John, an apostle of Jesus

   The apostle John wrote 5 books of the Bible: the book of John which is sometimes termed a “gospel,” three epistles, and Revelation.
I John 4:8   “…God is love.”

   We learn of his ministry from statements like this from Irenaeus, who had known Polycarp, who had been taught by John [1]: “Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His [chest], did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.” [2]

   After much ministry in Ephesus, he was exiled during the reign of Emperor Domitian.  The one year of Domitian’s reign was so bad Eusebius stated: “…even historians that are very far from befriending our religion have not hesitated to record this persecution and its martyrdoms in their histories” [3].

   John was exiled to Patmos, which is southwest of ancient Ephesus.  On Patmos he wrote Revelation!
Revelation 1:9   “I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (NIV).

   After Nerva became the Roman emperor in 96 A.D., people who had been exiled due to religious persecution were permitted to return home.  John returned to Ephesus, which is where he apparently passed away [4].

   The strong tradition is that John was the only one of the twelve apostles not murdered.

Hunter Irvine

[1] William McBirnie, The Search for the Twelve Apostles
(Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1973), 110.
[2] Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., The Ante-Nicene
Fathers: The Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325 (1867; digital repr.,
Albany, Oregon: SAGE Software, 1996), 1:857.
[3] Eusebius, Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, trans. by C.F. Cruse
(Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1998), 83.

[4] Eusebius, Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, trans. by C.F. Cruse

(Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1998), 85.