Gospel of John Themes
Life and Death
When Jesus talks about eternal life, he doesn't mean that we'll all be immortal (after all, there can be only one). He is referring to a spiritual life with God that continues even after death. Of...
Truth
Pontius Pilate was a real guy. Boom. You've been truthed.But wait. Truth as it's used in the Gospel of John isn't only about listing off facts and figures. When Jesus tells us the truth, he means t...
Love
According to the Gospel of John (and Dante), love is what sets everything in motion. "For God so loved the world," remember? Yeah, that's the 3:16 business. In this gospel, love is the essence of G...
Language and Communication
According to the Gospel of John, Jesus is the divine incarnation of God, come from above to share the truth of God's goodness and love. Now Jesus just has to explain that to a bunch of silly mortal...
Sacrifice
You probably remember that little sacrifice Jesus makes to save, um, all of humanity. And get this: he's more than happy to do it because he believes it's God's will for him. After the events of th...
Betrayal
In case you didn't catch it the zillion times it's mentioned, Judas betrays Jesus big time in the Gospel of John. But he's not alone—there are a bunch of little betrayals along the way, you can b...
Power
There were more power struggles in biblical times than on an episode of Survivor. The Roman empire had power over Judea. The religious authorities had power over the Jewish people. And for all inte...