I Am the New Testament: The Gospel of Jesus Christ as Given to John Including the First, Second, and Third Letters from John

By Berl Harrell

I Am the New Testament is a combined literal, amplified, and dramatized version including historical, medical, philosophical, and scientific subjects found in the footnotes at the end of various chapters in the Gospel and in the letters from the Apostle John.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973602996

Berl Harrell

Berl Harrell has worked in the missionary field since the early days of Shiloh Ministries in the 1970s to more recent times with the Missionary Baptist Church. Currently, he and his full-blood Choctaw Indian wife, Vee (and, yes, that is how she wanted it written), work in the missionary field with Native Americans, commuting from Oklahoma to South Carolina. They live in Arkansas with their two cats.

Book preview

Chapter 1

I n Beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 This One was in Beginning with God.

3 Everything came into existence through Him. Not even one thing came into existence without Him.

4 In Him was Life. This Life was the light of men!

5 The Light shines in the Darkness, but the Darkness cannot comprehend, control, nor conquer it.

6 [There was a man, having been sent from God, whose name was John.

7 He came to be a witness so that he might testify about the Light, so that everyone, through him, might believe and trust;

8 he was not that Light, but he came so that he might testify about that Light.]

9 This one was the True Light, who gives Light to everyone coming into the world.

10 He was in the world. The world came into existence through Him. Yet the world did not know Him.

11 He came to His own. Yet His own did not receive nor accept Him.

12 But, as many as did receive and accept Him: To them He gave authority to become children of God. (To those believing and committing their trust in His name;

13 not who were born of blood kinship, nor of the will of the body, neither of the will of men, but of God.)

14 The Word became a human being and dwelt among us! We beheld His glory, as the one and only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

15 John testified and cried out loudly, saying, This is He of whom I said, ‘He who is coming after me has been before me, because He was before me!’

16 Out of His fullness everyone received grace, but then exchanged for another grace

17 because the Law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came to take its place—through Jesus Christ.

18 No one has seen God at any time! The one and only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He reveals Him.

19 This is the testimony of John (when the Jewish authorities sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem so that they might ask him, Who are you?):

20 He confessed and did not deny, I am not the Christ.

21 So they asked him, Who, then?—Are you Elijah? He said, I am not.—Are you the Prophet? He answered, No.

22 Then they said to him, Then who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us.—What do you have to say about yourself?!

23 He said, I am a voice crying in the wilderness, ‘Guide straight the Way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.

24 (Those who had been sent were from among the Pharisees.)

25 They asked him, If you are not the Christ …—Nor the Prophet!—…then why do you baptize?

26 John answered them, saying, "I baptize in water, but one stands in your midst whom you do not know.

27 It is this One who is coming after me, who has been before me; of whom I am not worthy to even untie the latchet of His sandal."

28 (These things happened beyond the Jordan River, where John was baptizing.)

29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who is taking away the sin of the world!

30 This is He of whom I said, ‘After me is coming a man who has been before me, because He was before me!’

31 I did not know Him. Nevertheless, so that He may be manifest to Israel, I came baptizing in water."

32 John witnessed and testified, saying, "I beheld the Spirit coming down from out of Heaven as a dove, and it remained on Him.

33 I did not know Him, but the One sending me said to me, ‘On whomsoever you see the Spirit coming down—and remaining on Him—this is the One baptizing in the Holy Spirit.’

34 I saw this and testify that this one is the Son of God!"

35 Again, the next day, John and two of his disciples stood up.

36 Fixing his gaze upon Jesus as He walked, he said, Behold, the Lamb of God!

37 Having heard him say this, the two disciples followed Jesus.

38 Jesus turned around and beheld them following. He said to them, What do you seek? They said to Him, Rabbi (which, translated, means ‘Teacher’), where are You staying?

39 He said to them, Come and see! They went and saw where He was staying, and remained with Him that day (it was about four o’clock in the afternoon).

40 Andrew (the brother of Simon Peter) was one of the two disciples who heard John say this, so he followed Him.

41 The first thing Andrew did was find his own brother Simon and told him, We have found the Messiah! (which, translated, is the ‘Christ’.)

42 Then he led him to Jesus. With a discerning look at him, Jesus said, You are Simon, the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas (which, translated, means ‘a piece of rock’).

43 The next day Jesus decided to go out into Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, Follow Me.

44 (Philip was from Bethsaida, from out of the same city as Andrew and Peter.)

45 Philip found Nathaniel and said to him, We have found whom Moses wrote about in the Law and the Prophets! Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

46 Nathaniel said to him, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip said to him, Come and see!

47 Jesus perceived Nathaniel was coming toward Him and said about him, Behold, truly an Israelite in whom is no deceitfulness!

48 Nathaniel said to Him, From whence do You know me? Jesus said to him, Before Philip called you, being under the fig tree, I saw you.

49 Nathaniel said to Him, Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!

50 Jesus answered and said to him, You believe because I told you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree’? You shall see greater things than this.

51 Then He said to all of them, Truly, truly, I say to you: Hereafter you shall see Heaven opening and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

[John 1:5, The sun is about 100 million miles from Earth. Its temperature is about 10,500 degrees Fahrenheit. It radiates enough light in one hour to power at least seventy trillion 100-watt light bulbs for twenty-four hours. First Corinthians 15:52 reads, ‘In a moment! In the twinkling of an eye! At the last trumpet (for this trumpet shall sound) the dead ones shall be awakened and raised imperishable, incorruptible, and immortal! We shall be changed!’ Light travels at 386,000 miles an hour. The ‘twinkling of an eye’ is the amount of time it takes light to enter the eye and reflect off the retina. A ‘twinkle’ is about sixteen-billionths of a second. It takes the human brain about 130 billionths of a second to register an image. If something disappeared in sixteen-billionths of a second, it would take the human brain another 129.84 billionths of a second to realize it was gone.] [John 1:21, see Deuteronomy 18:15] [John 1:23, see Isaiah 40:3]

Chapter 2

O n the third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee. The mother of Jesus was there.

2 (Jesus and His disciples were also invited to the wedding.)

3 When they ran out of wine Jesus’s mother said to Him, They have no wine.

4 Jesus said to her, What does that have to do with you and Me? My Hour has not yet come.

5 His mother said to the servants, Whatever He says to you, do it.

6 Standing there were six stone water pots, in accordance to the purification of the Jews (each pot could hold about ten gallons).

7 Jesus said to them, Fill the water pots with water. So they filled them to the brim.

8 Then He said to them, Draw out now and take some to the master of the feast. So they took