Join Skyline friends and neighbors in reflecting on the Gospel of John, and we will make sense of being 21st century Christians with a 1st century scripture. We’ll be meeting at 7 pm in the church Friendship Room, on Wednesdays, April 3, 10 and 17.
Consider the following two points of view on the Gospel of John. Does one of them match your own perspective better than the other one?
First: “My experience…as a Christian, is that Jesus is for me the bread of life, the living water, the door, the way, and the resurrection, but I am confident that the Jesus of history never literally claimed to be any of these things. So that the Johannine “I Am sayings were never literally spoken by this Jesus. Indeed for him they would have been all but unthinkable. I find the literal Jesus of history to be only dimly present in the Fourth Gospel, yet having said that, I still need to register that this gospel continues to feed my faith more deeply than any other.” ……..by Bishop John Shelby Spong in “Liberating the Gospels”, pages 178-179.
Second: “The historical tradition preserved by the beloved disciple…is independent of those traditions represented in the Synoptic Gospels, but no less authentic…The historical tradition was not simply preserved by John and his disciples. The sayings of Jesus and incidents from his ministry which it inshrined formed the basis for further meditation, instruction and preaching; it flourished as a living and growing tradition, but remained faithful to its historical basis.”.…by F. Bruce, The Gospel of John, pp. 5-6
