St. John the Evangelist - New Evangelizers

St. John the Evangelist can certainly be classified as one of the first Christian evangelists. St. John is given many titles, the Beloved, the Apostle, the son of thunder, of Patmos, the Presbyter. It is argued that he had so many names and experiences and has written so many documents that he is probably several different people. There is no convincing evidence, so far.
St. John was the son of Zebedee and Salome. He was the younger brother of James, implied by James always being listed first . Zebedee had a fishing company, with several boats and hired men. Both sons worked for their father. This company was moderately successful, as evidenced by a discussion in the Bible of his home and by the fact that Salome was one of the women who followed Jesus and supported the needs of the apostles. A poor woman would have to stay home and care for her husband. A woman like Salome was most likely to have a servant or two to tend to her husband so that she could assist a higher calling. One wonders what type of person Zebedee was to allow his wife and children to leave!
The two brothers were originally seen to have followed John the Baptist in Jordan. In John 1:35, two men (later they seem to be Andrew and John) saw Jesus walking by. The Baptist pointed Him out and exclaimed “Behold the Lamb of God”. This impressed the men and they followed Jesus, asking Him where He lived. He invited them to see and they stayed the whole day, discussing Jesus’ teaching. Their hearts were probably transformed that day!
John left his father’s employ. He followed Jesus to Galilee. He was at the marriage of Cana. He went to Capernaum with Jesus. He was constantly in the presence of the Lord except for the time he went on missionary work after receiving the gift of healing.
John appears to have been in the “inner circle”, the three special friends of Jesus who were singled out for additional special events not shared by the other apostles. Peter, James and John were the only apostles at the Transfiguration, the only ones who saw the raising of Jairus’ daughter (Mark 5:37) and the only ones who shared the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. After a while, Salome saw this distinction and asked Jesus for special distinction for her sons when they got to Heaven. His response was “You do not know what you are asking.” He assured her and the brothers that they would have to suffer. And they acknowledged this. The brothers were nicknamed the Sons of Thunder, possibly as a joke implying their impetuosity or their loud manner. It looks like they got it from their mother.
Peter and John were paired up on several occasions, separate from the others. The two were the ones to prepare the final Passover dinner. And it was the two of them who first approached the tomb on Easter morning. The impetuous John was noted as running ahead.
John was given the distinctive honor of taking Mary as his own mother on Good Friday. It is said they were never separated.
Once the Lord appeared to the Apostles in the upper room, John, Peter and their siblings returned to their fishing boats, not knowing what else to do. It was here on the shore of Galilee, that Christ appeared to the men in their boats. John was the first to recognize his Master.
After the Ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit, the men had their spirits revived and their understandings enhanced. Peter and John again were paired in Jerusalem, attending temple together, healing a lame man (Acts 5:9) and protesting against the threats of the Sanhedrin (Acts 4:13). They shared prison together (Acts 4:3). All the while they testified to the Gospel. Most of the Apostles stayed close to Jerusalem for twelve years until the persecution of Herod Agrippa I forced them away.
John, the one who was so angry at the Samaritans earlier, was the second apostle, along with Peter, to go to them and assist in converting. He traveled throughout Asia Minor, establishing churches, according to St. Jerome. John returned to Jerusalem for the Apostolic Council, which took place about 51 AD. His path did not often cross Paul’s but Paul proclaimed James, John, and Peter as pillars of the Church (Gal 2:9). His mastery of teaching and organizing the churches preceded John. John was very successful in establishing the churches in Asia Minor; Paul, in the Mediterranean rim; and Peter, in Rome. The Christian community continued to grow exponentially.
Domition, the emperor from 81 to 96 AD, supported the traditional Roman religion and taxed the Jews highly. But he did not seem to have a mass religious persecution. However, St. John was arrested in about 95 AD. He may not have been arrested for his Christianity, but for something he may have said about Domition’s self-proclaimed title “Dominus et Deus” (Lord and God). He was brought to Rome. Tertullian and Jerome mention that John was placed in a cauldron of boiling oil, with no injury to himself. At any rate, since the oil did not work, John was sentenced to working in the salt mines of Patmos.
When Nerva rose to power, after the assassination of Domition, John was released from Patmos and went to Ephesus, a place he had visited from time to time in the past. Timothy, Paul’s companion of old, had been a leader of the Christian community there and had been killed in 97AD. John, by now a man of over 80, became bishop of the established Church there.
Irenaeus, through Eusebius’ book, told several tales about St. John. One, showing his horror of heresy was this: St. John was in a public bath when he heard that a famous heretic was there also. Fearing that a sign from heaven could destroy the roof and crush him, John quickly left the place. Yet, there was another story of his great love for sinners: John had once commended a young man to a bishop. Years later, he heard that the man had turned to a life of crime and was a robber. Old as he was, John chased the man into the mountains to tenderly talk him back to the path of righteousness.
It is said that John wrote both his gospel and most of the book of Revelation in Ephesus. He lived out the rest of his life there. Even as a very old man who could no longer walk, John was carried into the meeting places to deliver short phrases. His most common was “Little children, love one another.” This was the basis for all his evangelizing.
If you get nothing else out of this essay, remember the words of a very old and fragile man: “Little children, love one another.”

© Debbie McCoy, 2017

Debbie McCoy

Debra Booton McCoy is a cradle Catholic and is a native of central New York. She works in the health care field and spends her spare time writing and enjoying her family, two grown children, and husband Bob. Debra is a published author, having written a column for a women’s monthly newspaper in the mid-1990s and published her first book in 2014, an edited version of a French book from the 1800s, “A Catholic Mother Speaks to Her Children” by Marie, Countess de Flavigny. This is an advice book for children. She is finishing the edit of “Conferences for Boys”, by Fr. Reynauld Kuehnel, the first of four books by this priest. Debra started a Catholic publishing company in 2013, Lanternarius Press, with the purpose of adding another moral compass to print media.You can visit her website at lanternariuspress.net or visit Lanternarius Press on Facebook