A favorite place to start studying the Bible together with others is the gospel according to John. Designed as the ‘Christianity Explored’ course within the Bible, it explains why we should believe that Jesus is who he said he was, without dumbing down his teachings.
John also shows how Jesus interpreted the Old Testament as a book about himself, giving us a model how to read the Scripture in the same way, so that we may find, believe and know him.
As a follower and close friend of Jesus, John identified his Master with the ‘Logos’, a concept that even today still conveys why Jews and Christians believe that the source of ‘logic’ and coded information underneath the blueprints of all life forms is an intelligent being. The choice of the term ‘logos’ also reflects a conviction that all life is called into being by intelligible words of an all-powerful voice, both in a first creation and in a future new one. This new creation began with the resurrection of Jesus and is being completed through the Holy Spirit in those who receive his life-giving words and abide in them.
By identifying this life-giving Logos with Jesus, John declared that he could not have aimed higher, and that the words of Jesus will suffice to let their truth shine and be recognized as true everywhere.
By emphasizing why and how we must hear the words of Jesus, John is also most helpful in explaining how God’s word relates to the Holy Spirit, and vice versa. John’s vision of a perfect union within the Trinity of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit will keep us from missing the main point of the Scripture altogether (Jn 5:39-40), and from vain hopes that the Spirit may sanctify anyone without the Scripture (Jn 6:63; 10:40; 17:8.13.17), or that you may have Jesus but not the Holy Spirit (Jn 3:34), or the Holy Spirit without Jesus (Jn 13:20; 14:17-19). For if these are inseparably one as Jesus said they are, they always will come to us as one, and it is impossible to have even in small measure the one if the other is missing.
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