Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Word Became Flesh | The Gospels | John 1:1–18

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

Why does John begin his Gospel with the opening words of Genesis? What does it mean that "the Word became flesh"? And what does this reveal about God's heart for us? In today's episode, Patrick shares how John 1:1–18 shows that Jesus came not only to save us, but to dwell among us and make us children of God. Read the Bible with us! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and it's never too late to join! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passage: John 1:1-18

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. If you've been tracking with us since the beginning of our year-long series through the gospel, then you'll know that we've covered Luke and Mark. Today we move to the most unique gospel of the four, the Gospel of John. Of course, unique doesn't mean better, just different. This biography of Jesus was likely written well after the completion of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, perhaps even much of the New Testament. But it's not its dating that makes it unique. It's the stories that it includes. While you'll hear stories that you recognize, many can be found nowhere else in the Gospels, which is perhaps why this

account was written to begin with. So who was the author of the Gospel of John? Well, you already guessed it. It was John. And while there were a number of John's in the early church, the Gospel's author seems to be Jesus' disciple John. John, his brother James, and his friend Peter, were a part of Jesus's tightest inner circle. All the gospel show moments where Jesus sets these three apart for a special purpose. You'll notice that as you read the gospel, it actually barely refers to John. Instead, you'll discover someone called the beloved disciple. That is John. And he wasn't saying that to set himself above the other disciples, but to highlight one core characteristic of Jesus. He loved people.

Decades after Jesus's death, John couldn't forget many things about Jesus, but perhaps, first and foremost, he couldn't forget how Jesus made him feel. He made him feel loved. He was the beloved disciple. I've often thought about this as a parent. My kids won't remember half or even a quarter of their childhood, but I know one thing they will remember, how I made them feel. And I can only hope that one of the words they'll use to describe my imperfect parenting

is loving. I hope they'll say, I felt loved. We don't have to wonder with Jesus. One of his dearest friends who spent years with him could claim beyond a shadow of a doubt, not just that Jesus loved him and loved people, but that there was no love like his. Nothing can compare. But let's get back to what makes this gospel so different. Unlike the other disciples, John was not executed for his faith. He traveled around Judea in his early years, eventually making his way to the region of modern-day Turkey. but at some point he did run up against the sturdy boot of Roman oppression. But rather than executing John and turning him into yet another martyr, they exiled him to a lonely island called Patmos,

and it was there that he wrote the Book of Revelation and may have even written his gospel account. We can't be totally sure. What we can be somewhat sure about is that John was aware of the other gospel circulating, and given his old age he felt compelled to record some of the stories that those gospels didn't include, some of the teachings they left out. He points out at the end of the book

that all the books in the world couldn't possibly hold the totality of Jesus' story. But why not try to add a few more words? Which is precisely what he does in this gospel. So what we have in the Gospel of John is Jesus' ministry in John's memory, Jesus' words in John's words, Jesus from the eyes of the disciple that Jesus loved to the end.

Unlike the other gospels, which begin with birth narratives or references to ancient prophets, prophecies, John goes back even further in time. He starts on page one of the Bible, page one of the universe, and he makes it crystal clear that Jesus was there. Let's pick up in verse one. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. John is echoing Genesis 1 in the beginning. But in the place of God, we meet a figure of called the word, or in Greek Lagos. This is a loaded term for any Greek speaker because

according to the philosopher Plato, the Lagos was the organizing principle of the universe. The Lagos stood above the Greek pantheon of gods as the single, perfect, ideal reality outside of reality. So John swoops in. He takes Plato's word and says that the Lagos was not simply an ideal or an organizing principle, but God himself. To the Greeks, the Lagos was an impersonal being, a force, a power, an idea, a principle. And the Lagos had nothing to do with creation because to the Greek mind, the physical world was polluted. But for John, the Lagos is something quite different. Yes, he's the organizing principle of the universe, but also he's its maker. John continues, in him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness has not overcome it. The Lagos, the word, is light in life, the one by whom we we see, the one who overcomes the power of evil, and unlike the impersonal Greek Lagos, this Lagos is the life of humanity. He is in fact humanity's rescuer. And then John presses this one step further. He says, the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son who came from the father full of grace and truth. The word, the Lagos, became flesh. In other words, the Lagos who stood above all physical reality in Greek thought, well, he entered into physical reality. And John says that the Lagos, the cosmic being behind creation, is none other than Jesus. In this verse, we read in English that the word made his dwelling among us.

But again, in Greek, it's something somewhat stranger. You could translate it as the word pitched his tent with us, or more literally, the word tented with us. This single passage recalls the Old Testament when God lived in a tent called the tabernacle with the Israelites. And yet again, it underlines both how like and unlike Jesus was to the Greek concept of the Lagos. He's not a distant, impersonal, organizing idea. No, he is the cosmic logic and creator and holder togetherer of all things. And remarkably, he became like us.

He pitched his tent with us. He moved into the neighborhood. He came to live with us. Why? John continues in verse 12. Yet, to all who did receive him, that's Jesus. To those who believed in His name, he gave the right to become children of God, children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or of a husband's will, but born of God.

Jesus came to rescue us from darkness and to adopt us into God's family, to make us children born of God. In other words, he came to love us, to love us more deeply than we could hope for, and to restore us more fully than we can imagine. And who would know this better than the beloved disciple? The one Jesus loved so fully that he saw that Jesus could be none other than his creator, the living glory of the one true God.