Book Description

Excerpt from John and His Writings At the close of our volume on Paul and His Epistles we said that John was the greatest theologian of the apostolic times; and, while we recognized that the Pauline influence had dominated the thought and life of the church at large, and we believed that it ought to do so until the missionary and evangelistic work of the church was done, we prophesied that then the Johannine theology would be the supreme influence in the days of the church's edification and consummation in love. That prophecy indicates our estimate of the final position to be accorded the apostle John. We believe that as the church grows in grace and becomes more and more like its Lord it will more and more agree with him that John is the disciple most worthy of its love. There is a disposition at the present time with a certain class of writers to emphasize the dependence of John upon Paul, and these writers try to make it appear that the author of the Johannine books was a disciple of Paul even more fully than he was a disciple of Jesus. We believe that John always was a receptive soul and that he probably learned much from Paul, as from every other strong personality with whom he came into contact, but the supreme influence in all his more mature life was that of the Master. For the most part he was one of the quiet in the land, and he stood nearest to the Master, and he saw deepest into the Masters spirit and truth, and he meditated longest upon these things, and in the end he formulated more fully than any other the essentials of the new faith; and as far as he went we believe that he has spoken the final word in this field. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.