Gospel of John 1:19–51 Catholic Bible study Lesson 2

The Gospel According to John:
An Encounter with Grace & Truth

Lesson 2 And This Is the Testimony of John
the Gospel According to John 1:19–51

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)*
New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE)*
Catechism of the Catholic Church
ex libris (in our library)
glossary for the Gospel According to John
cross references in the Gospel According to John
next lesson: There Was a Marriage in Cana

This material coordinates with Lesson 2 on pages 11–15 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.”—the Gospel According to John 20:30–31

welcome to our in-depth study of the Gospel According to John
We invite interested groups and individuals to check out the sample first lesson from this 25-lesson Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study. These online study pages link to our free lesson videos, as well as to a glossary and cross references in the biblical text. Other study aids include maps, additional commentary, and prayers based on the primary Scripture in each lesson. The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth has been granted an imprimatur and can be purchased from our website shop. If you have a Bible-related question or comment, click on one of the “ask us your question” or “what do you think” buttons on any online study page.

open with prayer
It’s always wise to begin any Bible study with prayer, whether reading the Scriptures alone or meeting with others in a discussion study group. You can pray using your own words or use one of the opening prayers on our website. We especially like the following:

Lord Jesus, you promised to send your Holy Spirit
to teach us all things.
As we read and study your word today,
allow it to touch our hearts and change our lives. Amen.

let’s review—the Gospel According to John 1:1–18
In Lesson 1 In the Beginning Was the Word , the Evangelist uses the prologue in the Gospel According to John (1:1–18) to introduce Jesus as the Word of God and to equate the Word of God with light and life. Instead of beginning with a genealogy explaining Jesus’ human origins, the author focuses on establishing Jesus’ divinity as the Son of God. In addition to God the Father, other characters include a man named John (not the author) sent from God to testify and bear witness to the light, and Moses, who is described as inferior to Jesus because while Moses gave God’s people the law, Jesus brings grace and truth. Although Moses might be described as someone who saw the light, Jesus is the light. It’s through the Incarnation that men and women come to know God.

map notes—so is Nathanael a Jew or what?
In the Gospel According to John 1:49, Nathanael identifies Jesus as the King of Israel, a title not commonly used to refer to Jesus. In most places in Scripture Jesus is hailed as king of the Jews. Nathanael lives in Galilee, territory that once was part of the former northern kingdom of Israel and not the southern kingdom of Judah—now called Judea—where Jerusalem is located. After the fall of both kingdoms, the people from the southern kingdom were allowed to return to their homeland around 538 B.C. They settled in and near Jerusalem and practiced the law-based religion of Judaism, which was built on the worship practices of their Hebrews ancestors. They became known as Jews (instead of Judahites, which was the name that identifies descendants of Judah). Other descendants of Jacob who joined them also began to be called Jews instead of being identified by their association with the other tribes of Israel. Jesus’ characterization of Nathanael as an “Israelite indeed” suggests that Nathanael is interested in the future of the descendants of all 12 of the sons of Jacob, not just those in the tribe of Judah. Read about Jacob being renamed Israel in the thirty-second chapter in the book of Genesis, and check out our online commentary and video for Lesson 19 Jacob Wrestles at Peniel in the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study In the Beginning: The Book of Genesis. An early tradition in the Church identifies Nathaniel as a Greek-speaking Jew with expertise in Jewish law. Click on the image (above right) to enlarge the map, which appears on page 14 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

how John sees Jesus (47:33)
In the video for this lesson, Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps discusses an unusual term that John uses when describing his cousin Jesus. “Lamb of God” is a totally unexpected way of identifying the person John knows actually to be God. Matthew also points out that when John sees the Spirit descend as a dove and remain on Jesus, John continues to see this sign each time he sees Jesus. In the Gospel According to John 1:29, what’s the mission and purpose of the Lamb of God? Read the Book of Isaiah 53:7–10. What connection might there be between the lamb in that Old Testament passage and Jesus? For more information, read “The Sacrificial Lamb of God” on page 13 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

The Scripture ranges for the videos that accompany this Catholic Bible study match the Scripture ranges for the sets of questions in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth. You can follow along with the video overview as Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps discusses Lesson 2, “And This Is the Testimony of John,” on pages 11–15 in the study book.

pay attention to the ‘I AM’ statements
Because the “I AM” statements in the Gospel According to John disclose something significant about who Jesus is, we don’t want to miss any of them. Learn more about the significance of these “I AM” statements, and find out the unexpected circumstances surrounding their introduction in “The First ‘I AM’ Statement” on page 14 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

Elijah & Elisha/John & Jesus
In discussing Lesson 10 Elijah’s Fiery Departure in the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study Thus Says the LORD: God Speaks Through His Servants the Prophets—Volume I: A Kingdom Divided, Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps looked at the connection between Elijah and John and the even more fascinating tie between Elisha and Jesus. The study page for that lesson contains a link to the lesson video where you can learn about a seldom-mentioned way in which Elijah and Elisha in the Old Testament foreshadow John and Jesus in the New Testament.

more about Moses
In the Gospel According to John 1:21, when John is asked by the priests and Levites whether he’s the prophet, the religious leaders are referring to the prophet promised by Moses in the book of Deuteronomy 18:15–18. John’s mission—which is to point to Jesus as God—is misunderstood, as is the significance of a “prophet like Moses” appearing before the coming of the Messiah. Moses was able to look on God’s face and live—something extremely rare in the Old Testament, where seeing the face of God resulted in almost-certain death. With the coming of Jesus, however, all people are able to see the face of God and not immediately be struck dead. After Jesus completes his own mission, it will be possible for people to see God’s face and live eternally. You can learn more about the life of Moses in the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study You Shall Have No Other Gods: The Book of Exodus.

who’s questioning John?
Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study books reprint the Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition (RSV2CE) and link to the earlier Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE) online. Both of those translations of the Gospel According to John 1:19 record that it’s priests and Levites who first question John, and then in the Gospel According to John 1:24 they record: “Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.” In this instance, the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) has a more literal translation of the Gospel According to John 1:24 (NABRE): “Some Pharisees also were sent.” This takes into account the grammar of the original language and makes an important distinction between the priests and Levites as one group and the Pharisees as another.

who’s who among the Jews
Present-day readers of the Gospels find it difficult to tell one group of Jews from another, and it can be confusing to read about priests, Levites, Sadducees, Pharisees, scribes, and rabbis.

The priests and Levites primarily would have been associated with the Sadducees, an aristocratic group originally tracing their lineage to the tribe of Levi. The Sadducees accepted only the first five books of the Old Testament (the Pentateuch), and they rejected oral law as well as any religious teaching that wasn’t in the Pentateuch.
The Pharisees, on the other hand, accepted additional writings that make up the Old Testament, and they were devoted to the oral law as well as to the written Law of Moses. The vast majority of scribes, experts in religious law, were closely associated with the Pharisees, as were most rabbis or religious teachers.
Pharisees and Sadducees are political labels; priests, scribes, and rabbis are terms that describe vocations. Levites indicates those members of the tribe of Levi. It comes to serve as a vocational label used to distinguish Levites not descended from Aaron and therefor not eligible for the hereditary priesthood.

two fringe groups—Zealots & Essenes
Two other fringe groups of Jews existed—the Zealots, whose primary interest was in overthrowing Rome by any means, including armed resistance, and the Essenes, who sought to escape from the problems of the time by forming communities where they could focus on spiritual practices away from populated areas, especially Jerusalem where the Pharisees and Sadducees were centered. The Zealots are almost like a third political party with not many supporters, though it’s likely most Zealots began as Pharisees. Essenes have made a choice to attempt to live more spiritual lives apart from society.

Moses, Joshua & Jesus
In the Old Testament, Moses passes his authority to Joshua, the person chosen to lead the Israelites across the Jordan River and into the Promised Land of Canaan. Joshua and Jesus share the same name. What might this suggest about Jesus’ role in regard to God’s people?

WHAT DO YOU THINK about John?
Immediately after the prologue (the Gospel According to John 1:1–18), the first chapter in the Gospel According to John focuses on the witness of John. Before we learn what John has to say about Jesus, however, the author tells us something about John’s identity, and it isn’t the title “the Baptist” by which most of us know him that’s emphasized in the Fourth Gospel. We extrapolate the title of the Baptist from information we’ve learned from reading the synoptic Gospels. The Evangelist John instead uses a dialogue to provide readers with a glimpse into the character of John as a witness. This is important if we’re to believe John’s testimony. The nature of faith is that it always relies on the testimony of another person. If we’ve seen and experienced something for ourselves, we believe it as a proven matter of fact—and that’s not faith. Faith is trusting something we haven’t seen or experienced firsthand. We believe it’s true because we rely on what we’ve been told by credible witnesses. (Tami Palladino’s illustration of John appears on the map, “Key Events in the Gospel According to John,” on page 146 of the study book.)

? Is this man sent from God a reliable and trustworthy source of information about Jesus?
? What about him suggests that we can believe what he says?
? The Gospel According to Matthew 3:1, the Gospel According to Mark 1:4, and the Gospel According to Luke 3:1–3 all suggest that John was seeking a very particular response from his audience. What response to God do you think that John wants to elicit from his listeners in the Gospel According to John?
? The priests and Levites who come to question John consider that there’s a good possibility John might be the long-awaited Messiah. Unlike the priests and Levites, present-day Christians have the advantage of already knowing that John isn’t the Messiah. Consider what it means that John identifies himself as the voice from the Book of Isaiah 40:3. You can learn more about the prophet Isaiah in Lesson 20 Isaiah Foresees Immanuel’s Birth in the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study Thus Says the LORD: God Speaks Through His Servants the Prophets—Volume I: A Kingdom Divided, and in Lesson 7 Deutero-Isaiah Proclaims the End of the Exile, Lesson 8 God’s Suffering Servant, and Lesson 14 Trito-Isaiah & the Return—all in Thus Says the LORD: God Speaks Through His Servants the Prophets—Volume II: Restoration & Redemption.
? How might the concept of a voice be related to the Word?
? Consider how the different placement of punctuation in the Gospel According to John 1:23 changes the meaning of the passage John is quoting from the Book of Isaiah 40:3.
? Why do you think that Jesus’ cousin John might want to describe himself as being in the wilderness instead of the wilderness being the location in which a way needs to be prepared?

another New Testament reference to the prophet Isaiah
John isn’t the only figure in the New Testament to quote from the prophet Isaiah. In the Gospel According to Luke 4:18, Jesus begins his public ministry by citing a passage from the Book of Isaiah 61:1: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.”

witness & testimony—you could look it up in our archives
As our study of the Gospel According to John moves forward, legal terms will play an important role in understanding who Jesus is and what he’s doing in a remote province ruled by Rome. In Lost in Translation, an online column that can help readers connect with ideas expressed in the original languages of the Scriptures, Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps looks at the linguistic roots behind the words “witness” and “testimony,” including how Judaism provided for establishing whether a person’s testimony could be considered valid. Matthew also addresses how the Greek word for “witness” suggests an association with martyrdom. New Lost in Translation entries are posted on Mondays, and past entries are archived on our website. Contact us if you’d like to receive Lost in Translation by email every week.

who arrived on the scene first?
In the Gospel According to John 1:30, Jesus’ cousin represents Jesus as the primary person to appear throughout all of history. Although we know from the first chapter in the Gospel According to Luke that John was born a few months before Jesus, John mysteriously attests that Jesus came before him.

WHAT DO YOU THINK about taking a fresh look at the biblical text?
When reading familiar biblical passages, it can be useful to set aside what we think we know and try to take a fresh look at the text.

? How might someone who responded to questions from religious leaders in the same way that John responds be treated in the present day?
? Moses and Elijah traditionally are associated with the law and the prophets, respectively. Consider what their reappearance at the time of Jesus might indicate. Based on previous knowledge of the Gospels, where do Moses and Elijah reappear with Jesus?**
? Why might John want to distance himself from those two major Old Testament figures and the traditions they represent?
? Why might John nevertheless is willing to be linked with the prophecy of Isaiah?
? What about John might lead to questions about his credibility?
? Consider what it is that the priests and Levites ultimately decide about John based on his testimony.
? What questions would you like to have been able to ask Jesus’ cousin John?
? What related questions would you like to be able to ask John the Evangelist?
? What questions do you have for Jesus?

Q&A—a question about John (the witness)
A participant in one of our study groups asked a particularly interesting question about John (called the Baptist in the synoptic Gospels), who’s a fascinating figure in the New Testament. Before you read our response, consider how you might respond to the same question. Can you base your answer on something you already know from previous reading of Scripture?

Q: If John is a witness to Jesus and recognizes that Jesus is the Messiah, why doesn’t he follow him?

A: This question indicates that the person who asked it wasn’t limiting her thinking to questions directly posed in the study book, on these online pages, or in the related video. While there’s no right or wrong answer—we can’t really know the reason that John chose not to join Jesus’ disciples—it can be intriguing to think about. There are some hints in the biblical text.

In the Gospel According to John 1:23, John (the witness) quotes from the prophet Isaiah to identify himself as someone sent to “Make straight the way of the Lord.” Scholars are in agreement that John has been sent by God as a herald or forerunner to the Messiah. It’s John’s job to prepare the way for Jesus, and to do that he needs to go ahead of Jesus, not follow him.

The Gospel According to John 1:32 records: “And John bore witness, ‘I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven and remain on him. I myself did not know him; but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.”‘” John is doing what he’s been sent to do. He’s the person chosen by God to bear witness to Jesus. It’s what God has told him to do, his whole purpose for existing. It seems unlikely that someone given that understanding would decide to veer from the path laid out for him. What other verses in the biblical text suggest that John might be reluctant to abandon the job he’s been given by God?

Finally, from a practical point of view based solely on our knowledge of human nature, what might John’s discipleship look like if he decided to stop baptizing people for the forgiveness of sins and instead follow Jesus as a disciple? What would his own disciples do? What kind of problems might present themselves if John became part of the small band of people following Jesus? What kind of problems might present themselves if many of John’s followers also decided to join team Jesus just because John had done so?

Peter joins the disciples
The Gospel According to John 1:42 describes Andrew introducing his brother Simon to Jesus, and Jesus promptly renames Simon Cephas, a name that means Rock. A strong clue to the role that Jesus foresees Peter playing in the Church can be found in the Gospel According to Matthew 7:24–27.

another major connection to the Old Testament
We often fail to pay close attention to Jesus’ comment about the angels ascending and descending upon the Son of man. It appears in the first chapter in the Gospel According to John, and a related statement appears in the twenty-eighth chapter in the book of Genesis. It’s an almost certain bet that the Evangelist intended for readers to compare what Jesus is telling Nathanael with the Old Testament story in which the patriarch Jacob falls asleep with his head on a rock and dreams about angels ascending and descending a ladder to heaven. When Jacob awakens, he realizes that he’s on holy ground and builds an altar on the site. In that story, the angels are ascending and descending on a specific geographical location, one that Jacob recognizes to be an awesome and holy place—the house of God and the gate of heaven. When Jesus announces that Nathanael will see the heavens opened and the angels ascending and descending upon the Son of man, Jesus is claiming that he himself is the location where God dwells. Jesus is the gate by which humanity will be able to enter heaven. You can learn more about Jacob’s ladder in Lesson 16 Isaac Blesses Jacob; Jacob’s Dream at Bethel in the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study In the Beginning: The Book of Genesis.

two biblical factoids
1) Nathanael is called Bartholomew in the synoptic Gospels.
2) There’s only one place that the term Israelite appears in the New Testament, and that’s in the Gospel According to John 1:47.

the popes inspire us—the angels defend humanity against evil
In a homily on the Feast of the Holy Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, Pope Francis talked about the angels’ role in defending humanity in the battle against evil. The pope mentioned the passage from the Gospel According to John in which Jesus tells Nathanael that he will see heaven opened, “and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” The Holy Father said: “The angels defend mankind, and they defend the superior man, Jesus Christ, who is the perfection of humanity. That’s why the Church honors the angels—because they defend the great hidden mystery of God, namely that the Word was made flesh.” The Pope concluded by urging the faithful to pray the prayer to the archangel Michael, so that the archangel may continue to do battle and to defend the Word made flesh. There are several slightly different versions of this traditional prayer to Michael the Archangel. Here’s one:

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,
and do thou, O prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits
who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

so what’s with that fig tree?
In the Gospel According to John 1:48, Jesus tells Nathanael that he spotted him earlier sitting under a fig tree. What’s referred to as a fig or sycamore tree in the Bible isn’t the same as an American sycamore tree. The American sycamore is related to the maple tree, while the biblical sycamore sometimes is called a mulberry-fig tree. An interesting detail about the biblical sycamore is that it can regenerate from a cut limb stuck in the sand. From this attribute, the biblical sycamore tree has come to be considered a representation of regeneration or new life.

for additional reflection
What do you think about who Jesus is? This question is as valid in the present day as it was 2,000 years ago. It appears that one of the primary reasons the Fourth Gospel was written was to make more details about Jesus known to more people. The following questions are designed to help readers begin to form their own thoughts and ideas related to the Gospel According to John 1:19–51. For more reflection questions, refer to the introduction to Lesson 2 on page 11 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

? What’s apparent about Jesus from the first chapter in the Gospel According to John?
? What might be the key things that the Evangelist wants his audience to learn about Jesus?
? How does the Fourth Gospel’s emphasis on the role of John (the witness) shed light on who Jesus is?
? How does the information that the Evangelist provides about Jesus’ interaction with John (the witness) differ from the information provided in the Gospels According to Matthew, Mark, and Luke?
? What point might the Evangelist be trying to make by writing something different?
? Consider what this different view of Jesus’ cousin John and his adult relationship with Jesus discloses about Jesus that a reader might not have been able to figure out from the synoptic Gospel accounts?
? What should readers be looking for when in the accounts of Jesus’ encounters with various people in the Fourth Gospel?
? What are we looking for in our own encounters with Jesus?

a study leader shares her thoughts
The following exchange veers from our standard question-and-answer format, but others may find it helpful. It comes from a study leader in a group planning to tackle one of our other studies.

comment: Thank you for your online study pages. They’re such a bonus. In our Bible study, more questions come up in our leaders’ group than in my individual group about why you ask a certain question, or what you might be thinking, or where you’re leading with your questions. I’ve often been able to point to the online study pages for direction and clues. I need to remind the other group leaders and myself that you’re trying to get us to think and pray about Scripture and its impact in our lives rather than limiting Bible study to an assignment that can be completed with a single academic answer.

response: We appreciate your comments, especially since we know that these online study pages aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. We go to some effort to provide optional information here and in the videos for participants interested in digging a little deeper.

Matthew, Tami, and I feel that it’s important for people to know that sometimes asking the right questions is more valuable than having all the answers. It took us at Turning to God’s Word some time to reach this idea. The bottom line is that no one’s able to hold onto information that they’re spoon-fed the same way that they can remember and live it when they have to dig out concepts themselves. This is a big departure from the scholarly model of Bible study where everyone expects an expert to tell them what the Scripture means, what’s important, and why. Sometimes when one of us sits in with a group, someone will ask what we had in mind when we wrote a particular question. People almost always find it shocking when they’re told that we were thinking we wouldn’t mind hearing a discussion about how others view the Scripture passage that sparked the question.

Studying Scripture presents some special stumbling blocks. Some images and ideas in the Old Testament we might or might not recognize as also occurring in the New Testament. There’s a danger that we become so concerned with understanding the message as it originally would have been received, especially in the Old Testament, that we miss noticing that everything points toward Jesus. Then there’s the other side of that danger, in which we concentrate so much on a Christian interpretation that we miss important historical information that can shed light on Jesus and what he came to do. Finally, there’s a very real danger that we will begin to view Jesus as the end point and so miss seeing that the work of the Church only begins with Jesus’ death and Resurrection.

It’s easy to get derailed in one area and miss the big picture, which is why group discussion is helpful. If one person is focusing on history, someone else may be looking at the way the writing points to Jesus. Another person may be concentrating on how these ancient books are relevant in the present-day world. These different points of view combine to give us a clearer picture of who God is and what God is saying to us in Scripture.

more about the online study pages & videos
We hope that some people will find Bible study so compelling that they’ll want more information than realistically fits in the study books. We want to provide a vehicle for extra material and an easy way for people to ask questions and make comments, especially with so many contradictory views floating around on the Internet and elsewhere.

It’s also our intent that the books, online study pages, and videos each be able to stand alone if need be. We don’t want financial concerns or the lack of a compatible group to prevent anyone from reading and praying with the Bible. We know that there are people in our groups who never look at the website or watch the videos, just as there are people who do those things and more. The only really necessary part of studying the Bible, however, is reading the Bible. Everything else is secondary.

The caution we would add is that if you’re limiting your Bible study experience to reading the Bible—and you’re aware that you don’t understand what you’re reading—you probably should take a look at the commentaries in the study book and on the online study pages, and also listen to any related videos. Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps frequently addresses some of the more obvious difficulties in those places. If you’ve read all of our related commentaries and watched our related videos and still have questions, shoot us an email. We’re always happy to discuss Scripture, and some of our most cherished insights have come about in conversation with others.

the best Catholic commentary about Scripture
To find out more about how Church teaching is supported by Scripture passages in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth, check out the Index of Citations in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Links to the primary Scripture passages in the lesson (Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition [RSVCE*]) and relevant paragraphs in the Catechism are provided here. Not every passage in the biblical text for this study is referenced in a Catechism paragraph, however.

ways our glossary might prove helpful
In addition to providing extra information about geographical locations, our glossary also points out persons and places mentioned in the biblical text under multiple names or spellings. If you can remember a name but aren’t sure in which lesson it shows up, you can find it in the glossary, which lists every proper noun that appears in the primary biblical text for The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

to learn more, read more Scripture
If you’re having difficulty with a passage of Scripture, it can be helpful to read the relevant cross references—but looking these up can take time. To make that easier, we’ve compiled the cross references from the Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition (RSV2CE)—the translation that we reprint in our study books. That list can be found at the top of every online study page accompanying this study, and it includes links to each of the cross references in the primary biblical text for The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

don’t forget about our indexes & extra online material
If you’re trying to locate information about a specific Scripture passage, you can look it up in the index at the back of the study book or sample lesson. If you want to find a particular commentary, you can look up its title in the topics index. To learn more about another book of the Bible for which there’s a Turning to God’s Word study, visit the online study directories to read the commentaries and watch any accompanying videos. Finally, if you have a question or would like to make a comment about any of our studies, you can use one of the “ask us your question” or “what do you think” buttons to email our authors.

ex libris—Church documents & books about religious topics
Link to magisterial documents referred to in our Bible studies at ex libris—magisterial documents. This listing includes significant recent encyclicals as well as a number of historical Church documents. Recommended books related to Scripture study can be found at ex libris—main bookshelf.

wondering how to pronounce some of these words?
The following link is to a reading from the New International Version (NIV) Bible. To listen, click on the audio icon above the printed text. Although not taken from the translations used in our study materials, the NIV reading provides an audio guide to pronunciation of words in this lesson’s primary biblical text. A close online version of the translation of the Bible used in Catholic liturgy in the United States as well as an audio guide for daily Mass readings for the current month can be found on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

the Gospel According to John 1:19–51 (NIV)

close with Bible-based prayer related to this lesson
Many of our Catholic study groups like to conclude their discussions with a prayer based on the scriptural focus of their lesson, and some participants include Scripture-specific prayer in their individual study. If you’re uncomfortable composing your own Bible-based prayers, you can follow our four easy steps, or you can use the following prayer based on this lesson’s text from the Gospel According to John.

God in heaven,
you revealed to John that your Son is the Lamb of God.
Inspire in us a desire to know and to follow Jesus
as the first disciples did,
even though we may not fully understand
all that we have learned about him from others.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ,
upon whom we hope to see the vision of angels ascending
and descending when heaven is opened to us. Amen.

Lesson 3 There Was a Marriage in Cana—the Gospel According to John 2:1–25
Lesson 1 In the Beginning Was the Word—the Gospel According to John 1:1–18

you also may like our study of the book of Revelation
The Revelation of Jesus Christ: The Faithful Witness, a 23-lesson Catholic Bible study with an imprimatur, examines ways in which our traditional Christian view of heaven is built on Hebrew apocalyptic visions recorded in the Old Testament. This recently revised study includes maps and additional commentary and takes a close look at the role of the prophets in present-day Christianity. Illustrations by Tami Palladino depict the often-misunderstood images in the book of Revelation. Click on the book’s cover to view a sample lesson.

start a Turning to God’s Word Bible study
Thank you for your interest in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth. Information about beginning a Turning to God’s Word Bible study can be found at start a Bible study. Tami, Matthew, and I are available to answer questions and offer support. Contact us if you’d like to start one of our studies or have your schedule listed with other TtGW study groups on our website. —Jennifer

*There are seven deuterocanonical books in the Old Testament—the Books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and First and Second Maccabees, as well as some passages in the Books of Esther and Daniel. Protestants usually refer to these works as “apocryphal,” a word that means “outside the (Protestant) canon” because they’re excluded from most Protestant Bibles. The word “deuterocanonical” means “second canon”; Catholics use that word to refer to any section of the Catholic Old Testament for which there are no extant, or existing, Hebrew manuscripts. All of the deuterocanonical books appear in the Septuagint, the earliest remaining versions of which date to the 1st century B.C. This Greek translation of the Old Testament was in common use by Jews at the time of Jesus. Learn more by reading How Do Catholic & Protestant Bibles Differ?

Turning to God’s Word printed Bible studies use the 2006 Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition (RSV2CE) translation for all Scripture references except those to the Psalms, which are taken from The Abbey Psalms and Canticles, prepared by the Benedictine monks of Conception Abbey and published in 2020 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). All Scripture links for the online study pages for The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth are to the 1966 Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE) translation. The New International Version (NIV) audio recordings follow the same chapter and verse numbering as the RSV Catholic translations, but the NIV translation doesn’t include the deuterocanonical books and passages.

The 1966 RSVCE uses archaic pronouns and verb forms such as “thee,” “thou,” “didst” in the Psalms and in direct quotations attributed to God. The 2006 RSV2CE replaces these with more accessible English. The few significant translation changes in the RSV2CE include rendering almah as “virgin” in the Book of Isaiah 7:14 and restoring the term “begotten” in the Gospel According to John 3:16.

Numbering varies for some passages in this Bible study. Turning to God’s Word studies (print and digital) follow the numbering in the Revised Standard Version Catholic translations (RSV2CE and RSVCE). Discrepancies in the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) are noted in the Index of Scripture Citations in the study book and the online sample.

You can learn more about the Psalms by viewing a sample lesson from the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study Sing a New Psalm: Communicating with God Through the Prayers of the Church—Volume I: Lauds & Vespers. The second part of that study, Sing a New Psalm: Communicating with God Through the Prayers of the Church—Volume II: Vigils, Day Prayer & Compline, is scheduled for publication in 2025. Some verse numbers may vary in different translations of the Psalms.

**Moses & Elijah show up together in the New Testament
Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus in all three versions of the Transfiguration recorded in the synoptic Gospels According to Matthew 17:1–8, Mark 9:2–8, and Luke 9:28–36. Why do you think that there’s no mention of this event in the Fourth Gospel even though the traditional author of the Gospel According to John was present in the accounts recorded in the synoptic Gospels?

The Gospel According to John:An Encounter with Grace & Truth

The Gospel According to John:
An Encounter with Grace & Truth