A Beloved’s Witness – Pt. 2

We didn’t need it that much last
week. I think that you’ll become much
more adept in your flipping pages today. We will spend a great
deal of time in a number of different places. We began to look at the
Gospel of John last week, and I suggested to you that if I
were to characterize it, I would use at least these three terms,
that it is absolutely invaluable. As one said, the most literary,
the most important, rather, literary production ever composed. We also saw that it was dynamic,
that the believer, the beginner in the faith can, rather the
beginner can be led to faith through the reading of this gospel,
but even the mature Christian throughout this gospel can be
schooled and encouraged and convicted and We also found it to be not
only invaluable and dynamic, but I would suggest to you, beloved,
as we characterize one of the most familiar, most loved books
in all the Bible, in many people’s cases, the gospel that led them
to faith. When we began last week and looked
at the question of who wrote the gospels, some might have
thought that it was a silly question. We found out that it wasn’t a
silly question. What I didn’t share with you
last week is that in preparing this message, I just happened
out last Saturday night to my front yard and was finishing
a project that I had done. My neighbor came over who, just shared with me his curiosity
of, his own personal curiosity of who wrote this gospel. And
so it is not an unimportant question. It’s not an unfamiliar question.
It is one that still rages to this day. And I think the saints
would do well to have their underpinnings as to who exactly wrote this
gospel and why they believe that to be so. It goes back to the
earliest days of the church, the tradition, if you will, of
the church. From the very earliest days,
the church held this to be the apostle that John had written.
Theophilus, Irenaeus, Polycarp, and others all testified to the
fact that John wrote this gospel, and it is consistently held for
almost the first 1,400 years of the church. We ask the question of why anyone,
why liberals would be so vehement in attacking this gospel. Why
would they be so against having this gospel verified as true
or as written by the Apostle John? And I love Abbott, and
I repeat the quote that we heard last week. If this gospel was
written by the Apostle John, we have the testimony of an undoubted
witness. Not his conclusions, but his
account of the facts in respect to which he could not be well
deceived. It would establish beyond the
possibility of any reasonable question the truth of historic
Christianity. That’s why they have to attack
John. That’s why they have to discredit
this apostle. That’s why they can’t possibly
say that John the apostle wrote the Gospel of John. Because it
sets in stone as verified truth that Jesus Christ is who he said
he was. We know that the author was Jewish.
We know that the author was almost certainly a native of Palestine.
We know that the author was almost certainly an apostle, that he
was almost certainly an eyewitness. The gospel identifies him as
the disciple whom Jesus loved, and we looked at all the data
last week. The only conclusion that you
can even come to reasonably is that John is the author of the
gospel. Only John fulfills all those details. And so we ask,
who was John? Who was John? Who was John the
Apostle? I would suggest to you that of
many of the apostles that we do know, John is probably the
one that we know the least about. There are only two sources of
information about him. The New Testament writings, which
cover his life until his departure from Jerusalem, and after that
we know very little. The Synoptic Gospels each mention
John numerous times. Acts mentions John, as we’ll
see in a moment. Galatians, Paul mentions John
in that book. And then outside of the New Testament
writings, we have what is called tradition, the writings of the
early church fathers, which primarily addressed John’s life in Ephesus. And so this very incomplete amount
of information at times requires a degree of conjecture. And that’s
not wrong, just depending on how you hold those conclusions. I think that we can safely say,
and I’ll give you the data here in a moment, that John lived
from about the start of the first century until somewhere near
the end of that same century, about 100 years. We know from
the testimony of the Gospels, as we learned last week, that
John was a Galilean, possibly from the town of Bethsaida on
the west coast of the Lake of Galilee, a fishing village. In
fact, Bethsaida, as one commentator translated it, Fishville. Now, how would you like that
for your legacy? But John was a member, as we
see from scripture, of a four-person family, like almost all of the
other apostles, with the one exception of Judas Iscariot.
They were all from Galilee. John was also the son of Zebedee
and Salome, say the Gospels. Zebedee was a fairly well-to-do
fisherman from Galilee, They fished right there on the Lake
of Galilee. He’s only mentioned one time
in the Gospels. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.
Matthew chapter four, verse 21, it says, going on from there,
he saw two brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his
brother, in the boat with Zebedee. Now he’s mentioned other times,
but this is the only time that he, as a person, is actually
being referenced. They were all out fishing. And
then John’s mother, we can come to the conclusion, and I think
it’s a good conclusion, solid, that John’s mom’s name was Salome. And we also discover, the more
that we read, that she was very likely the sister of Mary, the
mother of Jesus. This gets, we’re gonna need a
chart by the end of this. Matthew just mentions this woman. In Matthew chapter 27 verse 56,
and you could jot down a few of these and look at them later
if you wish, because we’re gonna, I’m just gonna give you a number
of different references, but in Matthew 27, 56, he records, among them was Mary
Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the
mother of the sons of Zebedee. He doesn’t identify her by name,
he just refers to as the mother of these two boys. Mark, however,
mentions a woman named Salome there at the cross. There were
also some women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary
Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Less and Joses, and
Salome. That’s the first time that we’ve
been introduced to that name, at least this morning, Mark 15,
40. But then in Mark 16, 1, it says, when the Sabbath was over,
Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome brought spices
so that they might come and anoint him. So she was part of this
inner circle, these devout worshipers, these small group of women that
attended to Christ even in his death. You say, well, how is
there this relationship? Well, John’s gospel, John 19.25,
paints this picture of that same scenario. Therefore the soldiers
did these things, but standing by the cross of Jesus were his
mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary
Magdalene. The only one that isn’t named
by name there is Salome. And so we can draw a reasonable
conclusion that Salome, the mother of the sons of Zebedee, is also
the sister of Mary, the mother of Christ. And that would make
the apostle John, in addition to John the Baptist, a cousin
of Jesus, a second cousin, all this to say the two were likely
very well acquainted. They at least knew who each other
was. And that relationship ultimately
begins to now make much more sense when Jesus looked down
from the cross and said, son behold your mother, mother behold
your son. There was that family relationship
that in a very real sense was an obligation, a reasonable responsibility
for John to assume. We also know that this woman
had a long and involved relationship with Jesus and his disciples,
not just there at the cross. She was a worshiper. She is seen
in a number of different occasions. She probably too shared those
messianic hopes and had begun to follow Christ as a believer. I remember preaching through
the gospel of Luke, Luke chapter eight, and I wondered, what am
I going to do with this passage? but it ended up being one of
the most poignant, sweet stories. Turn if you would. I don’t even
know if I should tell you to keep your finger in, John. Turn
to Luke. We’ll get to John eventually. Luke chapter eight. And I would picture Salome being
part of this group, though she isn’t specifically named, but
it’s such a beautiful passage. Soon afterwards, verse one, he
began going around from one city and village to another, proclaiming,
pardon me, and preaching the kingdom of God. The 12 were with
him, that’s obvious, that should be as expected, and also some
women. who had been healed of evil spirits
and sicknesses. Mary, who was called Magdalene,
from whom seven demons had gone out. And Joanna, the wife of
Cusa, Herod’s steward. And Susanna, only time Susanna’s
ever mentioned in all the scripture. What a neat story. And Susanna
and many others who were contributing to their support out of private
means. I would put Salome in there, a worshiper, a helper. She was obviously well-to-do.
They owned boats, as we’ll see in a moment. This relationship
with Christ is also probably what led her to take some very
bold steps. Turn briefly to Matthew chapter
20. you know this story. And we don’t
know whether the boys actually put her up to it, or whether
the boys were complicitous in this, or whether this was just
the mom going off on a wing, you know, with her own idea.
But in Matthew chapter 20, there is this very interesting thing
recorded that we all wince at because we all have the same
thoughts from time to time. Verse 20 of Matthew 20, then
the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons,
bowing down and making a request of him. And we all just kind
of, you know, wince at this. And he said to her, what do you
wish? And she said to him, command that on in your kingdom, these
two sons of mine, you can just hear her just proud confidence
of her two boys, grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one
on your right and one on your left. And, you know, if the boys
weren’t in on it, they’re probably just, you know, they probably
just wanted to try and find a place to hide. But I get the sense
that they were complicitous, that they did know what their
mom was going to ask, that they thought that this really was
a pretty good idea. After all, it’s James and John. Well. I’ve mentioned James, John was
obviously the brother of James, and throughout scripture, James
is usually mentioned first, and so we come to this conjecture,
it’s not told, but we assume that James is the older of the
two. So John was not only a member
of a four-person family, and a son of Zebedee and Salome,
he was the brother of James, and they were fishermen. These
are all just facts that we’re gleaning from what we gather
from the Gospels. It’s a likely conjecture that
they were in some kind of a partnership with Peter. It was a fishing
family. They were well off enough to
own at least one boat and to employ many others. That is no
small observation in those days. Very few people were able to
do that. We also see that they were from Galilee. The scripture
reference for that last comment was Mark 1, 16 through 20. If you want to look at it, James
the son of Zebedee and John his brother, they’re both cited there. John, we also know from the gospel
accounts, was from Galilee. And this becomes very important
in the backdrop of the writing of the gospel. Galilee was apart
from Jerusalem. It was not only on the outskirts,
it was in the middle of nowhere, you might say. And the people
were viewed with, they were just kind of looked down upon by the
Jewish elite that lived in Jerusalem, they looked at them as being
uneducated and just legalistic, kind of, not unlike what you
might find, you know, in the southern part of our, where people
just read the Bible and take it literally, and that’s the,
you know, in the Bible Belt, that’s the way things are. I
would say that Galilee was kind of like the Bible Belt in that
regard. The people lived peaceably with
their neighbors, that made them an oddity to The Jews in Jerusalem,
one person put it this way, the inhabitants of Galilee kept the
old simple faith in the letter of the law. They were uninterested
alike in politics and philosophy. They preferred the sword to intrigue
and industry to speculation. They were hardworking country
folk, you might say. So the people of Galilee, they
had this simple faith They looked to the scriptures and they saw
it black and white and they tried to live accordingly. They didn’t
go in for a lot of this pharisaical nonsense that was heaped upon
the people and that will become very evident in John’s gospel. one characterized it in these
terms. John belonged then to the free, industrious, and warlike
people of the north who were despised by the more cultured
inhabitants of Jerusalem, and upon whom the yoke of Judaism
pressed less heavily than it did on the dwellers of Judea.
Removed from the influences of the scribes and Pharisees on
the one hand, he would, on the other hand, grow up in contact
with men of alien races and creeds. And so for John, the world was
a much bigger place. When we think about John’s education,
he is referred to in the book of Acts as being unlettered,
which kind of has the, it smacks to us of being one who’s just,
you know, a yokel and doesn’t really know much. You might put it like this. That
don’t mean that John ain’t never done learning. Because he had
very likely come up through the traditional schools. He had done
the Jewish version of Sunday school, which is much more substantial
than the average Sunday school of our day and age. Religious
training is what it was. John had done all of that. Then
you begin to come With all of that background, John the fisherman,
John from Galilee, John from the family of four, brother of
James, come to John’s faith and his ensuing discipleship. When John the Baptist came, he
began preaching a gospel of repentance and John The apostle, the future
apostle John, was among those early disciples. And as soon
as John pointed out Jesus, that’s one of the first great lessons
we’ll see in John’s gospel. He pointed out the promised Messiah,
the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John was
among the first to leave his old teacher, John the Baptist,
and follow Christ. In other words, when Jesus called
them, they answered. Love the way one put it. After
centuries of dreary silence. in which it seemed as if Jehovah
had deserted his chosen people, a thrill went out through the
land that God had again visited them, and that a prophet had
once more appeared. John’s was a call not to resist
foreign taxation or to throw off the yoke of Rome, but to
withstand their own temptations and break the heavy bondage of
their own crying sins. I love that. John heard the gospel,
John heard Christ, and he followed the Lamb of God that was to do
what the lambs provided in the temple could never do, take away
the sin of the world. We know that John likely went
back to his fishing business, probably out of necessity, and
then in Luke, he’s called again, James and John, the sons of Zebedee
who were partners with Simon. Luke chapter five. And so he
became one of the 12, and then he became one of the three. An
interesting feature that we know about John, that with Peter and
James, he became kind of an inner circle within the circle. We know that he was present at
the raising of Jairus’ daughter, recorded in Mark chapter five,
the synagogue official, where it says that Jesus allowed no
one to accompany except Peter and James and John the brother
of James. At the Mount of Transfiguration,
Jesus allowed three people to come with him. He took along
Peter and John and James. In the Garden of Gethsemane,
we see it again, Peter and James and John. So it’s not surprising
then at the tomb that we would find John there, and on that
occasion he was there only with Peter, Simon Peter, and the other
disciple whom Jesus loved, that when John recorded it, again,
he didn’t even give his own name. We begin to think about John.
You can’t ignore his nature. One referred to his dominant
characteristic as contemplative receptivity. It was kind of a
brooding sort, deep, passionate. One said that every word of his
Lord is taken into his deepest heart, held fast, and pondered
with this receptiveness that goes, and with this receptiveness
goes a power of impartation. He took it in deeply. The roots
took down deep into his heart and soul. But there were two
sides to John’s character as you back away. There was that
passionate side, that intolerant side, but there was also that
tender, loving side. And sometimes writers reviewing
these things find those two to be incongruous, but they’re not. One painted this picture. On
the one side, the compliment of the other, both form a part
of the intensity of his nature. intensity of action, intensity
of thought and word, intensity of love and hate. These are the
characteristics of the beloved disciple. That’s who John was.
A lot of times in Christian art, you have this almost feminine
picture of John painted as this weak and just passive figure. But he was a passionate man.
He was what one described as turbulent. When Jesus was calling
the 12, and they’re named there in Mark’s gospel, he identifies
James and John as the Boanerges, which means the sons of thunder.
And that had a significance to it. He was identifying their
personalities, kind of their nature, if you will. That from time to time, these
men would erupt with sudden sometimes startling expressions of their
passion to which they held. From time to time, I’ve had in congregations, I’ve had these
men that would erupt suddenly with a loud amen. I kind of liken
it to that, that they give verbal expression to how they’re feeling,
and I liken John to that kind of a thing. John’s zeal, said
one, was undisciplined, but it was loyal and true. John sometimes
would do and say some things that we might think are improper,
but the Lord was so gracious with him. Let me just point out
a couple of eruptions, and I’ll bring them to mind. Remember
Mark 9.38. teacher we saw someone casting out demons in your name
John said and we tried to prevent him because he was not following
us he wasn’t one of us and we and you can get that sense of
John erupting and Jesus kind of saying all right let’s go
back to apostleship 101 What about this one in Luke 9
49? John said, Master, we saw someone
casting out demons in your name. We tried to prevent him because
he does not follow along with us. Luke paints the same picture
of that scene, but then there’s another one that follows. When the days were approaching
for his ascension, he was determined to go to Jerusalem. He sent messengers
on ahead of him, and they went and entered the village of the
Samaritans to make arrangements for him. Basically, they wanted
groceries, a place to stay, and some food. But they did not receive
him because he was traveling toward Jerusalem. They didn’t
want anything to do with Jews. When his disciples James and
John saw this, watch this, they said, Lord, do you want us to
command fire to come down from heaven and consume them? That
was John’s nature, passionate. But as one balanced it out, we
look in vain in the Gospels for any instance in which John expressed
any rebuke of Christ, like Peter, or any opposition to him, like Judas, or any doubt of his
teaching like Thomas, or demanded any other evidence of its truth
other than the simple word of the Lord. That was John. He took Christ at his word. Of
all the disciples, the most receptive, he was the one whose character
underwent the greatest and most radical change. The John that
we know is the John transformed by the renewing influence of
the spirit of Christ. He is the John that is a new
creature in Christ. He was, I believe, the beloved
disciple because he was the one in whom the love of Christ had
the freest course and wrought the fullest and largest results,
said Lyman Abbott, my new hero of the faith. And then as I mentioned
earlier, John had a special commissioning. John had a special commissioning
recorded in John 19, verse 26, rather, where he was entrusted
with the care of Jesus Christ’s own mother. When then Jesus saw
his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he
said to his mother, woman, behold your son. Then he said to the
disciple, behold your mother. From that hour, the disciple
took her into his own household. This was not an obnoxious man. This is not a man that was completely
unfit to be an apostle, or certainly to write such a glorious gospel
as John, as some liberals would say. This can’t possibly be what
Jesus would put forth as an example. He was. And in that, he was not unlike
us. If you would turn back to the Gospel of John, as we continue
our reading, In this great gospel, we left off last Lord’s Day in
chapter two, and we pick up at the end of chapter two for the
purpose of reading on into chapter three, verse 23. Now, when he
was in Jerusalem at the Passover during the feast, many believed
in his name, observing his signs which he was doing, But Jesus
on his part was not entrusting himself to them for he knew all
men and because he did not need anyone to testify concerning
man for he himself knew what was in man. Now there was a man
of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, this man
came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you
have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs
that you do unless God is with him. Jesus answered and said
to him, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, how
can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second
time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he? Jesus answered,
truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the
spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which
is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the
spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said
to you, you must be born again. Wind blows where it wishes and
you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from
and where it is going. So is everyone who is born of
the spirit. Nicodemus said to him, how can
these things be? John answered and said to him,
are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we
speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen and you
do not accept our testimony. If I told you earthly things
and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly
things? No one has ascended into heaven
but he who descended from heaven, the son of man. As Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be
lifted up, so that whoever believes will in him have eternal life. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him
shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the
Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might
be saved through him. He who believes in him is not
judged. He who does not believe has been
judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the
only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the
light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather
than the light, for their deeds were evil. where everyone who
does evil hates the light and does not come to the light for
fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth
comes to the light so that his deeds may be manifested as having
been wrought in God. After these things, Jesus and
his disciples came into the land of Judea, and there he was spending
time with them, baptizing. John also was baptizing in Enon
near Salem because there was much water there and people were
coming and were being baptized for John had not yet been thrown
in prison. Therefore, there arose a discussion
on the part of John’s disciples with the Jew about purification.
And they came to John and said to him, Rabbi, he who is with
you beyond the Jordan to whom you have testified, behold, he
is baptizing and all are coming to him. John answered and said,
a man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.
You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, I am not the Christ,
but I have been sent ahead of him. He who has the bride is
the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom who stands
and hears him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice.
So this joy of mine has been made full. He must increase,
but I must decrease. He who comes from above is above
all. He who is of the earth is from
the earth and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above
all. What he has seen and heard of that he testifies and no one
receives his testimony. He who received his testimony
has set his seal to this that God is true. For he whom God
has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit
without measure. The Father loves the Son and
has given all things into his hand. He who believes in the
Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son will
not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. Therefore,
When the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that John was making
and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself
was not baptizing, but his disciples were, he left Judea and went
away into Galilee, and he had to pass through Samaria. So they
came to the city called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that
Jacob gave his son Joseph, and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus,
being wearied from his journey, was sitting thus by the well.
It was about the sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria
to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a
drink, for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy
food. Therefore, the Samaritan woman
said to him, how is it that you, being a Jew, ask me for a drink,
since I am a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with
Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her,
if you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, give
me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you
living water. She said to him, sir, you have
nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then do you
get that living water? You are not greater than our
father Jacob, are you, who gave us this well and drank of it
himself and his sons and his cattle? Jesus answered and said
to her, everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again,
but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never
thirst, but the water that I will give him will become in him a
well of water springing up to eternal life. The woman said
to him, sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty
nor come all the way here to draw. He said to her, go call
your husband and come here. The woman answered and said,
I have no husband. Jesus said to her, you have correctly
said, I have no husband, for you have had five husbands. And
the one whom you now have is not your husband, This you have
said truly. The woman said to him, Sir, I
perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this
mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place
where men ought to worship. Jesus said to her, Woman, believe
me. An hour is coming when neither
in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for
salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now
is, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit
and in truth. For such people the Father seeks
to be his worshipers. God is spirit. and those who
worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. The woman said
to him, I know that the Messiah is coming, he who is called Christ.
When that one comes, he will declare all things to us. Jesus
said to her, I who speak to you am he. At this point, his disciples
came, and they were amazed that he had been speaking with a woman.
Yet no one said, what do you seek or why do you speak with
her? So the woman left her water pot
and went into the city and said to the men, come and see a man
who told me all the things that I have done. This is not the
Christ, is it? They went out of the city and
were coming to him. Meanwhile, the disciples were
urging him, saying, Rabbi, eat. But he said to them, I have food
to eat. that you do not know about. So the disciples were
saying to one another, no one brought him anything to eat,
did he? Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of him
who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do not say there are
yet four months and then comes the harvest. Behold, I say to
you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields that they are white
for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving
wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal so that he who
sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case, the
saying is true. One sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap for that which
you have not labored. Others have labored and you have
entered into their labor from that city. Many of the Samaritans
believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified.
He who told me all the things that I have done. So when the
Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking him to stay with
them. And he stayed there two days. Many more believed because
of his word. And they were saying to the woman,
it is no longer because of what you said that we believe. For
we have heard for ourselves and know that this one is indeed
the savior of the world. After two days, he went forth
from there into Galilee. For Jesus himself testified that
a prophet has no honor in his own country. So when he came
to Galilee, the Galileans received him. Having seen all the things
that he did in Jerusalem at the feast, for they themselves also
went to the feast. Therefore he came again to Cana
of Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And there was
a royal official whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard
that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to him
and was imploring him to come down and heal his son, for he
was at the point of death. So Jesus said to him, unless
you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.
The royal official said to him, sir, come down. before my child dies, Jesus said
to him, go, your son lives. The man believed the word that
Jesus spoke to him and started off. As he was now going down,
his slaves met him, saying that his son was living. So he inquired
of them the hour when he began to get better. They said to him,
yesterday at the seventh hour, his fever left him. So the father
knew that it was at that hour which Jesus said to him, your
son lives. And he himself believed and his
whole household. This is again the second sign
that Jesus performed when he had come out of Judea into Galilee. Let’s pray. Our merciful God,
we thank you that when you take a common ordinary sinner, and
infuse them with your marvelous grace. Lord, incredible things
can be done. You took an angry, uneducated
fisherman like John and wove him by the grace of God into
the great apostle. the loving yet fiery man that
we come to see even in the pages of the words we’ve read. Lord
bless our study of this gospel. It’s in Jesus’ name that we pray,
amen.