The beginning of a new Bible study is an exciting prospect.  Maybe it is a book of the Bible you have studied in detail before.  Maybe it is a part of the Bible you have never read.  Most likely the letters of John are somewhere between those two extremes for most of us.  Either way, the richness and depth of the very word of God promises to reward the efforts of a fresh study.  If Scripture is the self-revelation of an infinite creator God, then we always have the opportunity to learn more and draw closer to Him through the text of the Bible.

The study is not a pre-packaged curriculum.  The text will be the text that John wrote (at least, the English version of it!), supplemented by a few questions about each passage to stimulate exploration into John’s words.  The primary goal will be to understand as deeply as we can exactly what John has to say.  What can we learn from his instructions to churches decades after Jesus died and rose and ascended?

A secondary goal will be to sharpen skills for understanding the Bible as we use an inductive approach.  The discussion format will center on the text – reading the text and raising questions from the text and going back to the text for answers.  The process of digging as deeply as we can into John’s message will help refine skills for reading and interpreting the Bible that will be transferrable to any other passage.  And the simple but powerful approach is easily reproducible, enabling us to pass the skills along to others.

This blog will serve as a running summary of our study.  My desire is to record some of the fruit of those discussions and questions and maybe a few answers each week.  The record will hopefully provide a helpful review as we continue through the book, or for newcomers who join the study later.

I look forward to our shared journey in the letters of John and what God may do in us and through us, individually and as a group on this journey together.