1-3 John Leaders Guide & Atlas
- Maps: 6
- Over 50 Q&A Discussion questions and answers
- Sizes: 11 MB; 1.6 MB (optimized for mobile)
- Length: 30 pages
These three short letters of 1, 2, and 3 John are the kind of letters you write when you don’t want to write letters. Which could explain why they’re so short. Clearly, there was a problem that generated those letters. But John doesn’t give the problem a name. Many scholars speculate it was a heresy later called Docetism (DOE suh TISS um), though at the time it probably didn’t have a call sign other than words like “trash,” “crap,” and “hogwash,” depending on a Christian’s vocabulary and temperament. Bible experts base their speculation on John’s unusual words of warning. Nothing …
The Gospel of John also begins by describing Jesus as “the living Word of God” (John 1:1), the message of God, delivered in the flesh. The original Greek word is Logos. Greek scholars, such as Heraclitus, said logos was the wisdom behind all of creation. This all-present wisdom created everything and guided creation along the way. For many Jewish scholars then and now, God’s Word pulled the trigger on creation, whether or not that involved pulling the trigger on the big bang. “God said, ‘Lights.’ Lights came on. . . . God said, ‘Land, grow a garden.’. . . The land grew a garden” (Genesis 1:3, 11-12). John doesn’t identify Jesus as the Word until a few paragraphs later, gradually working up to it by describing the Word as the one who “came to this world that belonged to him. But most of the people—his people—wouldn’t have anything to do with him” (John 1:11). Jesus came to earth as a living, breathing expression of God’s message to humanity, summed up in what is perhaps the most famous Bible verse: John 3:16.
The original Greek word is Logos. Greek scholars such as Heraclitus said logos was the wisdom behind all of creation. This all-present wisdom created everything, and it guided creation along the way. For many Jewish scholars then and now, God’s Word pulled the trigger on Creation, whether or not that involved pulling the trigger on the Big Bang. “God said, ‘Lights.’ Lights came on . . . God said, ‘Land, grow a garden.’ . . . The land grew a garden” (Genesis 1:3, 11-12). John doesn’t identify Jesus as the Word until a few paragraphs later, gradually working up to it by describing the Word as the one who “came to this world that belonged to him. But most of the people—his people—wouldn’t have anything to do with him” (John 1:11). Jesus came to earth as a living, breathing expression of God’s message to humanity, summed up in what is perhaps the most famous Bible verse, John 3:16.
I challenged Artificial Intelligence (AI) to a Bible-paraphrasing duel. Then I asked for more candy. I had to know. Can a computer, in the blink of an eye, paraphrase the Bible better than I can? Experiment 1: Ezra in AI I’m working now on paraphrasing the Bible book of Ezra for the Casual English Bible. I asked a phone app called Ask AI to briefly tell me the story of Ezra, writing in the style of the Casual English Bible. Here’s what I got: “Yo, check it out! So, there was this dude named Ezra, right? And he was a scribe, which is …
Elijah's chariot of fire Bible Book: 2 Kings Type: Maps Location: Bethel, Bethk-shan, Dan, Gilgal, Jericho, Jerusalem, Jezreel, Jordan River Valley, Megiddo, Mt Gerizim, Mt. Carmel, Mt. Ebal, Samaria, Shechem, Tanaach Era: Heroes, kings Elijah's walk into the wind Elijah didn't die, according to Bible writers. He was carried away on the wind while his colleague, Elisha, watched as "horses of fire pulling a chariot of fire charged at the men—driving between them and separating them. Then a powerful wind knocked Elijah off his feet and carried him into the sky" (2 Kings 2:11). Elisha started screaming, “Father! Father! Israel’s …
Route to Jerusalem
Bethany in the burbs
Jerusalem
Revelation Is the Story of the End of the World The universe, too, it seems. “Earth and sky were gone . . . Both had served their purpose” (Revelation 20:11). A mysterious man named John, exiled to an island, sees it all happen in a graphic and violent stream of unconsciousness: visions, trances, and perhaps out-of-body experiences. It’s hard to tell which. An angel carries his spirit into God’s sprawling throne room in heaven. There he sees someone who talks like Jesus: “I was dead, but I’m alive for good now. I’ve shown that I’m stronger than death and the …
All three letters of 1 and 2 Peter and Jude target troubles in the church. Christians are facing frauds passing themselves off as church leaders. And they’re facing persecution from people outside their community of faith, perhaps including some former relatives and friends who don’t like the changes Christianity is making in these new believers. 1 Peter. Some scholars say this seems like an odd book for Peter to write. Peter addresses Christians scattered throughout what is now Turkey. That was Paul’s turf. Paul was born and raised there, and that’s where Paul started planting churches among non-Jews. There’s no …
James, the Gospel of Do Something James, whoever he was, writes a little like a man frustrated at getting appointed pastor of the First Church of No Volunteers. He writes an open letter to “The 12 tribes scattered everywhere. . . . to all of you out there” (James 1:1). Maybe he’s writing to the Jews or to Jewish followers of Jesus or to all Christians, with “12 tribes” as a symbolic way of saying they’re now part of God’s people. Whoever he is and whoever they are, he’s giving them what sometimes reads like an updated version of Proverbs. …
Here’s the big question about Colossians: Why would Paul write to a group of Christians in the town he had never come within 100 miles (160 km) of visiting? The most common guess—and it is just a guess—is that a man who seems to have been the founding pastor, Epaphras, somehow got word to Paul that the church was having trouble. Scholars have to guess what the trouble was. A popular guess is that Jews in the town were trying to convince Christians they had to be law-abiding Jews if they wanted to follow the Messiah. Paul tells the Christians …