God the Son

In the Beginning

The first words of today’s passage will sound familiar:

In the beginning.

John’s first words about Jesus echo the Bible’s first words about God. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

In the beginning, the Word already existed.

The Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

Before saying anything else about Jesus, John makes this bold claim: Jesus is God.

Jesus is Lord.

Jesus is the source of all life.

The 18 verses you’ll read today pack a mighty punch. They tell us countless things about Jesus. And each of those things has layers and layers of truth behind it, beneath it, and beyond it.

These are words to ponder. To savor. To rest in. To chew on. To revisit over and over again. Read them this morning. Then again this afternoon. Then again tonight. And then a hundred other times during the coming years. They’re that important.

"... the Word was God ... the Word became human ..."

Read & Reflect

John 1:1-18

List all the descriptions and statements about Jesus included in these verses.

Put a ☼ next to the descriptions that are supernatural, spiritual, and powerful.
Put a ☺ next to the descriptions that are personal, natural, and human.

Based on what you read, heard, and wrote, what new things do you see and understand about Jesus?

Extra Info

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John’s account of Jesus’ life reads very differently than Matthew's, Mark's, and Luke's. The others use “kingdom” where John uses “eternal life.” The others include numerous miracles while John writes about only a few. Many people consider John to be the most beautiful and poetic of the four Gospel accounts.
In John 1, the Greek word for “word” is logos (LAH’-gahs). You might know of ethos-pathos-logos from speech class. Ethos=ethical appeal. Pathos=emotional appeal. Logos=logical appeal. For the ancient philosophers, “logos” referred to some unknown impersonal force that gave life and meaning to the uni- verse. John flips that idea upside down and uses “logos” to identify a personal being.

Extra Verses

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Philippians 2:6-11

Extra Things

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Watch Amena Brown's spoken word "In the Beginning."

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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007, 2103 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

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