Introduction
I visited with the apostle John, focused on what he has been saying, and I listened carefully to his teachings. By virtue of the fact that he knew Jesus personally and tells us about him, through John I get a fresh look, a fresh view of the Holy Scriptures from beginning to end. John sends us back to the beginning, to the beginning of creation where God created man and the rest of the creation along with him. And the Scriptures from the beginning express the purpose that God has had and has for man. The purpose is clearly defined throughout the Scriptures as the purpose of relationship, relationship firstly between God and His creation, man, and secondly between man and man. He has progressively revealed through the Scriptures how He sees it, and what He intends, and at the same time has invited us to join Him in this plan.
So Jesus, apparently from the accounts handed down to us, seems to be the first of the created men to grasp this theme and adopt it. Many men prior to him and probably since, have had various degrees of understanding of this. Jesus, having grasped it completely, then lived it and passed it on to his close followers, his disciples, the apostles. He gave them, as he says, all that he had. So all that he learned from his Father, God, he passed on to them so that they would enjoy the fulness of that relationship. Upon approaching John and really “rubbing shoulders” with him and really listening to him, I discover that John did in fact grasp this message, this purpose, and wrote about it, bore witness, testified about it, about Jesus, about his message, and the fact that Jesus and the message were in essence the same. Jesus was the embodiment of his own message, of the very intent of God, the fulfilment of God’s intent. So John, after receiving it, became an offspring of Christ, in like kind.
The Old Scriptures tell us that for a thing to be validated or confirmed, it takes at least two witnesses. If two witnesses testify of the same event, of the thing they have seen and heard, then it is corroborated. But these witnesses, to be valid, must have genuinely seen and heard the occurrence to which they testify. Having listened to John, I will now go visit with the other apostle who wrote a gospel, who wrote an account, a testimony of what he has seen and heard, the apostle Matthew. John knew Jesus and so did Matthew. Upon visiting with Matthew, I will listen and see if he is in fact confirming the message that I heard from John. With this in mind, I will read and stop occasionally to meditate and comment on what I am reading.