most of the letters in the New Testament, John doesn’t address 1 John to a specific church or person, with content unique to them. Instead, he gives universal truths for everyone. As such, we can apply 1 John to ourselves to follow Jesus with more intention and greater confidence.
How well do we do at loving others? What can we do to love more fully?
[Discover more about love in John 3:16, John 13:34–35, and 1 Corinthians 13.]
