Who was John?

     Next month our church will begin a Wednesday evening service to cater to those who work on the weekends, or who simply enjoy more of a Bible study format.  I will be teaching each week, and I plan to start by going through the Gospel of John.  Why John?  Because John wrote to Christians who did not come from a Jewish background, and he wrote about Jesus in a completely different way than Matthew, Mark and Luke.  John was one of Jesus' "inner circle" along with his brother James and Peter. Only these three were present when Jesus raised Jairus's daughter from the dead, only they witnessed Jesus being transfigured on the mountain, and only the three of them were privileged to be with Jesus during his darkest hour in the garden of Gethsemane (even though they all fell asleep).

Cave of the Apocalypse: you have to use your imagination

     John was youngest of the disciples, but he lived to the oldest age - in fact, he was the only one of the 12 who died a natural death - the other 10 all died horrible, violent deaths as martyrs (and Judas, of course, killed himself).  Even John wasn't immune to persecution, because church tradition says that during the reign of emporer Domitian they attempted to kill him by boiling him in oil, but he escaped unscathed.  According to the story, the entire coliseum was converted when they witnessed this miracle.  Eventually he was banished to a little island in the Aegean Sea called Patmos, off the coast of modern Turkey. Of course, like any site of Biblical importance, the cave where John supposedly lived and wrote Revelations is now a shrine that in no way resembles what it once looked like. The same is true in Israel, and I found it so frustrating that every single site of Biblical importance is covered with a church, a shrine or a monument - making it virtually impossible to imagine the scene as it once was.  Anyway, as I've been doing research on John's life I've tried to imagine what it must have been like for him to realize, eventually, that he was the last of the original 12 disciples still alive.  He lost his brother James early on, when he was killed by King Herod.  The circumstances of the deaths of the other apostles are related through church tradition, so you can't put too much weight on any of the other accounts. The most commonly accepted church tradition in regard to the death of an apostle is that the apostle Peter was crucified upside-down on an x-shaped cross in Rome in fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy. The following are the most popular “traditions” concerning the deaths of the other apostles:

Matthew suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia, killed by a sword wound.  James, the brother of Jesus (not officially an apostle), was the leader of the church in Jerusalem. He was thrown from the southeast pinnacle of the temple (over a hundred feet down) when he refused to deny his faith in Christ. When they discovered that he survived the fall, his enemies beat James to death with a club. This is thought to be the same pinnacle where Satan had taken Jesus during the temptation.  Bartholomew, also known as Nathanael, was a missionary to Asia. He witnessed in present-day Turkey and was martyred for his preaching in Armenia, being flayed to death by a whip. Andrew was crucified on an x-shaped cross in Greece. After being whipped severely by seven soldiers, they tied his body to the cross with cords to prolong his agony. His followers reported that when he was led toward the cross, Andrew saluted it in these words: “I have long desired and expected this happy hour. The cross has been consecrated by the body of Christ hanging on it.” He continued to preach to his tormentors for two days until he died. The apostle Thomas was stabbed with a spear in India during one of his missionary trips to establish the church there. Matthias, the apostle chosen to replace the traitor Judas Iscariot, was stoned and then beheaded. The apostle Paul was tortured and then beheaded by the evil Emperor Nero in Rome in A.D. 67. There are traditions regarding the other apostles as well, but none with any reliable historical or traditional support.

So here's John, living out his last days in exile on Patmos - all of his closest friends having died terrible deaths for their faith in the living Savior.   John must have remembered the conversation that Jesus had with Peter after the resurrection as they walked on the beach - with John following behind.  Jesus said to Peter:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.” Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who had been reclining at table close to him and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” 


I wonder if Jesus' last sentence was in reference to the fact that John did, in fact, see Jesus when He came to John in a vision on Patmos, and John wrote the book of Revelations.  Who knows?  I'm looking forward to walking through the book of John with our church, discovering together who Jesus is through the eyes and heart of "the Beloved Disciple".

Night Vision

I borrowed an automatic trail camera from a friend.   I wanted to see what wildlife frequents our property after dark - so I put a pile of meat on a couple of tree stumps about 50 yards from our back deck, and set up the trail cam to capture images of any "visitors".  I was hoping for a bear or a mountain lion, but all I got, as you can see from the images below, are a couple of foxes.  By 10 p.m. the meat was all gone.  I'll have to make it harder for the foxes to steal the meat next time.  The bears won't start hibernating until sometime in December, so I'm hoping to catch one on film before then.  I should probably just leave our garbage can out and put the camera on that!

I'm leaving this morning to fly to Austin, Texas to lead a crisis management training with a church down there.  I'm really looking forward to it.  This may be the last training I'll do for a while, because Daphne and I are investing our time and energy more and more into our local church - and my role as Executive Pastor is starting to pick up speed.  If God brings other training needs my way, I would consider them on a case-be-case basis.  But we've realized that our passion is to use our experience to help build this church - and this is probably the primary reason why God brought us to Conifer in the first place.