29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.”
32 Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.”
Today, I want to focus more on HOW we can be great Bible readers.
The book of John is beautifully written, with interweaving of themes, implicit information, and so much more. The job of the reader is to read closely and to pay attention.
For example, much of the book of John is spent on ‘testimony’. The root word in Greek is used 33 times in the book of John (it is used 76 times in the whole New Testament, with 14 more times occurring in the Johannine Epistles and Revelation). The Jews ask for testimony to be sure of who Jesus is. Jesus talks about the testimony he gives and that the Father gives. In this passage, we get the explicit testimony of John, who came as a witness to testify (John 1:7). In verses 32-34, we see the fulfillment of John’s entire purpose. When, in the book of John, we see this idea of testimony, we should sit up and take notice.
Becoming a great Bible reader means paying attention to the details and asking good questions.
A detail that is worth paying attention to here are the names attributed to Jesus in this first chapter. Here, in today’s passage, we see two: Lamb of God and God’s Chosen One. Both of these recall various ideas and images from the Old Testament and are meant to reveal a bit about Jesus. But these aren’t the only two names that Jesus is given in the entirety of the first chapter of John. In fact, there are 10. These are names 4 and 5. In John 1:1, we see Jesus being called the Word (1) and God (2). In verse 17, he is called Jesus Christ (3). Read ahead and see if you can find the rest of the 10 names.
Another detail worth mentioning is how detailed John is with specific numbers. Threes and Sevens are highlighted throughout the Gospel, being important numbers revealing the completeness and divinity of Jesus. It is not an accident that the third name in the list of 10 is Jesus Christ. The seventh name is not an accident either.
Lastly, being detailed readers, we must pay attention to units of time. We see here an indicator of something to be watching for: “The next day…” in verse 29. I’m not going to give this one away quite yet, but we will see where this detail leads in a few weeks. For now, let us be content to read the scriptures with the detailed eyes the writers and the Writer invite us to have.
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