So now early in November I’m beginning a study of the book of John. I like John a lot because the narrative seems a lot less stilted and very real. The portrayal of each of the figures, including Jesus, seem real instead of wooden. Because I enjoyed the first chapter so much I’ll give my literary impression of what’s going on.

First you have John (the gospel gets right to the point) and he’s out preaching. Some religious leaders send servants to John who is out doing his thing. They ask him “Are you the messiah?” he says “no.” They ask, “Are you Elijah?” and he says “no.” They ask “are you the prophet?” and he says “no.” You can almost feel an awkward pause as they ask “Who are you then?” John simply replies that he is the messenger spoken about in Isaiah, he is there to proclaim God’s messiah. The servants than ask why he’s baptizing people if he’s not Elijah, the Christ, or a Prophet. John responds, “Look, I’m just baptizing with water. Someone higher than me is coming and he’ll baptize people with the Holy Spirit.”

The next verses have Jesus coming to the river and John proclaims that this is the messiah; he says he saw the spirit descend on Jesus like a dove and heard God proclaim that Jesus was his son.

The next day John sees Jesus again and says “There’s the lamb of God.” Immediately, two of John’s disciples leave him and follow Jesus instead. I like this image because at this point John has done his job, he proclaimed Christ. These two disciples got it; John was who they needed to follow until they met the Messiah, after that following John would be pointless. One of them, Andrew, goes and gets his brother and says “hey we found the Messiah.” Simon comes to Jesus and Jesus gives him his nickname of “Peter.”

The next day Jesus calls Phillip, who lived in the same town as Andrew and Peter. Philip goes home and gets his brother, his brother is skeptical, but Philip convinces him to come along and at least check things out. When Nathanael, Philip’s brother, is seen by Jesus, Jesus goes “here’s a guy with no deceit in his life.” Nathanael asks “how do you know me?” Jesus replies, “Before your bother got you, you were sitting under a fig tree, I saw you there.” Nathanael immediately proclaims Jesus’s divinity. I love Jesus’s response; he goes “Really? You believe because I saw you under a fig tree. Come with me, you’ll see a lot cooler stuff than that.”

I don’t have a lot to comment on this other than the immense pleasure I took in reading this chapter.