JOHN THE APOSTLE

John was one of the original twelve apostles chosen by Jesus. He was the brother of James, another of the original twelve, and son of Zebedee and Salome.

John was born in AD 6 in Bethsaida, Galilee and died in AD 100 at Patmos, Greece. The other original disciples all died martyr’s deaths except Judas who killed himself. The dates of John’s writings are not known exactly but most say he wrote the Gospel of John around 90-100 AD and he wrote The First Epistle of John between 95-100 AD.

Between the writing of the Gospel of John with the famous verse of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life,” and the First Epistle of John, maybe 5-15 years later, he wrote 1 John 3:16, “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” He has moved from a strictly salvation message to a Kingdom message of action and behavior. This is after he wrote the Revelation of Jesus Christ (known as The Apocalypse) around AD 81-96. We all need to move past a salvation only message to an all-inclusive Kingdom message. We move from Jesus laying down his life to us laying down ours. That’s probably the reason of the slowness of it.

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” Jesus