In the opening chapter of his Gospel John identifies Jesus as the “logos” of God. This Greek word “logos” basically means “word”. It is being used here in a more symbolic way to refer to the rationale or basic principle behind all that transpires in the world based on the will of God. This term used as a way to refer to the rationale behind all that exists was notably used prior to New Testament times by a Greek philosopher named Heraclitus around 500 BCE. He used the term to designate driving principle, or “logic”, behind all that happens in the world. No other New Testament writer uses this term in this way.
This philosophical way of writing sets the author of John’s Gospel off from the other Gospel writers who seek to be more down-to-earth “historical” rather than in any way philosophical. Scholars agree that John’s Gospel was initially written several decades after the writing of the other three New Testament Gospels. It differs from them in certain historical details as well as in its specific interest in more abstract theological issues rather than historical ones, as its first chapter clearly indicates.
In addition, while the other Gospels, except for Mark, offer lengthy accounts of Jesus’ teachings and travels, John not only differs from them in historical detail, but in some theological emphases as well. Mark is shorter and leaves out many historical details that both Matthew and Luke include. John’s content tends to be generally much more theological than the others. It is clear that whereas both Mathew and Luke parallel each other almost exactly, they both differ from Mark in being much more detailed, as well as in many specific details.
In addition, and quite significantly, although both Matthew and Luke contain material that is unique to each, they are almost identical in many other passages. In addition, both Matthew and Luke share almost exactly a good many passages that seem to have been taken directly from some other source altogether. Scholars have designated this source “Q” after the first letter of the German word for source, namely “Quelle.” In none of these passages in the Gospels other than John is the term “Logos” used.
It is both interesting and significant that since scholars agree that the Gospel of John was written several decades after the other Gospels it remains unclear whether or not it’s author had any knowledge of the “Q” source. There seems to be no indication that this was the case, so it seems that in a sense we have five Gospels rather just four. Moreover, the “Gospel of Q” not only seems to contain a select amount of material but it clearly seems to have been written and read by many early Christian leaders.
What is especially significant about this “Gospel of Q” is that it contains primarily stories of Jesus’ teachings and healings without many specifically theological passages, especially those that contain conflict with the Jewish religious leaders. It’s almost as if someone had lifted certain types of material out of both Matthew and Luke and packaged them together in a separate Gospel. These passages focus on Jesus’ teachings rather on his interactions with the religious leaders of the day. The “Sermon on the Mount”, for instance, makes up a large part of Q. The book The Lost Gospel of Q, edited by Marcus Borg, is a small and inexpensive one.
This is especially interesting in light of John’s opening passage about Jesus as the Logos of God. Indeed, the first eighteen verses of John’s Gospel read much differently from what immediately follows them. They read like a prologue set off on its own and being used as a kind of “Introduction” to the following Gospel narrative. Right in the middle of the first chapter John interposes the verses 14 through 18 as a way of connecting up the notion of the Eternal Logos with the historical Jesus: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” Clearly the author of John’s Gospel here connected up the notion of the eternal Logos with the historical person of Jesus.

Back in 1936 when I was 3 years old Jesse owns was the star of the Berlin Olympics. He won the 100, the 200, the long jump, and anchored the winning relay. 15 years later when I was just beginning my track and field efforts, at our first high school meet I won the long jump. I went home and made a booklet with which to keep a record of my track and field “career”. I cut out a photo of Jesse at the height of one of his jumps and pasted it on the cover of my booklet.
What most people do not know is that Jesse was an all-around track champion. In addition to setting the world record in the long jump at 26 feet 8 inches, a record that stood for more than 30 years, he also high jumped 6 foot 6 inches. They say that he long jumped 20 feet on the sidewalk when he was in Junior High. More astounding is that when he came home as an Olympic Champion he was unable to find a job and had to drop out of college.
For several years Jesse went on a barn-storming tour around the country racing against local horses. I well remember when he came to my hometown and beat my friend Darrel Craig on his horse in the 100 yard dash. I will always remember seeing him out run Darrel and his horse. Years later Jesse was hired by the City of Cleveland to be Director of Parks and recreation and had an impact on Ohio sports for many years. It was such an honor to be able to actually see my hero in person.
Jesse did not only inspire me to be the best track and field competitor that I could, but unbeknown to him, he actually helped me a lot in my own development as a rising track star. When I was in high school I read a lot about Jesse and picked up several “tricks” of the long-jumping trade from reading about his training techniques. In one of the articles I read he mentioned that he had improved his long jump ability uniform stride by running the hurdles in order to develop a uniform stride when was running up the board from which he would be jumping.
This technique of developing a uniform running stride enabled him not to waste jumps, called “scratching,” by stepping over the jumping board from which the officials measured each jump. I worked hard at running the hurdles for this reason, and actually became a rather proficient hurdler in the process. Most importantly, I only scratched three times in all the years I was competing. As it turned out, my cousin Allan and I tied for first place at our State meet and our school won the State Championship.
By far the most important way Jesse helped me in my track career was in changing my jumping style from just running and jumping to “running in the air” after leaving the ground. If you have ever seen photos of Jesse himself jumping chances are they will show him high in the air seemingly running through the air. Believe it or not, this “pretending” to run in the air actually works. This is why all college track coaches teach their jumpers to develop this skill. It takes a lot of practice to perfect and requires the development of strong stomach muscles. This technique actually added over a foot to my jumps when I was in college.
To finish up by going back to the 1936 Olympics, Jesse, along with the several other black athletes, created quite a furor there because they were a slap in the face to Adolph Hitler’s claims about the superiority of Aryan Race. In fact, he altered his practice of congratulating each event’s champion in person. He actually refused to shake hands with Jesse Owens.
By way of conclusion here, a while back I wrote another blog piece about another of my boyhood heroes, namely Jackie Robinson. It remains a puzzle to me why, in a town where and at a time when Black athletes were far from popular, that I should choose two to be my “heroes”. I’m glad I did.