Unlike Jewish culture, the Greek world was not obsessed with theology. Greek culture was obsessed with philosophy. While Matthew’s Gospel spoke to an audience that traced its roots back to Abraham as father, John’s account was written to reach an audience that traced its roots back to a man named Heraclitus, the father of Greek philosophy. Here is how John’s account would bridge this great cultural divide.

John, carried along by the Holy Spirit, wrote his biography of Jesus in the Greek language and began with a concept that was at the heart of Jewish theology and Greek philosophy, ”In the beginning was the Word! “ To the Hebrews, the Word of God was the presence and action of God breaking into human history with unparalleled power and authority. Their sacred Scriptures declared that creation had its origins in the Word of God, ”and God SAID, let there be light… and it was so.” They understood that the Word of God was never given without accomplishing its purpose (Isa. 55:11). For the Hebrew, God’s speech and action were one and the same. They believed that their sacred Scriptures were indeed the very Word of God. In the New International Commentary on the New Testament on the Gospel of John, Leon Morris gives insight into the Jewish concept of “the Word” from the Jewish Targums (Old Testament paraphrases) where Jews substituted “God” for “the Word of God” out of reverence for his name. For example, where the Bible says, “Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God” (Ex. 19:17), the Targum reads “. . . to meet the Word of God.” So the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had a very clear and a very high view of THE WORD.

The father of Greek philosophy, Heraclitus (540–480 B.C.), taught that the creation of the world, the ordering of all life, and the immortality of the human soul were all made possible solely by what he called the word (or logos) , the invisible and intelligent force behind all that was seen in this world. He went so far as to say that truth and wisdom, the great aim of Greek existence, could only be found not in a knowledge of many things, but instead a deep and clear awareness of one thing, the word, or logos.

John begins his account of the life of Jesus with a declaration that both Hebrews and Greeks would have agreed with that before the creation of the world and time, the Word existed eternally.