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    The Great I AM
    The Great I AM
    The Great I AM
    Ebook104 pages1 hour

    The Great I AM

    By John Zehring

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    About this ebook

    If you were to gaze up to the clouds and see one shaped like an elephant, you might consider it interesting. But, if you were to spot clouds that looked like eight elephants linked trunk to tail, would you not suspect that the pattern is no coincidence? That is what happens with Jesus’ I AM statements in the gospel of John, where Jesus declared I AM... the vine, the bread of life, the Good Shepherd, the gate, the light of the world, and others. They form a pattern which reveals Jesus’ own self-image, his self-concept. “The Great I AM” examines the I AM statements of Jesus individually and as a whole to see if the pattern might also suggest a mysterious meaning. To aid in the examination of Jesus’ I AM statements, the book features sections on the teaching methods of Jesus and basic questions to consider in bible study.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJohn Zehring
    Release dateAug 14, 2018
    ISBN9780463177495
    The Great I AM
    Author

    John Zehring

    John Zehring has served United Church of Christ congregations as Senior Pastor in Massachusetts (Andover), Rhode Island (Kingston), and Maine (Augusta) and as an Interim Pastor in Massachusetts (Arlington, Harvard). Prior to parish ministry, he served in higher education, primarily in development and institutional advancement. He worked as a dean of students, director of career planning and placement, adjunct professor of public speaking and as a vice president at a seminary and at a college. He is the author of more than sixty books and is a regular writer for The Christian Citizen, an American Baptist social justice publication. He has taught Public Speaking, Creative Writing, Educational Psychology and Church Administration. John was the founding editor of the publication Seminary Development News, a publication for seminary presidents, vice presidents and trustees (published by the Association of Theological Schools, funded by a grant from Lilly Endowment). He graduated from Eastern University and holds graduate degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary, Rider University, and the Earlham School of Religion. He is listed in Marquis' WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA and is a recipient of their Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. John and his wife Donna live in two places, in central Massachusetts and by the sea in Maine.

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      Book preview

      The Great I AM - John Zehring

      The Great I Am

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      Thank you for downloading this eBook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

      John Zehring

      Copyright 2018 John Zehring

      Introduction

      Do you like to look up into the clouds and see things? When you look up, can you see shapes or images that remind you of whales, horses, eagles, faces, fish, flowers, lions or elephants? If you looked up in the cloud and saw an elephant, you might note the design and think it to be a coincidence. The cloud looks like an elephant. But what if you looked up in the clouds and saw eight elephants linked trunk to tail? That would be a pattern that could not be a coincidence. Would you not wonder, what’s going on here? This is weird. This is no quirk. Something must be behind this. This is too much to be chance. There is a pattern like that in the gospel of John. Perhaps you have never noticed it before. Eight elephants in the clouds.

      Consider this about patterns. If you told something personal about yourself, people would know a little about you. If you told three things about yourself, a picture might start to develop. If you told eight personal things about yourself, a composite picture would form of who you are. Try that: can you think of eight answers you would give to tell about yourself? For example, I am a husband. I am a grandfather. I am a kayaker. And so on. Most of what first comes to mind seems to be about important relationships, loves, work, and interests. Could you push it a bit further to capture some of what you value? For example, I am a grateful person. I am a person of faith. I am a person who tries to be kind. I am a person who values honesty, integrity, and peacefulness. I am a citizen who craves for my country to be good. The more you tell about your I am statements, the more is revealed about you as a person.

      This is the sort of strange and amazing pattern that is found in the gospels. There are eight times or more – maybe as many as a few dozen – where Jesus said "I am... something."

      I am the bread of life

      I am the light of the world

      I am the good shepherd

      I am from above

      I am the true vine

      I am the resurrection and the life

      I am the gate.

      I am he.

      These are known by biblical scholars as the I AM statements of Jesus. There are too many of them to be a coincidence. There is a pattern here... like the eight elephants in the clouds. Something is going on.

      Before digging into the I AM statements, consider two under-currents that operate under the study of the gospels:

      First, Jesus was a master wordsmith. He knew what he was doing with words. He made plays on words, he spoke in metaphors and symbolic language, and he used Middle Eastern teaching techniques like hyperbole and parallelism. There are levels of meanings and mysteries to his stories and teachings that just when you think you got it, you dig deeper to find there is more. Perhaps it is like an archeological dig in an ancient land. Underneath a current village, archeologists dig to discover another village buried underneath. But wait. As they continue to dig, they find even another hidden village buried under that one. They conclude that over the millenniums, villages were built overtop of previously existing villages.

      There are invisible subterranean levels of meaning in Jesus’ teachings. For example, when Jesus said my yoke is easy, he was making a play on words. This is very subtle and you wouldn’t know it without a look at the Greek from which NT is translated. Easy in Greek is "chrestos" and Christ in Greek is "christos." Only one vowel distinguishes the one from the other. So when Jesus said My yoke is easy, he could be saying the yoke fits you well, but he could also be making a double entendre that the yoke is… ME… Christos. I am the yoke that helps you pull your burden.

      Another example. Jesus spoke in patterns. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus began with the Beatitudes. These are the verses that begin "Blessed are..." Blessed are the poor in spirit... Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness... and so on. There are nine of them. A pattern. All beginning with the same phrase. And then, right after that, there was a pattern of six couplets that Jesus used which are not easy to spot unless you are looking for patterns. Here, Jesus gave a series of You have heard that..., he cites an ancient law, and then he adds But I say to you, and then he cites his new expectations. Six times: You have heard that... but I say to you. That is the formula for the entire section. Not only do the individual verses have meaning, but the pattern has a meaning of its own. (See my book Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: Matthew 5, 6, and 7).

      So, let us begin by recognizing that Jesus was a master wordsmith who knew what he was doing with words and patterns of language, which suggest that his I AM statements are not an accident.

      Second, there may be a mystery to the pattern. The second undercurrent in the study of Jesus I AM statements is that there may be another secret level of meaning behind them... a mystery that when you fly above the pieces and look down upon the whole, you view Jesus in a way that you may have not seen him before. This may be like one of those pictures where you look at nothing but a bunch of colors on the page but then, if you can get it, suddenly a clear picture pops off the page and you see it, and once you have seen it, you will always be able to see it.

      The I AM statements provide a look inside Jesus’ head to learn what he thought about himself. They reveal his self-concept, his self-image. But there may be even more that the pattern reveals.

      And so, this book takes a look at Jesus’ I AM statements, individually and as a whole. After this review, it is my hope and prayer that you will discover Jesus again with a clearer vision about who he believed himself to be.

      Notes about this book

      Scriptures used in the work come from the New Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise noted.

      I have attempted to use inclusive language wherever possible in the words I have written, although I have not altered the author’s reference to God as he. I recognize that the Divine has no gender and for many it may be just as appropriate and accurate to acknowledge God as Mother or Father. Whichever pronoun is used, consider God as a loving parent.

      Some of this work is adapted from other books or eBooks I have written. My website can be found by searching online for John Zehring books.

      Now, as you engage The Great I Am, may these insights enrich your faith and your life and lead you further into your encounter with the Divine.

      John Zehring

      Before a review of Jesus’ I AM statements…

      Before a review of Jesus’ I AM statements, there are three preliminary considerations to help us understand the author’s writing.

      First, Matthew, Mark and Luke are similar. Much of the material in one is contained

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