Sunday Bible Study on the Gospel of John 1:1
Sunday Bible Study
Topic John 1:1-3
Welcome to the beginning of our Bible study on the Gospel of John. The Lord has written a beautiful and powerful little book through the hand of the Apostle John. I hope you love what is written here as much as the Lord has loved giving it to you. Let us begin with the morning prayer. Please read the following with me:
Morning Prayer: I thank You, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son, that You have kept me this night from all harm and danger; and I pray that You would keep me this day also from sin and every evil, that all my doings and life may please You. For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me. Amen.
The ext: John 1:1 (ESV) The Word Became Flesh
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
St. John assumes that you are familiar with Matthew, Mark and Luke. That you are familiar with the actions Jesus did from conception to ascension. St. John then goes on to write against false teachings. Some of the false teachings were already evident in the first generation of the Christian church. Other false teachings were to come into the church which are with us today. The main examples of false teachings with us today are Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah Witnesses, Unitarianism and a general religious view call Universalism. Each of these are Trinitarian errors.
John 1:1 takes care of them right off the bat. And the whole Gospel according to St. John is that you may believe that there is only one God and in Jesus Christ He is kind to you. I want to focus on the last phrase first:
...and the Word was God.
I have to teach a little bit of grammar to make this clear.
In good English this phrase may be restated as ...and the Word was a God. The “a” is an indefinite article rather than the definite article “the”. So, if we understand the phrase to mean “a God” then this god is just one of many gods.
However, in good Greek, this phrase does not read “a god” but rather “the God” which makes a world of difference. There is a grammar rule called Colwell's Rule that is demonstrated throughout the New Testament Greek Bible as well as demonstrated in Ancient Greek writings as well, such as Homer.
Bare with me. Colwell discovered that "Definite predicate nouns which precede the verb usually lack the article ... a predicate nominative which precedes the verb cannot be translated as an indefinite or a 'qualitative' noun solely because of the absence of the article; if the context suggests that the predicate is definite, it should be translated as a definite noun ..."
Other Examples:
John 1:14 And the Word became (the) flesh. [Word = the flesh]
Mark 2:28 ”So the Son of Man is (the) lord even of the Sabbath.” [Son of Man = the lord]
Our Facebook