The Bible in a Nutshell XVII: John & Acts

In this installment, we'll take a look at the final gospel of the New testament and the special circumstances that proded its writer. Then we'll take a look at Luke's second cannonized book, Acts, which describes the beginnings of the Christian church.

John
The final gospel is written for a completely different purpose at a later date than the rest of the gospels. The gospel of John was written, not just to give an account of Jesus ministry, but to also give some insight into the events. Being that John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, outlived the rest of the disciples, and that he wrote his gospel fifty years after Jesus' ascension, John was best equipped to give this type of retrospective look back into the works of Jesus. John recorded fewer events, but he seemed to be more interested in providing greater detail. For example, almost one-third of the book recounts the 24 hours surrounding Jesus' crucifixion, and the entire book covers only twenty days of Jesus' time on earth. Only eight miracles are contained in the book of John, and only two of those were mentioned in the synoptic gospels. In his old age John was the last remaining church leader who had seen the resurrection of Christ with his own eyes. John's focus decidedly emphasizes Jesus' deity with the use of the phrase, "I am". John had read the synoptic gospels and decided build upon them by filling in the gaps and presentation additional information for the expressed purpose of gaining more believers.