Inductive Bible Study (Gospel of John)

[RangeMaster]

What is an Inductive Bible Study?

Take one book of the Bible, for instance, John. and study it one passage at a time in the following manner: Read the passage, make Observations, then Interpretations, then Applications.

Observations - What are the...
a) Key words / Transition words?
b) Repeated words or themes?
c) Interesting comparisons / contrasts?
d) Final Stresses?
e) Summary verses?

Interpretation - What does it mean?
a) What did Jesus mean to say?
b) How did the author mean the first readers (around 50 A.D.) to understand it.

Application - What does it mean to...
a) Us (each individual)
b) The world

We'll be studying the Gospel of John in the fashion shown above. Tonight, I'll post the first reading. We'll read it, then each of us writes down what we find for each category shown above. We must remember a couple things as we discuss what we've found:

Five people are witness to an awful car accident. The cops ask each of them to write up a report of what they saw. The cops were amazed at what they read, not a single report was like the other.

Keep in mind that the Holy Spirit speaks to us through the Gospels in different was, so that we learn the lessons that we each, as individuals need to learn them. And we all won't be looking at the same version of the Bible. If the discussion runs longer then a week, we can let it run over a bit, as long as it doesn't get out of hand. Then Next week I'll post the next reading.

Read: John 1:1-18

Thank you,

Rodney

 

[Heinrich]

Thankyou Rangemaster for starting this thread.
I see you haven't post something yet... so I will try

Small notes on the Book of John.
John wrote this book after the other 3 gospels already existed, and it's a good thing to keep this inmind when reading the book.
John represents Jesus in a unique way as the "Son of God".

Verses 1-5

John starts with the words "In the Beginning" which pointed me to Gen 1:1
John is stating that Not only did God create everything (as stated in Gen 1) he created everything throught Jesus Christ to whom he refers to as "The Word"
(One can make a complete study of this "idea" of "The Word of God" that runs throughtout scripture)

Christ is the living Word of God. Just as the Bible is the written Word of God.
This primiraly establishes the authority of Jesus Christ.

"and the Word was God." Jesus Christ is God. He is not just a prophet or something, he is God. Emmanual - God with us. Halleluja!

Nothing was made without him. Not even the most insignificant person in the universe. Not even a ant. He breathed the life into you. He made you. He made each person in the image of God. (Gen 1:27) He also made everything "good" in the beginning. (Gen 1 again) It is important to note that God did not create this fallen sinfull world like we know it today, he made a perfect world, which then become fallen because of man. But the wonderfull thing is that God came to our Mercy and has made a way!

John 14:6 "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except throught Me."

This is in a way what verse 4 is saying. Jesus is life. All life came from Him and there is only death without him.

Verse 5: "And the light shines in the darknessm and the darkness did not comprehend it."
This can be interpreted in 3 ways:
"The darkness did not gain controll of it"
"The darkness is unreceptive and does not understand it"
"The darkness will never be able to eliminate it"
John is also saying that Jesus is the Light! (14:6) He will give you light. Not only did Jesus come to give us eternal life, He came to give us light, so that we no longer need to live in the darkness on this earth (john 10:10)

These 5 verses are packed! And amazing.

Some Conclusion:
Jesus is the Word of God. (Rev 19:13)
Jesus is the life.
Jesus is the light (unto all men Rom 1:16)
Jesus is the First and the Last (Rev 1:11)

Application:
I praise God that He is the conqueror! That he will prevail and that the darkness will not prevail! And most off all that I am on the winning side

 

[RangeMaster]

My Observation might seem a bit long, I hope people can hang in there for this.

Observation:

1. Use of, "the Word."
- In the beginning was the Word
- the Word was with God
- the Word was God
- the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
2. Through him (the Word) all things were made.
3. In him (the Word) was life.
4. that life was the light of men.
5. Use of "the light"
- shines in the darkness
- darkness has not understood it
- John, sent by God, came as a witness to testify concerning the light.
- John was not the light.
- The true light true light that gives light to every man was coming into
the world.
6. He was in the world.
7. Even though the world being made through him, the world did not
recognize him.
8. He came to that which was his own.
9. His own did not receive him.
10. (Verse 12 & 13) "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in
(Greek translates to "into" not "in") his name, he gave the
right to become children of God."
11. (Verse 17) "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came
through Jesus Christ."
12. Now, I brought up one observation about the translation of the word “into” rather
then “in” in verse 12. In Greek it makes perfect sense, in English, maybe not so.
However, the word “into” has more meaning to me, as I feel that it was supposed to.
(Refer to James 2:19).

Interpretation

We have to look at whom John was writing this for. He was writing it for the Gentile more so then the Jews. He refers to Jesus as, "the Word", "the life", and “the light.” John, over all, I feel was trying to explain to the Gentile, who Jesus is, and how he relates to God and man. I think we all know how it feels, trying to explain the Trinity to a non-Christian. This passage, however is doing exactly that.

Application

We, through believing “into” Jesus have earned the right to become children of God. Thanks be to God!

Rodney

 

[ChrisB]

Key Words
(a) Word
(b) Life
(c) Light
(d) Children

Themes

(a) Eternal existence of Jesus with God (vv1-2)
(b) Jesus (as God's Word) as the creator of all things (vv 3,10)
(c) Jesus coming to earth as fully human (v14) with John the Baptist sent by God as a witness to Him (vv 6-11)
(d) All those who accept Jesus have the right to be part of God's family (vv 12-13)

Interpretation

John traces Jesus back to the beginning of time, before the world began and stresses his divinity. This is in contrast to the synoptic gospels where Jesus' divinity is more slowly revealed. He also states in as emphatic a way as possible that this is the Truth with a capital "T" and all who accept this are adopted into God's family with the full rights pertaining to that position.
Jesus is also the light who brings light to men, releasing them from ignorance and bondage through God's grace.

Application

We should hold Jesus in the deepest respect as the creator of all things who nevertheless became one of us in order to bring us out of ignorance and sin into a loving relationship with the Father

 

[mezon]

All right, I've never done this before, so bear with me if I sound a little unorganized--

1. The Word - Jesus as God. The Son was there from the beginning. The Trinity, as we know it, was always in place.
2. The Light - "In Him was life, and that life was the light of men" (v.4) Wow. Jesus is the light of the world. Without Him there is no life or light.
3. Salvation - v. 10-13. "He gave the right to become children of God." (vs 12) Membership in God's family is a gift of God. By His grace alone. There is nothing we can do to earn it.
4. The Word Became Flesh. The Son of God came to earth in human form. He could experience the world as one of us. He gave us the opportunity to see the glory of God.
5. John the Baptist declared Christ as the promised one from God.

Interpretation

Jesus is God, He always was and will be. He has brought light into a dark world and if we want to experience the light we must come to Him. Salvation is a gift, not a right.

 

[Heinrich]

That's great! Althought we didn't say the exactly the same things we share the same ideas.

Verse 6 -8 talks about John the Baptist quickly.
The words "sent from God" in verse 6 speaks of the authority that John had, and John did indeed fullfill the prophecies (will see more of this in verse 23 and also in other gospels)
John's mission was to get people to see Christ and believe unto him.
(Matthew 3:2 saying "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" )
It is clear that John played a very important role, and this is later confirmed by Jesus confirms this somewhere in his ministry. (I forgot where)

Verse 9-13
Again John speaks of the light (Jesus), He speaks some very simple truths about the gospel here. Jesus loves all and He came for all men, but not all accepted him. But for those that did accept him he gave the right to become children of God.
This is a very great thing right here in verse 12! We are children of God born of his will! We are not slaves unto this world born by some accident.
God "willed" each one of us into being and he planned us and gave us the right to be His children.. Isn't this amazing?

verse 16 "of His fullness we have all received"
fullness is the word to note here! We didn't recieve only a bit, or some scrapings, we recieve in fullness from God.

verse 18
No one has seen God. This simple reason is that sinse God is Holy and we are fallen in nature (fleshly) we can not survive in the presence of God. Our flesh will simply burn away I guess.
This verse can be interpreted strangly I guess. since we would maybe like to think that somehow God "birthed" Jesus or something like that. But it is clear that the trinity existed since the beginnning.
"bosom" - speaks of the intimacy and love between the Son and the Father.
I'm not exactly sure how to interpret the words "He has declared Him."
I guess it has todo about that Jesus has now made a way for each person to have relationship with the father. We no longer need to worship throught priests. We can come directly to him... Which is much like seeing him.
And I guess when we look at history very few people at the time knew God

Keys:
Jesus = truth
Jesus gives grace.
We recieve(d) of the fullness of Christ.

applications?
Praise GOD!!

 

[RangeMaster]

That's great! Althought we didn't say the exactly the same things we share the same ideas.

You're very right, this is great!

Salvation is a gift, not a right.

And this is very true about salvation, however we do need to look at Verses 12 and 13 when it comes to being children of God:

"Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God."

The Greek translates more like this:

"But as many as received Him, to them He gave authority to become children of God, to the ones believing into His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but were born of God."

The second comes from a Greek Linier Bible, which is why the sentence organization might not seem like proper English. However, I think the Greek has more impact.

Rodney

 

[RangeMaster]

For the people that are for the first time joining us:

What is an Inductive Bible Study?

Take one book of the Bible, for instance, John. and study it one passage at a time in the following manner: Read the passage, make Observations, then Interpretations, then Applications.

Observations - What are the...
a) Key words / Transition words?
b) Repeated words or themes?
c) Interesting comparisons / contrasts?
d) Final Stresses?
e) Summary verses?

Interpretation - What does it mean?
a) What did Jesus mean to say?
b) How did the author mean the first readers (around 50 A.D.) to understand it.

Application - What does it mean to...
a) Us (each individual)
b) The world

We'll be studying the Gospel of John in the fashion shown above.

Is everyone ready to move on? The next passage is:

John 1:19-28

Rodney