Here's the text in the NIV. I'm gonna go thru the whole thing, then work thru it a chunk at a time to see what the Lord has for us:

John 1 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

John 1
The Word Became Flesh
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.
3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood[a] it.

6There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.[b]

10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent,[c] nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only,[d] who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

15John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' " 16From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. 17For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only,[e][f]who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

John the Baptist Denies Being the Christ
19Now this was John's testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. 20He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, "I am not the Christ.[g]"
21They asked him, "Then who are you? Are you Elijah?"
He said, "I am not."
"Are you the Prophet?"
He answered, "No."

22Finally they said, "Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?"

23John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, "I am the voice of one calling in the desert, 'Make straight the way for the Lord.' "[h]

24Now some Pharisees who had been sent 25questioned him, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?"

26"I baptize with[i] water," John replied, "but among you stands one you do not know. 27He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie."

28This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

Jesus the Lamb of God
29The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is the one I meant when I said, 'A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' 31I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel."
32Then John gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' 34I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God."

Jesus' First Disciples
35The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!"
37When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. 38Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?"
They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?"

39"Come," he replied, "and you will see."
So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour.

40Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. 41The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). 42And he brought him to Jesus.
Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas" (which, when translated, is Peter[j]).

Jesus Calls Philip and Nathanael
43The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, "Follow me."
44Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. 45Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."

46"Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" Nathanael asked.
"Come and see," said Philip.

47When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, "Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false."

48"How do you know me?" Nathanael asked.
Jesus answered, "I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you."

49Then Nathanael declared, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel."

50Jesus said, "You believe[k] because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that." 51He then added, "I tell you[l] the truth, you[m] shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."

John 1
The Word Became Flesh
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.
3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

Is that cool or what?? How much simpler could God have made it? It's all spelled out there in 4 verses.. So many times we get drawn into arguements about how the world was created and how things came into being... He spends only 4 verses on it here... and a few chapters in Genesis. I love the way God simply states here in verse 3 "Through him all things were made: without him nothing was made that has been made."

I think we so often get caught up in how it was made instead of focusing on the one who made it...


5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood[a] it.

Harold alluded to this verse earlier... How often have we tried to describe the things of the spirit to those that were in darkness? You get that deer in the headlights look or one of complete disgust.... The simplicity of the first 4 verses is lost in man's attempt to intellectualize everything.

That doesn’t mean God doesn’t want us to use the mind He gave us… I think that it means when we are in darkness we don’t understand his ways. Darkness is a place outside of God’s will. When we stop trusting God to take care of our needs, we are letting some darkness in on our lives.

When we believe we can handle it on our own, we are inviting the darkness. Anything but complete submission of our wills to Christ is a form of darkness. Christ wants to invade every area of our lives, not just the ones we want Him to be a part of. He is a jealous God and won’t stand for idolatry in our lives. When we have given ourselves to Him, he loves every part of us, wart and all. He wants to bring everything into the light where he cleanse us from all sin.


6There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.


I am soo blown away by the humility of John. I think he is an example of what we are to be in this world... We are all to be witness to the light... Our job here it to point others to the light.


9The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.[b]
10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent,[c] nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.


He is the light!!! Right there is the clearest explaination of who Jesus is... He is the source of the light that takes away the darkness.

Children of God... Notice he did not say Grand children.... When we give our lives over to Jesus, we are His children. That means we can go directly to Jesus with our fears, problems and troubles. That means he cares for us each individually. That is soo awesome when we realize that we are directly responsible for submitting to His parenting. No one else can do it for us. We must submit to His authority over our lives.

14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only,[d] who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.


Jesus came to this earth and dwelt among us. He was born unto common people so that He was approachable. He was not born into human nobility because then he would have been out of reach for most of us… He came to “hang out” with us. He wants to raid the fridge with us… He wants to build models ( or whatever floats your boat ) with us. He wants to be a part of our lives.


15John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' " 16From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. 17For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only,[e][f]who is at the Father's side, has made him known.


Here John acknowledges that Jesus is omnipotent... John was born before Jesus, but declares that "he was before me". But yet, though He is fully God and fully man, He is full of grace and truth... He condescended to our level to make Himself known to us. That is sooo awesome when I think about it… Jesus is fully God, but wanted to “Hang out with me” so that I could know Him….

I'm outta time for right now... I'll work thru the remaining verses shortly.

I don't know the Bible that well, but it's good to read some good positive Christian stuff here.

reading ;)

---

Scott

Comment on verse 17.

In the old testement it was a lot about following Gods laws that he laid down. But in the new testement it's explained that now its by grace that we are saved.

Why wasn't just following Gods Law good enough? (read John 7:19 for the answer to this question)

Somebody post the answer -----

We need to understand the purpose of Jesus and the meaning of his Death. This is step one....

What I like most about this book is the fact that John highlights the reality of sin in various ways, but espeacially by emphasizing our total dependence on God for salvation.

Well John certainly hits the ground running.... Lots of deep topics here.... I just want to encourage everyone to hang in there on this... We'll take it slow and work thru what we can. The good thing about this is that if we don't fully understand something we can forge ahead and come back to it later.

If I can't understand 20% of the bible, do I want to throw away the 80% that I do understand? There is much to glean from what you do understand, so don't worry too much right now about the stuff you don't get.

God reveals Himself to each individual on His timetable. The cool think is when you may come back and read this again later, a new part will hit you... One this is for sure. The Bible never gets stale!

I'm working thru the rest of Chapter 1 and will make a post shortly.

How is this format working for everyone? I know it's different doing a bible study in an Internet forum...

It seems that anything that gets us into the word more is a very good thing.....

I fully agree with one minor tweek if I may. It does more than seem really,it is. We are promised in Revelation that blessings are on the reader (of Rev.). Also, many times instructions are inferred and declared to know the things written in the Book. So yes anything that gets you in the Word is a very good thing.

Start it out with a prayer including the desire for the Lord to open your heart to the Word and the Word to your heart.

(edited for relevance)

"Seems like it's soo easy to be different ways with different people... One facade at church, another with our buddies... I really think God wants us to be the same with everyone... He wants us to be real."

I agree this is very difficult, I deal with this issue. At church people can be judgemental about how you dress, act, and do. But something I came to realize is I'm not their to make an impression on them. It's how I portray myself to God, nonbelievers, friends and coworkers. It's that example I try and set, I don't want to be known as the uptight Christian that is so heavenly bound that I become no earthly good. (I'm sure some have heard a statement like that before, I like it and use it often) So I take the good I have within thats mixed with the bad and blend it at both Church, home, work and at the flying field. I think I get more strange looks at chruch though because I refuse to be an uptight, prudish tie wearing church goer that thinks I'm better than anyone else. LOL

That doesn't mean I don't want to be great person, I was reading somewhere that describe John the B as "austerely." Look it up in the dictionary if you don't know what it means...I had to-heh heh! I think thats where a lot of preachers get the fire and brimstone attitude from. I would chose to believe that John just pretty much told you like it was, he may have not had any tact about it either. He was like....Repent or die! After all was he not considered to be the precurser for the coming of the Messiah. And I don't think he cared to much what people thought of him....he lived in the wilderness, ate locust and wild honey and told a King he was living in sin....