The Word Became Flesh
John 1:1-18
Commentary (link to commentary)
You are encouraged to go through steps or process scripture in these steps:
- Pray = in anticipation of what God wants you to discover. Thank You, God, that You sent Your Son into the world to demonstrate Your great love for us.
- Read = with purpose look for what God is trying to communicate. You may want to read out of several translations and highlight key words.
- Reflect = on the context and put yourself in the shoes of people at that time. What do you find most striking or significant about what this passage says about Jesus? Has it changed or deepened what you believe about Jesus in any way?
- Apply = information without application is fruitless. Decide on some practical steps you can take for fulfill what God wants you to do. Write a few sentences that describe what you believe about Jesus, why he came to earth, and what all that means to you.
- Pray = yielding to God to empower you to do what the word convicted you to do. Lord, help me to understand more and more about who Jesus is and what he means to my life.
For deeper Bible study and more resources go to my Commentary Blog notes or Life of Christ Blog notes.
No
Greater Love from 365-Day Devotional Commentary, The.
"Three gods! You've got three
gods!"
That misunderstanding of Christian
faith is common in both Muslim and Jewish circles. And yet Christians claim,
"No. We have one God, the God of the Old Testament, who is shown in the
New Testament to exist in three Persons."
It's nonsense to many, of course.
And yet as we read John's first verses, we see that this is just what the Bible
teaches. The Word, a few verses later on identified as the Son incarnate, Jesus
Christ, was there in the beginning. He was with God. And He was God.
Many attempts have been made to find
an analogy that will help us better grasp the mystery of the Trinity: the
Three-in-Oneness of Scripture's one God. All fall short. The Trinity remains a
mystery. Perhaps the best suggestion though was made in the fourth century of
our era by Saint Augustine. Augustine argued that God must be a Trinity, for
God is love. Before the Creation of the world, God must have had someone to
love, and some way to convey love. It follows, Augustine taught, that there
must be Three within the oneness of God: a Father to love, a Son to be the
object of that love, and a Holy Spirit to convey and express love.
What a thought. Before God created,
God was a Person who loved. Because He existed as a Trinity, God has always
been able to express that love fully within His own being. And yet God's love
is so great that it overflowed beyond His own self. In love God created the
world and populated it with persons in His own image. In love God gave those
persons freedom of choice. And, in love, God sacrificed the Son He loved to
preserve all who believe from the disastrous and eternal consequences of the
choices they have made.
The Gospel of John is not only the
Gospel of belief and faith, as most emphasize. John is the Gospel of
unimaginable love.
Personal
Application
Considering who Jesus is can deepen
your love for Him.
Quotable
"Alexander, Caesar,
Charlemagne, and myself founded empires; but on what foundation did we rest the
creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded an empire upon love;
and at this hour millions of men would die for Him."—Napoleon Bonaparte
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