Biblical Narrative Learning by Ha Tung Chiew;

Author:Ha, Tung Chiew; [Ha, Tung Chiew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781498205139
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Published: 2015-10-16T07:00:00+00:00

4

Learning Faith in John’s Gospel

The Johannine community had waited a few decades longer than the Matthean or Markan communities for the second coming of Jesus. While waiting, various issues arose about the way to live in the midst of their faith tradition, and especially the kind of living as it related to God and to others. How should the Johannine community anticipate life as they await the eschaton? John wrote to teach faith as an obedient to God through consummation of love. He presented the stories of the characters, centering on Jesus, the main character, in order to teach adequate faith. He aimed to edify the community for its prosperous survival as they journeyed on. This chapter will present a learning process that emphasizes living with adequate faith so as not to waver in their following while the journey continues. The learning goal of John’s audience-students is the focus here: seeing, knowing, learning and remembering how faith is lived out in the life stories of real people.

This chapter will take three readings of faith taught by John through the characters in the six signs in John 2–12 and the life of faith of the main character Jesus. The first reading will focus on the characters and their responses to their encounters with Jesus.431 The second reading will focus on the temporal aspect in John’s narration. The second reading will highlight this unique teaching element in John’s Gospel and how it reinforced the core theme of living a way of life by faith. This faith, as the six signs highlighted, is one that entails waiting in suspense for God’s action to be realized.

The third reading reflects a narrative reading of Jesus’ life story. Besides the commonly acknowledged teaching of Jesus, it is also the plot of John’s Gospel to present the main character Jesus who lived faith in suspense. The faith of Jesus, as emphasized in Johannine Jesus, is living in close relationship to the Father. Jesus is the core imitative reference for the Johannine audience. As examined in chapter 3, John’s showing and telling of Jesus’ crucifixion help facilitate a teaching through rich engagement of the audience in various sensory faculties. Here, the narrative reading of Jesus’ life story reveals his ultimate faith in the Father as Jesus approached his crucifixion. John’s narration portrays Jesus as exemplar of living faith-in-suspense, and Jesus is the grand sign-event of the Gospel. Jesus was able to obey in extreme condition because of his deep love for the Father and vice versa. From these three readings of faith-in-suspense, one could discern the application in biblical education among the contemporary Christians living under constant and increasing double threat of the racial and religious extremists.

Learning Biblical Faith through Seeing Adequate Faith in John 2–12

Let’s look at the characters in the John 2–12 and how they responded to their encounters with Jesus in the six signs. The section will begin with a narrative reading of the plot of John’s Gospel, followed by a survey of the recent studies on the characters in the Gospel of John.

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