Conversation Points for John 1:29-42

Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?

Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• John the Baptist and the writer of John’s Gospel are not the same John. John is an incredibly popular name; there are at least three different Johns who play major roles in the New Testament, John the Baptist, John the writer of the Gospel of John and the Letters of John, and John of Patmos, the writer of Revelation. All are three separate Johns.
• Unlike in the synoptics, the Gospel of John does not specifically tell of John baptizing Jesus. We know John baptized, and we know John saw the dove descending on Jesus at his baptism, but there is no recounting of the actual event itself. For the writer of John’s Gospel, the importance is not the event, but John’s trustworthiness as a witness of the event. God and the Holy Spirit are the actors, whoever was doing the baptizing does not matter, what matters is John was there as a witness.
• John identified Jesus as “the Lamb of God.” Lamb is a multi-layered image. It probably partially refers to the servant songs in Isaiah (particularly Isa 53:7 “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth”) and to the Passover lamb (Exodus 12:1-13). In Judaism, the Passover lamb was not a symbol of sacrifice for sin, but merely a marker to let the Lord know which houses to pass over. It was the early church who quickly reinterpreted the Passover lamb as a sacrifice in light of the Eucharist. The lamb imagery is thick in John’s Gospel, for example Jesus’ legs were not broken at the crucifixion as a connection to the unblemished lamb (John 19:33, 36; Exodus 12:46).
• The role of John the Baptist in John’s Gospel is not, as it is in the synoptics, a Messianic forerunner, but a witness. Witnessing, in John’s Gospel, is the starting point for faith.
• The metaphor of seeing plays a large role in John’s Gospel, connecting to Jesus urge to “Come and see.” In just this section we have multiple words for “seeing”: blepo (1:29); ide (1:32, 38); orao/eidon (1:33-34, 39); and emblepo (1:36, 42). One of the central themes of John’s Gospel is: If you want to know God, come and see Jesus.
• The verb “to follow” (akoloutheo, v. 37) has two meanings in the Gospel of John. It has its literal meaning in the story, to follow someone, and it serves as a metaphor for discipleship. This literary style of writing with two levels of meaning is a common trait of John’s Gospel. In fact, Jesus’ entire conversation in v. 38-39 can be seen as happening on two levels.
• The first two disciples in v. 37 are initially not named. The circle of discipleship in John’s Gospel is much less formal than in the synoptics. For example, there is no formal number of twelve disciples in John.

Works Sourced:
O’Day, Gail. “The Gospel of John.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.

West, Audrey. “Commentary on John 1:29-42.” Working Preacher. . Accessed: 9 January 2017.