Intro to John

As I lay here thinking about life. (Wishing I could go back to sleep.) My mind wonders to my new endeavor of giving God glory through my writings. It then jumps over to the Bible Study I'm about to start with a friend.

"Maybe I could combine the two." I hear in my head.

Well, why not.

As I was pondering our first Bible study I began to think about context and using the Bible to interpret the Bible.

This is where my question came in.

Can you Study The Gospel of John without Genesis?

(NOTICE: This topic will be more than one blog post and we will not actually read through John together until the next post.)

Before we get started on studying John I want to lay some ground work by giving a few definitions as well as some facts on the Bible (for those who may be new). If you already now the meaning of these words or these facts than you can consider it a refresher or you can skip it. (These are quick and easy definitions. A person could get deeper into each word and fact presented.)

Hermeneutics - The study of written texts and their meaning.

Exegesis - The process of seeking to understand what a text means or communicate on its own.

Eisegegis - Imposing a preconceived or foreign meaning onto a text.

KJV - King James Version Bible (This is the version all the scriptures will come from.)

As we embark on this journey it is important to remember to use the same Hermeneutics throughout the whole Bible. This should be a plain and literal reading. It is just as important to not add in our own thoughts (eisegesis) but to read the Bible for what it says (exegesis).

What language was the Bible written in?

The Bible was originally written in Hebrew and Greek with some Arabic.

How was the Bible written?

The Bible was written by God through approximately 40 different men over the course of about 1500 years.

Many people want to say there isn't any proof that the Bible is still accurate. They say that after this many years and after the multiple times it has been translated it can't be trusted.

However, the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were found in 1947 at the settlement of Qumran, have produced some of the oldest scripture we have intact. When these were compares to our modern Bible the discrepancies are minor and mostly relate to the spelling of names.

How do we know that God wrote the Bible?

(Here are just a few of the verses that show God as author of the Bible and that Gods Word, the Bible, can be trusted.)

PSALM 119:160

PROVERBS 30:5-6

MATTHEW 5:18

JOHN 17:17

2 TIMOTHY 3:16-17

HEBREWS 4:12

2 PETER 1:20-21

2 PETER 3:9

REVEATION 22:18-19

The Bible CAN BE and SHOULD BE trusted exactly the way it was written.

REMINDER

USE ONLY THE BIBLE TO INTERPRET THE BIBLE.

WARNING

Many translations remove Scripture passages or change the wording to cater to our fleshy desires and comforts. Be aware.

As the final bit of ground work...

John, the writer of St. John, 1st, 2nd and 3rd John and Revelation, was John the beloved. He was the disciple of Jesus.

I mention this to clarify, this is not John the Baptist.

Now.....

Let's prepare by reading John 1:1-14, John 8:12 and Genesis 1:1-31

(I started, with this study, underlining certain words with different colors to help keep track of who is being referred to. For instance, I have underlined any reference to God (including he, his, him) with green. I underline any reference to Jesus with yellow. I underline any reference to Holy Spirit with blue. If you prefer not to mark in your Bible I will be attaching the Scriptures typed up that can be printed, soon)

In my next blog we will go over what was read and see what you got highlighted.

See you then!