Background on The Gospel According to John

Oftentimes, the Gospel According to John, or just John for short, is the book of the Bible that new believers get directed to on their first venture into Bible study and understanding the faith. Poignant, because that is exactly why John wrote it.

As the Gospel According to John was one of the last books of the Bible to be written, its purpose was to introduce the foundations of a very Jewish faith to a very non-Jewish world.

John is believed to be writing from the city of Ephesus, located in modern day Turkiye. Think of Ephesus like...Chicago. A sprawling melting pot of a metropolis that is also a center of commerce and culture and craziness. And it is in this world that John, presumably in his old age, writes to give new and potential converts a background and understanding of his home country of Judea and the Man of Galilee who came on behalf of humankind.

While reading John, we also should remember that John and his contemporaries were living under Roman occupation in their own homeland waiting on God's promise for a Messiah to come and restore David's Kingdom to which there would be no end. And his original audience was still living under Roman occupation waiting for the return of the Messiah. And many Christians today are still living under some form of hostile occupation waiting for the return of the Messiah.

So some of us have a little more in common with the original audience than we thought.

Go figure.

Link to the Background Below

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1VWaWVBpWt1l9Qd749Dgx_4ac7PWDJ7QxeDE5cLyJyag/edit?usp=sharing