Thanks to everyone who came to the Gospel of John Seminar!

For those who didn’t hear: Tuesday, the day before classes began, we had a seminar on the Gospel of John for all who participated in our Summer Reading Challenge. We had a great time of fellowship over God’s word and enjoyed hearing from you how the Lord moved in your life over the summer through this challenge. What better way to start UT than reading God’s word together?

Reading the Bible during your college years is crucial to your spiritual health. Hebrews chapter one tells us that God speaks to us “in the Son.” In the Gospel of John, the Son of God is explicitly and purposely called the Word of God. He is the definition, explanation, and expression of the unseen God. We pray that John 1:1 would describe every day of your personal universe here in college—“In the beginning was the Word.” Begin each day with the living Word of God!

God speaks to us, teaches us, feeds us, and transforms us all through His word. If we don’t spend adequate time in the Word each day, God will seem far away from us, our struggles will seem insurmountable, and our Christian life will dry up.

The Bible is not merely a manual on how to please God. It is a menu on how to take God in as life!

John’s gospel emphatically reveals that Christ is our bread of life, water of life, and breath of life. He is THE LIFE! John says that Christ came not merely to redeem us back to God, but to give us the life of God. The proper response to God’s great act of sending His Son to the world is to have life by believing into Christ and then to live this life by eating Christ! Yes, EAT CHRIST! Sound strange? Read John 6:57 again!

Points of truth however interesting, scriptural knowledge however profound and extensive, Biblical criticism however accurate and valuable, may all leave the heart barren and the affections cold. We want to find Christ in the Word; and having found Him, to feed on Him by faith.

~C.H. Mackintosh, d. 1896

Here’s a quick breakdown of what we talked about at the seminar. The gospel of John can be divided into two main sections. The first section, chapters 1-13, shows how Christ came into the world as life to meet every man’s need. John uses nine evident illustrations to showcase this:

  1. The need of the moral—life’s regenerating (3:1-21)
  2. The need of the immoral—life’s satisfying (4:1-42)
  3. The need of the dying—life’s healing (4:43-54)
  4. The need of the impotent—life’s enlivening (5:1-47)
  5. The need of the hungry—life’s feeding (6:1-71)
  6. The need of the thirsty—life’s quenching (7:1-52)
  7. The need of the those under the bondage of sin—life’s setting free (8:1-59)
  8. The need of the blind—life’s sight (9:1-41)
  9. The need of the dead—life’s resurrecting (11:1-44)

The second section, chapters 14-21, shows how Christ went through death and resurrection to bring man into God to meet God’s need for a habitation. This is an awesome view of this book and deserves our life-long prayerful pursuit and study!

If you’re looking for more ways to enrich your Christian life with God’s word, don’t hesitate to contact us!

Kyle Barton
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