Called To Be Friends

Unlocking the Heart of John's Gospel

Ian Galloway

• Publisher: Hodder Faith
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781529356823
• eBook ISBN: 9781529356847
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

Is it really possible to accept Jesus' invitation and become a friend of God? To know God is one of humanity's deepest desires - but how can it happen? Called to Be Friends is the result of exciting new research that unlocks the pattern of the Gospel of John to answer these questions. Ian Galloway reveals that John was written as a literary 'temple' that invites the reader inside to meet the person of Jesus. It is constructed as an elegant sequence of narrative panels, each with a section of the Old Testament written in underneath, to create a biblically rich space where the reader can encounter Jesus.The author's narrative analysis breaks new ground, but Called to Be Friends is written for everyone, and unlocks this beloved Gospel in a fresh and accessible way.

PART ONE

Friends of God

1

Called to Be Friends

Invitation and Challenge

Jesus loves people. He is irrepressible. You can’t turn a page in the Gospel without meeting someone experiencing a life-changing encounter with Jesus. Scholars have shown that one of John’s principles in selecting his material was to tell the stories of representative people – people like you and me.

Maybe you are like Nathanael. Nathanael is a faithful man. He is longing for people to live God’s way. He sees all the corruption and deception in the world around him and he wants nothing to do with it. But he feels overlooked. Jesus comes into Nathanael’s life with huge affirmation. Jesus sees the good in Nathanael and speaks it out loud. The effect on Nathanael is galvanising (1:45–51).

Turn over a page. Maybe you are like Nicodemus. Nicodemus is a highly educated and respectable man. He is very influential and well thought of in his community. But Jesus can see that what Nicodemus needs is not more learning, but new life from God. Jesus isn’t afraid to tell him so. Nicodemus blusters a bit. But then he goes quiet. Because new life is what he needs (3:1–9).

Turn over the page. Maybe you are feeling broken, rejected and all alone. You look back over your life and see so much pain and wreckage. You avoid people. You wonder what people are saying about you. You feel a failure. You are certainly not good enough for friendship with God. Jesus offers life-giving friendship to a person in that place. The transformation that happens in her life is nothing short of astonishing (4:7–42).

Turn over another page. Maybe you feel trapped and forgotten. You are just part of the crowd. You are going nowhere. Jesus goes to meet someone like that. He finds a man who hasn’t walked for thirty-eight years (5:1–6). Thirty-eight years. That is a lot of lying around on your mat. Jesus checks with him that he wants to be well. Then, with just a word, Jesus sends him off into town, carrying the mat that reminded him every day of his difficult life (5:8). Ironically, the mat-carrying thing causes trouble, because it is a Saturday, a Sabbath. Mat-carrying on a Saturday is against the local regulations (5:9–10). But we are jumping ahead.

Turn over another page. Jesus offers life to a whole bunch of rather sceptical people who don’t want to hear who Jesus truly is (6:26–59). They aren’t convinced. They find what Jesus says quite difficult. Which it is. Very difficult. So they walk away (6:66). Jesus turns to his friends and followers, who are still getting to know him. They are reading the story of his life as it happens before their very eyes. Jesus asks them, ‘Do you want to stick around with me? Or is this all a bit too challenging for you?’ One of his friends says this: ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.’ (6:68).

If you want the transforming life that comes from getting deeply connected to Jesus, then you are reading the right book. But I may as well warn you now: it’s going to be challenging. There may be a few times when you feel like walking away.

To start with, Jesus makes people think. I want this book to be an exciting journey of discovery for you. Things are so much more compelling when you find them out for yourself. I don’t want to tell you what to think. But I do want to make you think, sometimes quite deeply.

Second, Jesus offers life, but he also makes demands. I can’t pretend that it is otherwise. He is not alone in this, of course.

Third, all good things require a bit of application. Losing weight, running 10km, learning to scuba dive, making a great friend. None of these happens without some follow through. You will need a bit of grit to get the most from this book. Growing into a deep friendship with God is going to require something from you. Loving another is not a passive experience; it requires investment and active engagement.

Ask my wife.

Eternal Life

As we jump into the Gospel of John, we will see something very striking about Jesus: the extraordinary depth of his own relationship with God. Jesus lives in close communion with God. There is constant two-way communication and deep trust. It’s a living relationship: ‘Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does”’ (5:19–20).

Uniquely in John’s Gospel, Jesus draws back the veil on his own relationship with God as Son to Father. What he reveals of his Son–Father relationship is very attractive. However, it also gets him into serious trouble. His relationship with God threatens the authorities. Someone who talks in depth with God is a big problem if you happen to be one of the people in charge. More than that, it is theologically difficult for them. The religious authorities are fiercely protective of the doctrine of monotheism. Monotheism is the truth that there is One Holy Eternal Creator God who is Judge of all. But in trying to protect God’s uniqueness and oneness they have so confined God as a Single Separate Other that there is no space for them to understand Jesus. So they reject him. In their minds he is claiming something impossible: equality with God through a Father–Son relationship. Huge rows develop, and John’s Gospel is full of them. Both Jesus and the authorities use the Bible to support their positions. They aren’t arguing about whether the Bible is the Word of God. They are arguing about what it means. So it is painful for Jesus to live in intimate friendship with God. It means that many people rule him out before he even begins.

However, that does not deflect him. He is intent on bringing others into the same place of enjoying close friendship with God (1:12). Jesus repeatedly invites people to come to him and to receive life (5:21; 6:29–35; 7:37–8). Our understanding of what Jesus means by life grows as we go through the Gospel. But peeking ahead a little, Jesus sums up what life is all about when he is just hours away from his own death: ‘Now this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent’ (17:3, italics added).

What is eternal life? What is this gift of life that is so alive not even death can put an end to it? To have eternal life is to know God. Eternal life is a gift that enables me to relate to God in the same way as Jesus did. To know the Father as a friend.

This means, of course, that eternal life has already begun. Eternal life is not some future state of bliss that has no connection to current reality. Eternal life is not something that starts after my death. Eternal life begins when I step into friendship with God. Theologians call this ‘realised eschatology’. It means that the way things are going to be in eternity have already started in current reality, at least in part. Friendship with God is a rich gift that only Jesus can give. He can give it, because of who he is: ‘Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”’ (14:6).

Is it possible to have a relationship with God? To know God? God the all knowing, all wise, all everything you can think of. How can the smallness of I have a genuine relationship with the greatness that is God? Is personal friendship with God truly available? We will see that John addresses the challenges to knowing God from the beginning of the Gospel. Because deep and abiding friendship with God is where the author wants to take you.

Drawing Close

Jesus connects very deeply and very quickly with people. He has extraordinary relational strength. Once people get through their initial uncertainties, they feel very drawn to him. In the Gospel, a couple of people who are feeling really unsure about Jesus have extraordinary experiences. They suddenly realise that Jesus knows them. Either Jesus has deep intuitive insight or he has a God-given gift. Or both. One of the people he meets is so changed and healed by the experience that she immediately invites others to meet Jesus (4:39–41). Jesus goes viral in the village. It starts with her encountering Jesus. Then, because of what happens to her, everyone wants to meet him.

Discovering that Jesus knows you is a very exciting moment. Suddenly, nothing is hidden. He can see around the corners of your heart. He can see the good that sits inside you. He can see the potential that is in you, which others have not yet seen. He can also see where things have gone horribly wrong. No one enjoys that sort of stuff coming out into the light, but Jesus has a gentle way of insisting that it does. He is able to create the safe spaces where our past failures can get not just painfully re-examined but also resolved and healed.

What we will discover in the Gospel is that Jesus is genuinely interested in you. Jesus is going to lead you into the place where you know that you are known, and you are loved. We all want to do good stuff like serving the poor, bringing justice to the nations, stopping climate change, caring for our kids, earning a living and loving our neighbours. There is so much to be done. But to flourish in life we must be loved. Otherwise what we do becomes who we are, and that is not healthy.

In the Gospel of John, we meet a somewhat mysterious, unnamed disciple who eventually acquires something of an identity: ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’ (13:23). The Gospel teases us as to who he is, where he is from and whether he might be the author of the Gospel or not. We’ll get to that later. It is the description of the disciple that the author wants us to notice. He leans back on Jesus during a meal. He is held. He is comforted. He is close. Jesus speaks softly into his ear. He is the disciple whom Jesus loved. That kind of relationship is something we all deeply desire, especially, perhaps, with Jesus.

We are made to have close friends. We are made to be known. We are made to be loved. This is where Jesus wants us to live. He knows that to receive love is to receive life.

Drifting Apart

More than forty years ago, and completely to my surprise, I discovered that the resurrection was true, Jesus was alive, and that he was inviting me to be his friend.

But what I started to notice is that my friendship with Jesus easily got pushed to the edge of my life. I had the first heady days of discovering that I was a friend of God. My poor flatmates got to hear all about it. But I needed that to become more enduring. I needed to put friendship with Jesus deep down in the very heart of who I am.

Even more alarmingly, I began to see that it was possible for friendship with God to become peripheral to the life of the Church. That sounds ironic, and believe me, it eventually becomes tragic. But it is a story that I have heard too many times. One of the great promises God makes to his people is that we will all know him (Jer. 31:34). When relationship with God ceases to be at the centre of Christian community, the results can be catastrophic. The author of John’s Gospel knows all too painfully that it is possible to do religious things without knowing God. The outcome is disastrous, and John wants us to avoid it (8:31–43).

What happens when relationship with God is not foundational to life, either personally or in the church community?

Living God’s Way Becomes Difficult

The obedience that comes from knowing Jesus is very different from trying harder. Without a living relationship with God, Christianity descends into moralism. And moralism has failed. One sure way of getting people to do things is to tell them not to. We need more than just instruction. It is friendship with God that empowers us to become like God.

Church Stops Being Family

When church is family, those who are part of the church know that they are children of a loving Father who forgives them and receives them gladly. So they forgive and receive each other gladly. Well, most of the time. There is only one ethical instruction in the entire Gospel of John: ‘love one another’. Jesus tells his friends that what they have received from him they are to give to each other: ‘As I have loved you, so you must love one another’ (13:34).

Without love for Jesus, church stops being family. In my experience, church then descends into something else. It can look like a salesforce – peddling forgiveness of sins, life after death and possibly miracles as well. It’s sad when a church feels like it is offering a product for sale, rather than introducing people to a person they know. Or church can become an organisation that exists for the ego of its leaders. The church becomes a monument to them, the bigger the better. Or church can become a social action task force doing good works. It is good that good things happen, but the church is so much more than a charity. Without the energy that comes from knowing God, it eventually runs out of steam. Or church simply becomes a religious group going through rituals that have been hollowed out of their true meaning and power, which is the kind of church I grew up in.

Worship and Prayer Become Rituals

Worship and prayer are foundational to enjoying God. In prayer and worship our hearts connect deeply with God. However, it is sadly possible for our friendship with God to grow cold and distant. When this happens, the practices of prayer and participation in worship become human centred rather than life giving and God focused. Prayer descends into religious practice. This can be shouting to God, or earnest seriousness, or even silent sitting. But without relationship with God, prayer becomes religious duty. Worship too becomes focused on the process. Did I like the music? Or the lyrics? Or those leading and singing? Did it give me a good feeling?

I Remain at the Centre of My Life

Without friendship with God, I am tempted to believe that God is there to answer my prayers and bring me blessings. This view of life is built on the delusion that I can control God. Now, of course, God does answer my prayers and he does bless me. But only because he is a patient, kind, gracious Father. It is not because I am in charge of God or because I am the centre of everything.

But without relationship with God, the world revolves around me: my interests, my financial needs, my relationship needs, my ambitions, my political persuasions, my fulfilment. There is only one problem with this. It doesn’t. The world doesn’t revolve around me and God doesn’t revolve around me. When I get to know God, I suddenly realise that I am not the centre of everything. God is. This is a healthy place to live. Because it is a true and authentic place.

All of this points to something you already know: that it is essential to actively invest in your friendship with God – which is what this book is all about.

2

Knowing God

The Challenges

We want to know God and desire friendship with him. But we all face significant challenges to knowing God.

The Otherness of God

God is not like me. How can I know the eternal God? How can I know a God who stands outside time and sees all things? How can I know the creator God, the maker of the heavens and the earth with their vast expanse through time and space? How can I know a God whose wisdom and knowledge are evidently so far beyond me? I struggled just trying to learn French. How can I know a holy ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• About the Author
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction: That You May Know Him
• PART ONE: Friends of God
• PART TWO: Creating the Space
• PART THREE: Come Inside
• Conclusion: Written That You May Believe
• Acknowledgements
• Bibliography
• Notes
• Copyright