In “John (Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries),” Luther seminary professor Karoline Lewis has written a commentary that invites readers into an encounter with the Jesus of John’s Gospel. Lewis gives homiletical and exegetical insights in this volume that make it a useful and unique resource for both preachers and their listeners.
At the beginning, Lewis addresses problems in the interpretation of the Gospel of John that have made it a more difficult text for preachers. She then identifies eight major theological themes that are found in the prologue of John’s Gospel and used throughout the entire narrative. The emphasis is on how the Gospel of John functions as a whole and how preachers can make these connections. Each chapter explores the major theological themes and features clear connections back to the lectionary that will assist anyone preaching on this text.
Phyllis Tickle commented, “There is a kind of common agreement that commentaries are not meant to be exciting reading. Lewis’ “John” not only breaks that premise, it shatters it. John, in Lewis’s hands, becomes a writer of great skill and subtlety, one whose Jesus is more direct and powerful and complete than I, at least, had ever perceived before. This book, which is filled with wit and sharp insights and brilliant turns of phrasing, should be in the hands of every lay Christian, as well as in those of the ordained. Here is a John most of us have not seen before and, as a result, a Jesus whom many of us have also never before been led to fathom.”