(+) John's Story (2006 LaHaye/Jenkins), novel

John's Story: The Last Eyewitnes (2006) is a novel by Tim F. LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.

Abstract

Ninety-year-old John, the last surviving apostle, remembers his broken life before befriending Jesus and is called upon to write a gospel that definitively establishes Jesus as the Son of God. Book One of The Jesus Chronicles by a leading team of evangelical preacher and writer.

Editions and translations

Published in the United States (New York, NY: Putnam Praise, 2006).

Synopsis

John's Story begins in Rome in 95 A.D. John has been imprisoned by the Roman Empire and is awaiting his trial before Caesar Domitian. While he waits for the death he knows will soon be prescribed, a prison guard is introduced to bring the reader into the political landscape of Rome in the late first century AD. The guard is bloodthirsty, and shares his admiration of the Caesars who, in their divine power, destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem and crucified a million Jews in just four months. He is wary of John, because he speaks boldly of his Lord, the one true God in Christ Jesus. John's faith in Christ leads him to openly admit before Caesar Domitian that he worships only Jesus, and Domitian sentences John to be boiled in oil. Although the oil begins to boil and the shackles holding John melt away, John doesn't feel the heat of the oil, and is miraculously spared from death. His survival amazes the crowd, who begin to believe in the power of Christ, but Domitian is not pleased. John is sentenced a second time to hard labor on the island of Patmos. The story then digresses to explain the events prior to John's arrest. John is the last surviving apostle of Jesus Christ, and is now the foremost leader of the fledgling church. He preaches in the city of Ephesus, which is seen as the den of all things wicked and heretical. It is about this time that the Gnostic churches begin gathering favor, and the blasphemies of one Cerinthus force John to take drastic action lest his flock of believers be dissuaded from the truth. With the help of his pupil Polycarp, John endeavors to write his own account of the gospel. The completion and publication of his gospel stalls the progress of the Gnostic churches, but seals his fate when the Roman government catch wind of his ideals put into writing. During John's imprisonment on Patmos, he is given a revelation by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit instructs him to write epistles to the major churches in Asia, and shows to him what must become in the end of days. Using whatever crude methods he can find, he records his visions on papyrus and longs for the day when he can deliver his message to the world. Within the year, Domitian is killed in a coup, and the new Caesar pardons all of Domitian's prisoners. John was free to return to his home in Ephesus to copy and print the document that had become his sole purpose in life. John survived long enough to see his messages delivered and the Gnostic churches all but defeated before he became the only disciple of Jesus to die a natural death in his sleep. -- Daniel Geieger, University of Michigan