He must increase...

February 6

Read: John 20:30-31; John 21:20-25

Most Bible scholars put the writing of John’s Gospel at about 90 AD. Placing Jesus’ death on the cross at about 33 AD, and John as the son of Zebedee and a member of Jesus’ original twelve disciples, that makes John a pretty old man by the time the book was written. Beginning life as the son of a fisherman, John was called by Jesus at a relatively young age and discipled three years by the Lord Himself. For approximately sixty years he served the Lord and His church in various capacities, and tradition places him in the city of Ephesus at the time the Gospel was penned. There, the Holy Spirit inspired John to record the life of his Lord, and the aged apostle was used by God to give us one of the most moving and personal accounts in the whole Bible.

It’s clear when we study John’s life that God used an amazing man to record an amazing story. Labled the “Sons of Thunder” by Jesus, John and his brother began their walk with the Lord as anything but the apostles of love. They thundered, they threatened, and they connived, even enlisting their mother in their attempts to gain the highest place. They, with Peter, were privileged to be Jesus’ inner circle. And like Peter, to the mortal eye it looks as though they were born to failure. But God can see where we can’t. And gradually, patiently, marvelously, the “Son of Thunder” became the “Apostle of Love.”

It is in the gospel of John that we see the distance the apostle had traversed. First, from seeking the top spot he had progressed to the point where he would not even include his own name in the book that he wrote. Whenever you see the name John in the Gospel of John, it is a reference to John the Baptist. If the Holy Spirit in divine inspiration forced him to speak of himself, he identified himself simply as the disciple whom Jesus loved. John was very quick to dispel any rumors of his own superiority, making sure that Jesus was accurately quoted, and that he, John, was not exalted. For a signature, he very simply described himself as a witness giving a testimony. And his last words in the gospel concern the things that Jesus did that were not recorded. The aged apostle had come to the point that every wise disciple will someday reach, that it is not about him, but about Jesus. To borrow a phrase, “He must increase, and I must decrease.”

Just a servant,

Bro. Tom