John is an excellent gospel, but it's not the only one. It talks a lot about belief, especially in the first few chapters, and it doesn't talk too much about nonviolence, so people who want to make Christianity entirely about a "belief" (defined as merely mental assent) and want to avoid talking about nonviolence tend to steer people to John to the exclusion of the other gospels.Wade wrote:Almost everyone kept telling me John first. But as an unchurched person it was the most confusing place to start for me. I never knew Jesus was the Word so it sounded strange that a word was with God. But then when it says it was Jesus I wondered why He would be called a word... Then those same people would refer to the Bible as the word... So I would say that I thought Jesus was the word. And they would say he was/is. So why do you call the Bible the word? Did the Bible fall out of the sky on John when he was alone in the wilderness?
I cringe when I hear about John first...
Matthew first and then carry on through. By the time they get to John it might make a bit more sense.
I think we do best when we get the whole witness of scripture. Read a bit of Matthew, read a bit of John.