John the Beloved

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Why is John called John the Beloved?

This comes from the Gospel of John. While John is regularly named throughout the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), you don’t see his name barely anywhere in the Gospel of John, if at all.

However, we know that he mentions himself without using his name. John tends to call himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Throughout the Gospel of John, when we see anything that resembles this, we know that it’s referring to John.

John wrote his Gospel after the other three had been written. He focuses on completely different themes than the other Gospels. He still has a perspective of Jesus that agrees with the other three. But his Gospel is unique because of the different focuses of the book.

He is not focused on telling us who did what when it doesn’t involve Jesus. He is more focused on telling you the narrative in such a way that you believe that Jesus is the son of God (John 20:30-31). Because this is his main goal, he focuses more on the signs and sayings of Jesus, as well as the farewell discourse and other such distinctives of his Gospel.

So the way he inserts himself into the narrative as “the disciple of Jesus loved” instead of mentioning his name personally, he is trying to keep the focus on what Jesus is doing and why we should trust in him as the son of God.

Is part of what makes the Gospel of John so different, about 90% different than the synoptic Gospels. When John sat down to pen his Gospel, he provides a different perspective as the fourth evangelist. It helps us to understand Jesus in a deeper way.

Each of the evangelists approaches the life of Jesus with a different perspective. It’s like taking four different pictures of the same object. But we can tell that they are talking about the same Jesus and the same events in his life, ministry, death, and resurrection. These four different perspectives give us different walks of the same Jesus and show us who he is in a more profound way. John the Beloved

Why is John called John the Beloved?

This comes from the Gospel of John. While John is regularly named throughout the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), you don’t see his name barely anywhere in the Gospel of John, if at all.

However, we know that he mentions himself without using his name. John tends to call himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Throughout the Gospel of John, when we see anything that resembles this, we know that it’s referring to John.

John wrote his Gospel after the other three had been written. He focuses on completely different themes than the other Gospels. He still has a perspective of Jesus that agrees with the other three. But his Gospel is unique because of the different focuses of the book.

He is not focused on telling us who did what when it doesn’t involve Jesus. He is more focused on telling you the narrative in such a way that you believe that Jesus is the son of God (John 20:30-31). Because this is his main goal, he focuses more on the signs and sayings of Jesus, as well as the farewell discourse and other such distinctives of his Gospel.

So the way he inserts himself into the narrative as “the disciple of Jesus loved” instead of mentioning his name personally, he is trying to keep the focus on what Jesus is doing and why we should trust in him as the son of God.

Is part of what makes the Gospel of John so different, about 90% different than the synoptic Gospels. When John sat down to pen his Gospel, he provides a different perspective as the fourth evangelist. It helps us to understand Jesus in a deeper way.

Each of the evangelists approaches the life of Jesus with a different perspective. It’s like taking four different pictures of the same object. But we can tell that they are talking about the same Jesus and the same events in his life, ministry, death, and resurrection. These four different perspectives give us different walks of the same Jesus and show us who he is in a more profound way.

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