Walk Thru the Book of John (Walk Thru the Bible Discussion Guides) , livre ebook

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47 pages

English

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Christians all over the world trust Walk Thru the Bible to help them deepen their spiritual lives through a greater understanding of God's Word. Now Walk Thru the Bible is launching its own small group Bible study series that will uncover the richness of the Scriptures. Each guide explores a book of the Bible or a prominent Bible character, offering rich insights and practical life application.These discussion guides are perfect for Bible study groups, Sunday schools, small groups, and individuals who want a deeper understanding of books of the Bible and heroes of the faith.About the seriesChristians all over the world trust Walk Thru the Bible to help them deepen their spiritual lives through a greater understanding of God's Word. Now Walk Thru the Bible is launching a new inductive Bible study series with Baker Books that will uncover the richness of the Scriptures. Each guide explores a book of the Bible or a prominent Bible character, offering rich insights and practical life application. These discussion guides are perfect for Bible study groups, Sunday schools, small groups, and individuals who want a deeper understanding of books of the Bible and heroes of the faith.

Sujets

New Testament

Philosophie et théologie

Informations

Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 août 2009
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441235329
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0230€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

© 2009 by Walk Thru the Bible
Published by Baker Books a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakerbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-3532-9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Scripture is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.
Cover image: naphtalina / iStock
Contents
Introduction
Session 1 A Tent of His Presence
Session 2 A Surprising Savior
Session 3 Jesus on Trial Again
Session 4 Light in Darkness
Session 5 Lord of Life
Session 6 Secrets of the Heart
Session 7 Clash of Kingdoms
Session 8 Hope Lives
Conclusion
Leader’s Notes
Bibliography
Introduction
The planet lay shrouded in darkness, lifeless and empty, and devoid of any hint of purpose. But at a word, a Spirit moved over the surface, brooding and breathing over the deep waters, and light and life began to take form. This dramatic genesis reached its fulfillment when the Creator breathed his Spirit into a mound of dust and called it human. The dust came to life, and the earth was filled with purpose and passion and a plan. This life was made in the image of God.
Things did not go well. The humans squandered their gift, and the image was shattered. Another kind of darkness shrouded the planet, relentlessly aiming to return it to its dark and lifeless nature. But the Creator intervened. He prophesied of another genesis. And thousands of years later, a light entered the darkness and a new creation was born.
That’s the cosmic picture behind the gospel of John. It’s the story of a re-genesis, a new birth, a light piercing the darkness and restoring life to an entombed vestige of the image of God. That light, of course, is Jesus. His truth penetrates lies, and his life brings the dead out of the grave. He is the beginning of the new creation.
John’s gospel is different than the other three biblical records of Jesus’s life and ministry. It evokes more big-picture images and paints more details into certain aspects of the Savior’s work than do Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Likely written later than the other gospels, it fills in some of the gaps and explores some of Jesus’s teachings at a deeper level. It adds texture and depth to the disruptive nature of the light that came into the darkness and exposed its lies. And it explores more fully the mysterious bond between Father, Son, Spirit, and those who believe.
Themes
Several recurring themes in John give it a unique flavor among the gospels:
Where Jesus has come from and where he is going. The gospel begins with a startling statement of Jesus’s identity: he is the Word that became flesh. Not only was he with God, but he was God. After the prologue in the first few verses, the gospel is a progressive unveiling of Jesus as God incarnate. One way John highlights the tension in his audience’s perception of Jesus’s humanity and his divinity is to repeatedly raise the question of where Jesus came from and where he is going. For example, Jesus tells Nicodemus in 3:13 that “no one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven the Son of Man.” When Jesus identifies himself as the true bread that “came down” out of heaven, the crowd marvels: “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?” (6:42).
He tells the religious authorities, “I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going” (8:14). And he informs his disciples, “I am going there to prepare a place for you. . . . I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going” (14:2–4). The reason this issue of coming and going shows up so frequently is to reinforce the truth that Jesus is no ordinary human. He is the light that is “coming into the world” (1:9).
Light and darkness. The interplay between light and darkness is pervasive in John’s gospel. As early as 1:4, Jesus is identified as the light of men. Nicodemus comes to him in the darkness of night, and during their conversation, he points out that “light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (3:19). Jesus calls himself the Light of the World (8:12; 9:5), and he tells his disciples that though they will only have the light a little while longer, they can become sons of light (12:35–36). In fact, this is Jesus’s purpose: “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness” (12:46).
Glory. John says, “We have seen his glory” (1:14), and the revelation of glory becomes a progressive theme of the gospel. The first of Jesus’s miracles revealed his glory (2:11), and glimpses of glory lead up to the cross and resurrection, which Jesus approaches with a focus on the glory it will bring. “Father, glorify your name!” he cries out the week before the crucifixion. “Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and will glorify it again’” (12:28). And his high-priestly prayer in chapter 17 is full of references to how Jesus glorifies the Father, how the Father glorifies him, and how he shares his glory with those who believe in him.
Seeing and believing. John 2–12 is often called “the book of signs,” a collection of seven miracles that cultivate faith in many of the people who witness them and anger others. (See session 5 for a list of the seven signs.) Dialogue in the gospel often features those who believe because of what they’ve seen, those who don’t believe in spite of what they’ve seen, and those who believe to a point but don’t fully entrust themselves to Jesus’s teaching. The climax of this theme is Jesus’s statement to Thomas after the resurrection: “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (20:29). This is followed by John’s statement of purpose in writing: “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (20:30–31; emphasis added).
Spirit, wind, and breath. There’s only one word for these three meanings in both Hebrew ( ruach ) and Greek ( pneuma ). John takes full advantage of the triple meanings, especially in 3:8: “The pneuma blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the pneuma .” After the resurrection, Jesus breathes on the disciples to give them the Spirit.
Spirit and flesh. The Holy Spirit plays a prominent role in John’s gospel the promise of his coming is clearer in chapters 14–16 than anywhere else in Scripture and the Spirit is often specifically contrasted to the flesh. For example, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit” (3:6), and “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing” (6:63). But most likely in order to combat early strains of Gnostic thought, John affirms the flesh as good. Gnosticism, when it fully developed in the second century, would emphasize the spiritual and consider the flesh evil, insisting that Jesus came in spirit but only appeared to have a body. It’s in John’s gospel that Jesus most clearly hungers, thirsts, gets tired, weeps, bleeds, and dies. The Holy Spirit will come to inhabit earthly flesh, not condemn it.
Wisdom incarnate . John uses imagery and terminology from Proverbs and extra-biblical wisdom literature to portray Jesus as wisdom incarnate. The wisdom that was with God at the foundation of the world is remarkably similar to the ministry of Jesus in John. Proverbs 8:22–36 is not only a good description of eternal wisdom, it’s a good description of Jesus’s ministry in this gospel.
Father and Son. The relationship between God the Father and Jesus the Son is emphasized, especially in Jesus’s dialogue with religious authorities in chapter 8. Jesus’s opponents remind him that their father is Abraham but also that God is their only Father to which Jesus responds that they would love him if God was truly their Father, whereas in fact their real father is the devil. The Father’s relationship to the Son is explored more fully in 1:14, 3:35, 5:17–23, 6:37–46, 10:14–18, 10:25–30, 14:6–12, and 16:25–28, among other passages. The clearest and boldest statement of the relationship between Father and Son is 10:30: “I and the Father are one.”
How to Use This Guide
The questions in this guide are geared to elicit every participant’s input, regardless of his or her level of preparation. Obviously, the more group members prepare by reading the biblical text and the background information in the study guide, the more they will get out of it. But even in busy weeks that afford no preparation time, everyone will be able to participate in a meaningful way.
The discussion questions also allow your group quite a bit of latitude. Some groups prefer to briefly discuss the questions in order to cover as many as possible, while others focus only on one or two of them in order to have more in-depth conversations. Since this study is desig