Preface To The Second Printing
1. Must God Plead With God?
   
2. How The Spirit Leads
   
3. Physical Reinforcements of Faith
   
4. Jesus' Physical and Spiritual Death
   
5. Is There Merit in Pain?
   
6. The Six Days of Creation
   
7. Adding Guilt to Anxiety
   
8. Wine and The Disciple
   
9. Revolution or Evolution
   
10. I Am That Disciple
    
11. When People Disagree
    
12. Is Unity Based Upon Seven Doctrines?
    
13. Our Seven Sacraments
    
14. Instrumental Music
    
15. The Mood of Worship
    
16. Justified Then Sanctified
    
17. Is Christian Our Name?
    
18. The Lord's Table
    
19. Righteousness That Exceeds
    
20. Neither Destroyed Nor Nailed To The Cross
    
21. The Right of Self-Protection
    
22. A Tree of Error
    
23. God is Limited
    
24. You Are Here
    
25. God is In Charge
    
26. Hook's Points
    
27. Lamentations of A Mediocre Preacher
    

I AM THAT DISCIPLE

Did Jesus really love John more than the other disciples? Since John identifies himself as "that disciple whom Jesus loved," it is understood generally that Jesus loved him most. But I am raising 8 question about that, and I am being bold to assert that I am that disciple whom Jesus loved also.

As the author of the fourth Gospel, we see John to be a man of such modesty that he never mentions his own name even though he was much involved in the events narrated. He includes himself as "the other disciple" a number of times. He was reclining close to Jesus' breast at the Passover supper (John 13:23), but that would seem to be more an expression of John's love for Jesus than of Jesus' love for John. None of the other writers of sacred history point out John as being specially loved by Jesus. Were they unaware of such partiality or just too jealous to mention it?

Concerning Jesus' indiscriminate love for all of the disciples, John wrote of him "having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end"-or, to the uttermost (John 13:1). In view of all this, how could John be so shameless as to claim to be Jesus' favorite without his displaying unbecoming egotism and without tempting the other disciples to become alienated by jealousy?

Five times this unpretentious man identified himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved. This seems to be a distinction that John claimed for himself long after the events of the narrative took place. As the years passed, he could relive by memory those experiences with his beloved Jesus. Perhaps, he remembered with some embarrassment his lack of faith, his faltering support, and his reluctance to express his love to him while with him. After a loved one is taken from us, we are inclined to recall our experiences together and to reproach ourselves for not having been kinder, more expressive of love, and more considerate of that loved one. The fact that the departed loved us in spite of our faults becomes more evident, causing us to contemplate deeply, "How he/she loved me!" So, in his own feelings of unworthiness, after witnessing and reflecting on the ultimate demonstration of Jesus' love for all sinners, John could think of Jesus as giving himself for him in a very personal way. Then in humble praise of him who loved such an unworthy person, John could exalt Jesus by declaring, "I am the disciple whom Jesus loved!" There was nothing exclusive about such a claim.

When I reflect on how he loved me individually when I was a helpless offender, I also can declare, "I am that disciple whom Jesus loved!" So can you.