The Man God SentSample

The Man God Sent

When Mark lists the disciples, he names the sons of Zebedee: James and John. They had a nickname: the sons of thunder. In the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus was going to go to the Samaritan city, and they didn’t want him to come, James and John got offended. They said, “Hey, Jesus. Is it true they’re not going to let us come in? Are you serious, dude? Just call fire down from heaven. Just burn up the whole city; yes, everyone.” They pretty much quoted what happened with Elijah, when Elijah called fire down from heaven (2 Kings 1). But Jesus was like, “Sons of thunder, what’s wrong with you guys? Relax.” These are two angry guys. We’ve all had angry friends. I had this friend who would get so angry he’d grunt and turn red and his nickname was “Angry.” We had this other friend who was called “Grumpy” because he was always grumpy. Jesus was with His disciples for three years. Don’t you think He had nicknames for these guys? So, sons of thunder were these guys’ names. 

But John had another nickname. He wrote the Gospel of John, and in it, he calls himself “the disciple that Jesus loved” (John 13:23, 20:2, 21:7). He threw this little plug like Jesus didn’t love anyone else—the disciple among the 12 apostles, you know, the one who Jesus actually loved, that was John—that was him. 

People say that the Gospel of John was written around AD 90. Its purpose is to share that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that all who believe in Him will have eternal life. John’s theme is that Jesus is the unique Son of God. John also talks about eternal life, the Holy Spirit, light versus darkness, and Jesus’ “I am” declarations, such as “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). 

So how did John—son of thunder, beloved, apostle—start off his book? He said that Jesus was there in the beginning, that everything was created through Jesus. Read John 1:1–5. Wherever it says, “The Word,” replace that with “Jesus,” because Scripture says that “the Word became human and made his home among us” (John 1:14). John is talking about Jesus. That’s what the Bible says: “God sent a man, John the Baptist, to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony.” (John 1:6–7)