David Ford is Regus Professor of Theology at Cambridge and I was just privileged to hear him speak on ‘The Gospel of John – Abundant meaning, Abundant love.’ Here are my unedited notes. John’s is a gospel of abundance. He’s studied it for 19 years and still feels he has had a cup from a huge barrel. John 3:16 sums up the gospel – it’s all about love! It’s the latest to be written, and we think John knew the synoptics. So we can make connections with them. He may have written it in Ephesus, and even knew the Pauline tradition so here you have the gospel narrative and the theology so he was known as ‘ho theologos’in the Eastern church. Hans Urs von Balthasar “Most saint’s lives can be summed up as the exegesis of one scripture.” John wants you to think in terms of abundance. How many fish? How much wine? How much glory! He wants us to think differently about big concepts, about time, and about love. 1 John is the first commentary on John – a Johannine community […]
