Why Did the "Journey Through John" Stop?

On June 8, 2018, the first “Journey Through John” video posted. It was a 2-minute introduction announcing that each day, Monday through Friday, a 2-minute video would release that included a verse read from John and following by a minute of Study Bible like commentary. On the following say, it started with John 1:1. On the day after that and every following day, the next verse would be read and more commentary offered. The hope was to help people understand and read the book of John.

Videos continued to post through October 21, 2019. The last one was John 7:5. After that, the videos just didn’t come any more. 292 videos and then it stopped. Why?

In this 3-minute video, Bryan Catherman explains why “The Journey Through John” stopped.

While commentary that drills down into the specific verse is very helpful, it can be dangerous if we first don’t understand the purpose of the book, where the verse sits in the redemptive history of God, the structure and arguments, and the context. The contained unit of thought is found in the paragraph, not the supporting sentences within the paragraph. Some arguments, narratives, and discourse come by way of many paragraphs. We need more of the Bible to interpret the Bible. There’s just so much more than what Bryan was attempting to do with these 2-minute videos. Some of the viewers were taking the Text out of context and running with it, even if Bryan didn’t take it in that direction. Some people were conducting internet searches for a single verse and only watching one video, neglecting any other context and help.

It seems less helpful than it was intended to be. So it stoped.

If you were journeying with the videos, don’t stop your journey. Keep read the book of John. Read it again and again. Seek out good tools and apply them. And keep journeying.