John The Apostle Essay, Research Paper
John the Apostle, one of the brothers who gained the nickname “Sons of Thunder”, was Jesus’ favorite apostle to him. John was there when they feel asleep in the garden, which he takes harshly to that he did, and he also was at the foot of the cross when Jesus was being crucified. The Romans exiled him to the island of Patmos when he was about the age of 80 for the reason that he had converted many people even when he was in jail. The Romans tried to execute John before this time by boiling him in a pot of oil, but God delivered him for the scorching oil and he got out of the pot without a burn on him. Even Roman guards who witnessed the miracle believed and then converted.
John is a very clever apostle with a strong heart. He was able to trick the Roman general to take Luke’s gospel by putting the scroll on the wall of the cave. The Roman general took the scroll because he was to confiscate any Christian materials. John knew that the general would read the gospel, and since the gospels are preserved and written in a way by the Holy Spirit, the words of Luke made sense to the general. The general then was converted by the cleverness of John.
John speaks of Peter the Apostle as being the strange apostle. Peter would always be doing outrageous, but funny, events. Such as when Jesus was resurrected and some of the apostles, including John and Peter, were fishing and had caught nothing all day, Jesus came to them on the shore. Jesus asked if they had caught anything, and they yelled back, not knowing whom it was, to go to the next harbor for there were no fish here. Jesus then told them to cast their nets to the right, of which they did. They caught an overflowing net of fish, and then, all the apostles knew who it was. Peter jumped out of the boat, and swam to shore to greet Jesus. After getting to land, they emptied their nets, and ate fish. John says at this time, “it felt like old times,” referring back to the mission of Christ.
John did not find himself as a good example of Jesus Christ because of the short and riotous temper. However, he was with Jesus every possible moment. When Peter denied Jesus three times when asked by the woman, and the two Roman guards, John had no pity on the extremely miserable Peter who had denied his teacher. But John did know that he, and the others even let Jesus down by sleeping in the garden when Jesus truly needed them while he prayed, which made John was feel awful. John was also at the foot of the cross when Jesus was nailed to it, and was deeply doleful. He saw his teacher and best friend dieing a horrible death by Roman persecution. As the other apostles were hiding as cowards, John was so hurt he did not care about the Romans.
He referred to himself as Jesus’ favorite apostle. He wrote a gospel and also the revelation. The revelation was so intense for John that he had a hard time explaining it, but it was a vision that came from God explaining the end of the world. John was so taken by this vision, as anyone would. He is the only apostle not to be martyred, mainly because he was delivered by God and the Romans didn’t want any more conversions of there guards and citizens. He imitated Jesus by, well, having visions of him. He followed him for over three years, and then became a forefather of the church, writing many letters and other writing. He was actually hesitant to write his gospel because he believed that all there was to be known, was written by Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Synoptic Gospels), but the Holy Spirit gave him the power, or confidence, to write it.
I believe that the actor in the movie did do a good and credible job of John the Apostle. If anything, he was a great actor who was able to portray John the Apostle with his abilities. His expressions and body movements were very believable and the use of lighting, props, and the overall way it was put together was very entertaining. The way of making it into a story was very creative, and the actor did a superb job of playing the crowd.
Even though John had a loud mouth with a short temper, he was still full of love. Maybe some of the was from being old and senile, but he was a great man and apostle. He was probably the closest follower to Jesus, and all of this being just a regular man. He even says that the apostles were not men of great intelligence, mentioning Peter, but regular men such as you and your fathers. They were men of all backgrounds, from fishermen to tax collector. Jesus did not discriminate against them, or anyone for that matter, but was full of love. These men followed Jesus not to take over after his death, but to learn from Him and live in His way.
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