Throughout this journey through the Gospel of John, which begins Monday and continues through Easter Sunday, we are eager for you to Come and See Jesus for yourself. Celebrity Bible teachers and authors, church leaders, family, and friends can point you to Jesus, just as John the Baptist told his followers, “I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God” (1:34). But it’s not enough to hover in the shadow of the faithful. At some point with God softening your heart, you must make the most important decision of your life — whether you believe Jesus is the Son of God, the Lamb of God sent to earth to make you right with Him, or whether He was just a good man.
As we begin our time in John, you’ll learn how Andrew, a follower of desert celebrity John the Baptist, turned to follow Jesus, who invited him to “come and see” (1:39). When Philip decided to follow Jesus, he used the same phrase with his buddy Nathanael, who doubted anything good could come from Nazareth.
In the next seven weeks, we invite you to Come and See what John, a disciple of Jesus who walked beside Jesus during His public ministry, felt were the most important details for you to know in order to follow whole-heartedly after the Lamb of God. You can expect special content on the blog Monday through Friday for six weeks and then a full week of Easter surprises in our final week of Come and See.
Today in our UFC Women’s podcast, Jamie Harms introduces us to the book of John.
If you signed up for the just-concluded Embracing God’s Rest, you do not need to sign up for this journey through John. You’re already registered. But if you didn’t explore sabbath rest with us, we encourage you to sign up with this link. Everyone who is signed up for Come and See will receive a special something for the women’s ministry team at UFC in her mailbox in the next few days and on her porch during Easter week!
We will also host Thursday discussion groups for the women who are reading through John with us. We want these times together to challenge and to encourage as we learn and grow. If you are interested in joining us for one of these group times — either in person or via Zoom — please email Jamie Harms at jamieharms@gmail.com.
As part of our weekly lineup on the blog, we plan to share the truth-filled lyrics of a hymn written long ago. These songs of praise bring the gospel story to life and remind us of the character of our Jesus.
Our theme hymn for this series comes — like the name of our journey this spring — from the first chapter of John’s gospel. “Come and See” was written in 1900 by Eliza Edmunds Hewitt, a public school teacher turned poet during a lengthy recovery from a spinal injury. While she was wrapped in a heavy cast for six months, her love for the Lord and His Word grew, and on the day she was first allowed to walk to a nearby park, she wrote the song “Sunshine in My Soul” (1887).
E.E. Hewitt went on to write an unknown number of hymns as part of her ministry as a Sunday school director, possibly as many as 1,800 songs, including “My Faith Has Found a Resting Place” (1891) and “When We All Get to Heaven” (1898). Our theme hymn, which was set to music by J.H. Tenney, is lesser known but no less powerful, especially as we see the character of our Jesus as described in the gospel of John.
As we begin our journey through the Gospel of John, we encourage you to grab a pen and journal to list the names, words, and phrases that describe God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As you keep this list going through each chapter of John, you’ll be amazed just how long your list gets. If you’re looking for a special way to journal through Come and See, you might fill up your journal from the last study or consider this dotted journal or lined journal that includes the full ESV text of John.
We’ll see you back here on Monday as Jamie Harms provides our first teaching from John 1 and 2!