This is the Memo podcast with Marty Solomon. I'm his co-host, Brent Billings. Today we are starting our verse by verse journey through the Gospel of John, starting with the discussion about how John introduces us to Jesus.

Yeah, we'll see if we can still do this, Brent Billings. I feel like I got a bunch of rust. I'm not gonna hear.

Well, we have new music that is special for this series through John. So we're, you know, we're just, we're charging ahead a new territory here.

We forgot about the new music. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. It's what I'm talking about.

Some people said it would never be done, but here we are. Verse by verse through John.

Verse by verse through John. I don't know who said it would never be done. I think that was me, wasn't it?

I'm pretty sure it's you. But the people just kept asking for it and they asked and they asked just like Israel asking for a king.

I'm just kidding. It wasn't quite like that. But here, here we are.

Of all the books that people say is their favorite book of the Bible. I think John has got to be probably the most common for people.

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And it is. It's just John's one of my favorite New Testament authors. If not my favorite New Testament author, the gospel of John is just excellent.

I've just never been forced to actually, you know, I've gotten to do lots of sermons and have a ton of just great dialogue and conversation with other thinkers about John.

It's one of my favorite conversations. I just, it's not my body of work. So I had to, I had to spend a bunch of months like just reading my entire, I mean, I don't have a huge library, but I have a chunk of my library.

I was on the gospel of John that I hadn't read. And most of those books, Brett were garbage. So we won't be, but, but again, you know, you read that stuff and it just got me more and more like I just kept going through the text of John and kept like, OK, don't like that. Why don't I like that? OK.

Read all those books were good. I will make some recommendations for people that I would like some sources on John. I used to get that email all the time. So I'm glad to have some answers now for everybody that emails me about John because that was a, you're right.

Like people want to know about John more than any other book of the New Testament in particular, I, or maybe even the Bible, I get more emails about like John and resources for John than anything. So.

And when somebody hasn't read the Bible before, people are like, well, just start in John. Yep. Don't start at the beginning because you're going to, you're going to get a little bit in and then you're just going to get stuck on Leviticus or whatever. So start with John.

Yeah, they don't even say Matthew because you're going to get stuck on a genealogy first chapter. So start with John because it is, it is a lot more. There's images. There's, there's pictures. There's things that drive.

It's just maybe a little more friendly to the person who's, who's fresh and new to the Bible. And that's what John says he's writing for. He's writing so that people would know who the son of God, you know, but their faith in the son of God.

So I mean, that's John's, I mean, that's his thesis. So it makes sense. But a couple sources at all, point out right off the bat.

One of them that I read a while ago before I knew we were going to go through John verse by verse is I read a book called Reading the Gospel through Palestinian eyes by Johanna, Katanacho.

And, and I don't like every single book from Katanacho. He's a Palestinian believer, but he wrote a book and I have been trying to make sure that just in my library and in my studies, obviously I read a ton of Jewish thinkers.

And just to be a well-rounded human being, let alone a well-rounded student of the word, let alone a decent, you know, somebody who's aware of culture and just wanting to make sure you hear all the voices of what God's doing in the world.

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