Welcome to part two, Dr. Jason Cones, Matthew 14, Mark 6, and John 5 and 6.

Let's move on to the Gospel of John, to John chapter 5 and 6.

One of the non-synoptic Gospel. So what do we call it? Just John. That's what we call it.

There's the synoptics, and then there's John.

And then there's John. Yeah. So Eusebius, who's a fourth century Christian historian,

quotes Clement of Alexandria, who was writing in the second century, and he says that the reason we have the Gospel of John

is because of John's disciples. He says that John's disciples encouraged John to write this Gospel,

and that John was familiar with the other Gospels. So he decided to write a different kind of Gospel.

According to Clement of Alexandria quoted in Eusebius, he decided to write a more symbolic Gospel, or a more spiritual Gospel.

The backstage pass. That's right. Yeah. You can see that throughout John in the way that he selects his stories.

For instance, John's the one that makes it clear to us that there could have been a lot more books than what we have.

And he says that at the end of the Gospel that if we had written down everything Jesus said and did,

the world couldn't fit all the books that could be written. So John is being incredibly selective in the stories he chooses.

And it just so happens that some of the stories we're looking at today are stories that are found in the synoptic Gospels.

John includes the account of Jesus walking on water. He includes the account of Jesus miraculously feeding a multitude of 5,000 people.

But the way that John writes those stories is totally different than the synoptic Gospels.

You can put the synoptic Gospels side by side and sometimes read straight across and they use the exact same words.

John tells the same stories using his own words. He's being a little more creative here.

Now, one of the things John does in being very selective and symbolic in terms of the stories he chooses is John chooses seven miracles of Jesus to emphasize throughout his Gospel.

He likes the number seven. It's complete whole perfect. And you've already discussed on the podcast this year, the miracle of turning water into wine, the miracle of healing, the nobleman's son at the end of John chapter 4.

Now, in chapter 5 and 6, we get three miracles, three more miracles back to back. We get the healing of a man who is lame at the pool of Bethesda.

And then we get the feeding of 5,000. And then we get the miracle of walking on water.

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