Bible Chit Chat - John 1:1-18

Ever wondered how the Book of John could be both a simple yet profound starting point for exploring faith? Join us as we share our personal journey through John 1:1-18, offering insights and answering challenging questions about understanding scripture.

This Bible study podcast is the FIRST in a series of podcast / videos we are doing for our Coffee and Bible Time podcast and Youtube Channel! We are going to be chatting about our thoughts on the passage of the book of John! This is a time to study the book of John TOGETHER and learn while having fun! In this episode, we worked through John 1:1-18. Join us as we study the prologue of John and talk  about the PROFOUND themes of the book and our lives!!

Our relaxed chat uncovers rich themes like life, light, and the pre-existence of Christ, diving into what it means for Jesus to be the "Word." We reflect on His divine nature and the significance of the Trinity, and address common misconceptions while highlighting the intimate love of God the Father. Through our conversation, we invite you to place yourself within the biblical story and embrace your identity as a child of God. Come and see how the transformative power of Jesus's presence can guide and uplift us all.

For link to the VIDEO version click here!

Chapters

• 0:04 Exploring the Gospel of John
• 11:00 Themes and Significance of John's Prologue
• 25:26 Discovering the Trinity's Depth

Transcript

Ellen Krause: 0:04

At the Coffee and Bible Time podcast, o ur goal is to help you delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living. Each week we talk to subject matter experts who broaden your biblical understanding, encourage you in hard times and provide life-building tips to enhance your Christian walk. We are so glad you have joined us. Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. This is Ellen, your host. Today

Ellen Krause: 0:33

Ashley and Taylor from Coffee and Bible Time will be joining us for a relaxed, chill coffee chat. So I want you to think of it as if you were chatting about your Bible reading to a friend. We are going to discuss our honest thoughts and we'll also pull in some Bible scholars wisdom from commentaries. We want this to be a space where you can come and learn as you read through the books of the Bible along with us. You know the Bible can be difficult for all of us to understand and we want you to know you are not alone in that. We are going to honestly share what we do and what we do not understand. So we are piloting this new podcast discussion format today that we plan to use regularly, interspersed between our guest interviews. We also want you to know that you are in this with us, and we do value your feedback, so please email us at info at coffeeandbibletimecom and let us know your thoughts on this style of episode.

Ellen Krause: 1:43

Today we will discuss John, chapter 1, verses 1 through 18, and this is often referred to as the gospel prologue, which beautifully summarizes the entrance of God's word into the world. So let's begin with prayer. Dear Lord, God, we just pray that you would give us wisdom to understand the book of John such that we may be able to apply it to our lives. In Jesus' name, amen.

Taylor Krause: 2:13

Amen.

Ellen Krause: 2:15

Ashley and

Ashley Armijo: 2:24

I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy that we're all together. I think our followers will really love that we're all here together even though I'm actually not in the same room as you guys. Technology, technology allows this to happen.

Ellen Krause: 2:40

Yes, praise God, I love it All right. Well, why don't we jump in in and Ash? Why don't you just start out by giving us just a little bit of background on the author of the book of john?

Ashley Armijo: 2:54

yeah, so well, first of all can I backtrack a little bit?

Ashley Armijo: 2:58

of course um, I think John is just a really great book for anyone any believers, whether they're like a really new baby believer to read, or they've been like studying the bible for many years. Um, but a lot of people ask like where should I start when studying the Bible? And I usually recommend recommend the book of John because it's the Gospel of belief, meaning like it's a book literally written for people who were struggling to believe, whether they believed in Jesus as God or not. And so really, if you're new to faith or you're new to reading the Bible, I think John is really good place to start. It's all about Jesus's life and, yeah, I mean even it. It can get confusing. I mean, we've been reading through it together and like a baby believer can pick it up, but then it's also so deep that you can be following God for years and it's still like it'll make you really think.

Ellen Krause: 4:05

So yes, and you know what, Ash? I have a kind of a fun quote on that. It's from Leon Morris. It says I like the comparison of John's Gospel to a pool in which a child may wade and an elephant can swim. It is both simple and profound. It is for the beginner in the faith and for the mature Christian. Its appeal is immediate and never failing.

Ashley Armijo: 4:28

That was like the perfect quote for this moment. You're so right in that. That's true. I mean, we've been I've been studying the Bible for like over 10 years and we went to Bible school and there's still a lot of like deep truths that I'm like I could learn so much more about this. So yeah, absolutely but yeah, it's important when studying the bible to always come back to two big questions contextual questions about who was the author and then who was the original audience.

Ellen Krause: 5:01

That pause a second. Sorry ash, something's going on, it's your alarm. Clean the cat box sorry, my alarm was going off to clean the cat box oops.

Taylor Krause: 5:14

And the funny part is that now that we've turned it off, we won't remember to do it later yeah anyway.

Ashley Armijo: 5:23

So when you're studying the bible, it's really important to ask two context questions usually every time you're reading, just because it's important to always come back to the context, and we talk a lot about that more in our in-depth Bible study academy. But for the book of John, we know that John wrote it, which that's why it's called the book of John, and he was one of Jesus's closest disciples, like one in his inner circle, like even even one of his close top three friends, and I think it's really cool that John was like walked with Jesus his whole life and was there for like all of Jesus's really big moments and knew all about that. And then who was John writing to? So obviously John wrote this after Jesus had already died, and like rose and all of that.

Ashley Armijo: 6:17

So he's writing after that and he's writing to, I would say, a mixed bag of Jewish people who were really influenced by Greek culture, and then also Gentile people. So Gentile just means anyone who's not a Jewish person, and so he's writing to a mix of both at this time and really he's writing to help people believe. They were struggling to believe is Jesus really God? And they were going through hard times of persecution and the Jewish people were being expelled from the synagogues, which, because they started following the way which is Jesus, and that caused a lot of conflict, and so John is really writing to encourage more faith and belief within Jesus, jesus as being the Messiah and God. So that's kind of a small background, but you can look in commentaries to get more of a deeper background.

Ellen Krause: 7:20

All right. Verses 1 through 18 are considered a prologue, as I mentioned earlier, and they draw out significant themes throughout the book of John. So I want you to listen as I read the passage and see if you can catch some of the themes. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made. That was made In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

Ellen Krause: 8:00

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light which gives life to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him. Yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him.

Ellen Krause: 8:30

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory. Glory is of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness about him and cried out this was he of whom I said he who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me, for from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace, for the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the father's side. He has made him known. So what themes did you hear as you listened to this?

Taylor Krause: 9:30

I'll tell you what. When I was reading this today, I wasn't looking for themes I can say. Tell you right now. Some themes that I just pulled out was that Jesus was with God since the beginning and that Jesus is God. I think that, in general, the book of John does a really good job of emphasizing the deity of Jesus and really like making it very clear Jesus is God, which is a really important truth to our Christian faith that Jesus was not just a prophet, he is God.

Ashley Armijo: 10:16

Yeah, I think that for sure is one of the biggest themes of John, and along with that there's the theme of Trinity, which is God, the Father, God the Son, God, the Holy Spirit, and how we believe in one God and he is three unique persons, and so we see a lot in the book of John about how Jesus is God, like Taylor was saying, but he's also a unique person of the Trinity, and so we see a lot between the father-son relationship, between God the Father and God the Son, Jesus, within the book of John, and also we learn a lot about the Holy Spirit as well. But other themes that were within that prologue. I actually really like that the prologue introduces themes that are interwoven throughout the entire book of John, and so the prologue like kind of gives you this small little window into the entire book and it gives you a small taste into what's to come. Because, for example, like a theme in the book is life and light, which both come up in that first section, and we see that those two words, like the word life, comes up 36 times in the book of John, the word light shows up um 23 times, and so those are a few themes John the Baptist shows up throughout the whole book a lot.

Ashley Armijo: 11:49

The pre-existence of Christ like Taylor was saying how Jesus came was before anything. Because we see in John 8, Abraham he says before Abraham was I am God's glory is a theme. And then another big theme is receiving Christ versus rejecting Christ. So it's like every encounter with Jesus, because there's so many encounters that people come across Jesus within the book and they either receive him in belief or they reject him in disbelief. So those were some of the themes that I got and if you're wondering, how did I pick out all those? We were studying this book and commentaries and stuff before this, so it's not like I just was able to pull all those out by myself, but I was able to read a lot and see how other scholars came to those conclusions too.

Ellen Krause: 12:45

Absolutely. You know, one thing I can remember as an early Bible student, very, very early, was that I remember being so confused by why John kept referring to the word Like why didn't he just say Jesus instead of the word? And for me I remember when I learned more of the background into the original language it helped me so much. And the Greek translation of word is logos and it was a term used by the Greeks in reference to this governing power that was behind all things, and the Jews used the term to refer to God. And so I think once I kind of had this better background and if you almost read that passage again and substitute Jesus for the word, it can really help that passage come to life.

Ashley Armijo: 13:56

Yeah, you should read it right now, with Jesus in there, to show how cool that is.

Ellen Krause: 14:02

Yeah let me just read, like the first couple of verses In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God and Jesus was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made.

Ashley Armijo: 14:26

Yeah, I was reading a commentary. I really liked the Grant Osborne commentary. Shout out to him, that's a really great commentary. But he was saying that the word means that Jesus is the living revealer of God and how, like, when we speak, we reveal what's within our hearts and what's more about us, and how, when God speaks, he's like revealing more about himself, but through Jesus, how he's the living revealer of God, the very voice of God in this world, and so I thought that was cool.

Ashley Armijo: 15:04

I also think another thing that's cool about the prologue is how it mimics Genesis, how in Genesis it says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and here it says in the beginning was the word. And so, yeah, I just like that connection. But in Genesis, I believe it talks about how Jesus spoke and how, even just him speaking, he was able to create things and create the world in the creation narrative, about God speaking creation into existence, about how Jesus was there as the word of God in that moment in creation, also being a part of the creation narrative with God the Father so deep thoughts Kind of blows my mind.

Ellen Krause: 16:03

Yeah, it really is mind blowingblowing. I thought it was interesting too that one of the commentaries had said that it's also possible that John is making an allusion to his colleagues' work, saying in effect, mark has told you about the beginning of Jesus's public ministry because, remember, john was written after those. But I want to show you that the starting point of the gospel can be traced even farther back than that, before the beginning of the entire universe.

Ellen Krause: 16:37

That's awesome, Taylor having looked at this passage, how do we fit this into the overarching storyline of the Bible?

Taylor Krause: 16:52

I mean honestly I feel like Ashley kind of was getting onto that a little bit by going back to Genesis that at the beginning everything was perfect. Then when Adam and Eve chose to sin, that kind of created a ripple effect with the rest of humanity, where we're all born sinful I mean when we're born we haven't maybe volitionally sinned, but the Bible tells us that we're all sinful by birth. So we needed a savior that could come in and could save us from our depravity. And so what we see in the gospels is this pinnacle moment where finally the savior that we have awaited has come. He's going to make all wrongs right and that is Jesus. He is going to be the perfect sacrifice for us.

Taylor Krause: 17:52

And we see in the Old Testament they were making sacrifices. They had priests that would kind of try to intercede on behalf of the people to God. But the priests weren't perfect. Even the priests had to make sacrifices for themselves. But Jesus was perfect. He was able to be the sacrifice that we needed and he did it willingly, out of love for us. And, as you saw, he was with God since the beginning of time. So hard to believe, but it was always God's plan to have Jesus come to save us. Even before there was ever sin in the world, it was always Jesus's mission to come and be our savior.

Ellen Krause: 18:33

So yeah, thank you that kind of helps set the stage for everything that we're talking about here. You know, one of the things that we encourage people to do is to take a minute and put ourselves in the story. So how would you go about doing that for this part of the passage?

Ashley Armijo: 18:54

Like we were saying before, since this is like the prologue of the book, it brings up a bunch of different themes that are like throughout the book, but really like what we were also saying, the main emphasis here is really on Jesus being God. Like John does not shy away from starting off his book with a bang Like Jesus is God. He literally says that in the beginning the word was with God and the word is God, and so I think that he did that because he needed to be that bold with his original audience, with there being a lot of persecution and it probably being really easy as a Jewish person to be like you know what I'm going to believe, that Jesus is the true Messiah and that Jesus is God. Like that was probably scary to admit to your Jewish community that you had grown up with your whole life and who. You know what I mean.

Ellen Krause: 20:07

That's what they called Jesus out for was saying that he was God, and that was blasphemy, and that was yeah yeah, so I just think.

Ashley Armijo: 20:18

so there's like a structure that John uses in the beginning. He says in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and he was God. So like that is the center of that first, the first two verses. The center of that structure it's called a chiastic structure, which like goes it's hard to explain but we can put up a picture in the YouTube video but like, the center of that structure is the fact that Jesus is God. And the center of the whole prologue like if you set it up in that structure is that either accepting Christ or rejecting Christ in verses 10 through 13.

Ashley Armijo: 21:07

So I think the main point of this whole prologue and the whole book of John is Jesus is God. Are you going to accept him or are you going to reject him? And throughout the entire book of John that's what you see is stories about people interacting with Jesus. You see the woman at the well, you see Nicodemus, you see who else? The woman caught in adultery, right? So you get all of these human reactions of a person being confronted with Jesus and the question always at the end of the story is do you accept him or do you reject him? The Pharisees a lot of them rejected him. The Pharisees a lot of them rejected him.

Ellen Krause: 22:46

So maybe you're listening to this today and like where is your heart? Have you accepted him? Or, as they also say, to be neutral is to reject him.

Ashley Armijo: 23:01

Right.

Taylor Krause: 23:03

Yeah.

Ashley Armijo: 23:03

It's like you have to be all in If you want to believe. Like it's an all-in faith. If you want to believe, you have to believe that Jesus is God. That's what he's saying, yeah, and less popular.

Taylor Krause: 23:18

You have to believe that Scripture is also the Word of God. Lowercase it's not. You know, the Bible isn't your salvation, like Jesus is. But it's not as popular, I think, to look at the Bible and be like, oh yes, this is the word of God, but it is, and the Bible calls itself the word of God and it's divinely revealed from him and it's going that also needs to take precedence in our lives. If we believe in him, that the Bible isn't this optional thing. It's like, okay, well, I believe in Jesus, but when the going gets tough and scripture tells me to do something about my life, I'm going to choose not to believe it. But I believe in Jesus but I don't believe in his word. It's kind of like you know that following Jesus isn't always easy.

Ashley Armijo: 24:11

I totally agree with you, because I there've been people in my own life who who have told me oh yeah, I'm a Christian, like, I believe in Jesus, but I'm not going to go to this church because of their views on certain topics and how they stand with the Bible on this. And I'm thinking, like, how can you take the Bible and think some of it's true and some of it's not true? If it's from the heart of God, then aren't you saying that some things that God says aren't true and some things are true? Well, god can't. God is perfect and God can't lie. You know what I mean. So, like, if you're, if the foundation of the word being from God crumbles, then where's your faith? Like what, that our faith has to be built on?

Ashley Armijo: 24:56

the word of god being true yeah, so you're right, tay, you're so right, and I think John's confronting us here saying like are you gonna be all in? You know?

Ellen Krause: 25:14

well, as we start to wrap things up here, how do you guys think this passage has kind of transformed your mind and your heart? What are you going to take away from this passage? I know for me, always coming back to this passage, it just reminds me of the fact that God, in his design of the Trinity, is just so beyond my human comprehension. And I'm glad it is. I'm glad that we have a God that is so huge and so amazing running this world. But to think about Jesus pre-existing, everything that we know here on earth, all of that just really for me, solidifies why he is my God, because he is bigger, he's in control, he knows all things and yet, even from a big perspective, he knows all of us, down to the individual, knows the number of hairs on our head.

Ellen Krause: 26:30

So that's kind of my big take on it.

Taylor Krause: 26:36

Yeah, that's great. I think for me there were a lot of different things that I've learned. We talked a lot about it in this podcast already. We talked a lot about it in this podcast already. One thing that, you know, kind of stood out to me was that last verse, in verse 18, that says no one has ever seen God, you know kind of referring to God the Father but the one and only Son has, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the father. He has made him known, and I think that that's just really kind of, you know, it resonated with me because I was just thinking to myself.

Taylor Krause: 27:18

I think that a lot of us do feel kind of, I'd say, extra close to Jesus in terms of the three persons of the Trinity, just because there's so much focus on Jesus. But the reality is which I think is really cool it's like, okay, we might tell ourself, yeah, I feel closer to Jesus than maybe God the Father. And you know, maybe God the Father feels a bit more like the harsh judge or you know the one who he's the more scary person of the Trinity, because Jesus had to die. You know, for us, he sent Jesus to die, things like that. But then you look over and like, let's see Colossians.

Taylor Krause: 27:57

Colossians 1.15 says that the son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, and it kind of just resonated with me because I'm like, wow, you know, jesus is. Jesus is a picture of God the father on earth. When you see the loving kindness of Jesus, that is the window to the heart of God the Father. So God the Father isn't just the big judge up in the sky with his gavel ready to, you know, rain down judgment on the earth and Jesus is the nice one of the Trinity that come down and, you know, told everybody to love each other. It's like God the Father is supremely loving. He is, though he is Him and Jesus are one. Does that make sense?

Ashley Armijo: 28:54

Yeah, that's beautiful, I love that, and there can be a lot of misconceptions about God, the Father, and so I like that. You mentioned that and I think it's important to think about that as like, what are my thoughts? You mentioned that and I think it's important to think about that as like, what are my thoughts about God, and are they even true? You know, I think for me, one thing that really stood out to me was the verse that says the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Ashley Armijo: 29:20

A lot of people know that that word for dwelt among us is that he tabernacled among us and that in the Old Testament, if you're familiar with it, the Israelites had the tabernacle as their connection to God, because before Jesus came, sin was a huge barrier for the Israelite people to be in relationship with God, because he is holy and their sin separated them from a holy God, and so that was kind of always the issue was that sin separated unholy people from a holy God, and how I see this verse as kind of that bridge, how I see this verse as kind of that bridge. So the word became flesh and dwelt among us. He is that bridge that connects us as unholy people to a holy God, because he came and lived among us, and the tabernacle in the Old Testament was that bridge that connected the people back to God the Father, the people back to God the Father. And now Jesus is the actual living walking bridge that connects us back to God the Father, and he went as far as coming down to earth to dwell among us like actual God in human flesh, living among us and entering into the mess of sin and the mess of us and just the ugliness that comes with sin and the darkness and the disgustingness Like he was crucified because of sin and darkness and what we did to him.

Ashley Armijo: 31:02

And so I just I think about when I think about my God and that he came that far to save us and rescue us. I think that's so incredible and it will ease any thoughts that you have about I'm unworthy or I'm not good enough or, um, I don't know. Just like Jesus, you came for me. You loved me enough to come for me. Any negative thoughts I have about myself are completely confronted head on by knowing who.

Ashley Armijo: 31:38

God is and how much he loves me and how Jesus came for me.

Ellen Krause: 31:43

So I'm sorry for that, and John says it very clearly All who receive him have the right to become children of God. So it is a choice that you and I can all make this very day. Well, thank you, ladies, for joining me on this podcast. I hope you listeners out there have enjoyed this opportunity to kind of reflect on John 1, verses 1 through 18. If you haven't read them recently, get out your Bible today and read it, and also send us a message at info at coffeeandbibletime. com on how you like this new format, and we just want to let you know we love you, we appreciate you so much and we thank you for listening and watching. Have a blessed day, bye.