Part 04 of 5

Start Here: John - and Why

Okay. Enough setup. Where do you actually start? I'm gonna give you one book. And then I'm gonna tell you exactly why. Start with John. The Gospel of John.

Now - if you ask around, a lot of people will tell you to start somewhere else. With Mark. And that's not a bad answer. We'll read Mark. It's short, it's fast, it's great. But I want you to start with John. And here's the reason. It's a small thing. And once you see it, you can't un-see it. It's the first four words.

John opens his entire book like this: "In the beginning" (John 1:1). Now - where have you heard that before? That's the first line of the whole Bible. Genesis. Page one. Word one. "In the beginning... God created" (Genesis 1:1).

John does that on purpose. He's a Jewish writer. He knows exactly what those words do. It's like - somebody starts a story with "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." You know instantly. Your brain goes there. You know what kind of story you're in before they've said anything else.

That's what John's doing. He picks up the opening words of the entire Bible - "in the beginning" - and uses them to start his book. And he's basically telling you: pay attention. This isn't a side story. This is the beginning - again. A new creation. The origin, retold. Except this time, the main character walks out on screen in line one.

That's why we start here. John hands you the whole point up front. Everything the last few parts were pointing at - the main character, the one the story's been building toward - John just walks him right out in the first sentence.

And it's a stunning book. It really is. It's got the famous stuff. The stuff you've heard even if you've never opened a Bible. Water into wine. "For God so loved the world" (John 3:16). A man born blind who suddenly sees. A dead man named Lazarus, walking out of a tomb. Bread and fish for thousands. And then the hardest, most beautiful ending - the arrest, the cross, and an empty grave on Sunday morning. And it moves. It's not a slog. It reads like someone who loved this person - and needed you to love him too.

So here's your actual assignment. And I want you to do it a specific way. Read John. Start to finish. In two or three sittings. Not a verse a day. Not a chapter here and there, squeezed between emails. That's how you lose the plot.

You'd never watch a movie four minutes at a time over three weeks. You'd feel nothing. You'd forget who everybody is. It's about two hours of reading, total. That's a movie. Give it a movie's worth of attention. Pour a coffee. Sit down. Read big chunks. Let it build.

And don't get stuck. If a verse snags you - a weird line, a "wait, what does that mean" - just keep going. Circle it, come back later. First time through, you're here for the story. The big shape. Who is this guy, what does he do, what happens to him. That's it. Let the questions wait.

So that's the start line. John. "In the beginning" - again. Go read it. And when you come back - we'll figure out where to go next. Because after John, there's a whole path. And it's an adventure.