Devotions with Jonathan

John 1

I have recently started taking a Discipleship 1 class with my church, and my "homework" is to study a chapter of John a day. I'm already behind by 3 chapters, but John's such a good book that I don't think I'll have any problems looking at it more than once a day. Also as I'm writing this from a computer at school, I don't have access to any trusty commentaries (some of those commentaries in the York library are.... well hopefully you get the idea.) So for now, it's pretentiously all me. I apologize in advance.

John 1 (NIV) John 1 (ESV) John 1 (KJV)

John 1:1-18 (NIV) John 1:1-18 (ESV) John 1:1-18 (KJV)
John 1:1-18 is deep and has so many tidbits, I could spend hours just teasing out some of the main themes, ideas and applications in here. Unfortunately, I don't have hours. What really did jump out to me in the section in particular was verse 10 - 11 - the idea that even though we are God's creation, we didn't even recognize him as our creator. Even though our very identity and being rests in and on him, we deny that and reject our very identity. It leads me to wonder whether this is why whenever my walk with the LORD begins to stagnate that I get so confused about where my life is going and what I'm supposed to do.
Verse 18 is intellectually curious. "No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known." (NIV) Clearly God the One and Only is a reference to Christ here if he is at the Father's side, but who has he made known? Himself? ESV puts it a little differently and it may shed some light on the issue as it says "No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known." So it's Christ who has made God the Father known. This jives with other references where Jesus says such things as "No one came come through the father but through me." (John 14:6) or when he tells Philip that anyone who has seen Christ has seen the Father (John 14:8-10) [Funny how both those references are self contained within John itself.]

John 1:19-28 (NIV) John 1:19-28 (ESV) John 1:19-28 (KJV)
What really stands out to me here is the way that John NEVER EVER took the glory or credit for himself but always pointed to the Christ, he who's "sandals I am not worthy to untie." John was a popular man, people were flocking to him in droves - and I'm sure that he was tempted to start trying to take credit for himself. After all, he was a man like ourselves. But the Biblical account tells us that he never did, in fact he rejoiced when Christ finally began his ministry and the people started leaving him to follow and listen to Jesus. The true heart of the humble servant of the LORD exemplified.
Another thing that I thought of here was one way to identify false prophets. Some cultist leaders and false prophets in the contemporary world often point to themselves as some sort of key feature of salvation. A true prophet should point completely and totally to Christ, would one not agree?

John 1:43-50 (NIV) John 1:43:50 (ESV) John 1:43-50 (KJV)
Couple things of note prior to these verses. John again... that guy is amazing. He basically just tells people to leave him and follow Christ. What a guy.
Jesus's style of telling people to follow him - a simple follow me. Or a come and you will see. Are our lives so aligned that we can do the same? Can we say, hey come and see, and non-believers will be able to see? Another thing to consider in how we should live our lives.
And Nathanael. Man that guy reminds me of me. So skeptical. Looking for clear evidence. And yet Christ doesn't rebuke him all that hard (or so it seems on the surface anyhow) but blesses him with the fact that he will see even greater things.

Apologies for the rushed look of the last section. It is past 11:30 and I have a class to attend. I'll be back later with more on chapter 2.

posted by Jonathan P @ 10:42 AM