In 85 AD, more than fifty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Gospel of John struck the Christian world like a lightning bolt out of a clear blue sky. At that time, few Christians even knew that one of the disciples yet lived. After all the years, decades even, a new book of the Bible came forth, written by a man who had walked with Jesus. John the son of Zebedee, followed Jesus for three years during his ministry on earth. He saw Jesus on the cross; he entered the empty tomb after Jesus rose from the grave.

The Last Disciple: Crisis in Jerusalem

One day I learned that the Gospel of John was published fifty years after Jesus died and rose again. Fifty years!

I couldn’t stop thinking about this. What did John do all that time? Where did he live? Why did he wait? What about Mary? On the Cross, Jesus placed his own mother under John’s protection. How long did he take care of her? What were they like? Where did they live?

I think you can tell I got a little obsessive about this man, the last disciple. In fact, that very phrase, the last disciple, came to me early one morning when I was praying. I could not get it out of my head so I read and researched everything I could find about John.

He is mentioned as a disciple of

The more I learned about John, the more I wanted to know, but answering one big question about John .

The Big Question

The passage above is the introduction to each book in The Last Disciple Series.

Who was john?

Who was John? What had he done for over fifty years since the days of our Lord? And how had he survived all those years? How had he become the last disciple?

A few years back, I did a study on the Apostle John for my church here in Hawaii. That little project got me hooked on the man who started out life as a fisherman and then became the last disciple of Christ. Unfortunately, all my research left more questions than answers. In fact, the Bible tells us very little about John after the Crucifixion. Early church historians have some information, but it’s often conflicting.

If you’ve ever been obsessed with anything, you’ll understand that I couldn’t stop researching, digging, and diving into the life of John and all those around him.

And the result of all that research is a series of Christian historical novels. The first book in the series is now available on Amazon.com: The Last Disciple: Crisis in Jerusalem. There is an ebook and a paperback version. It’s also on Kindle Unlimited.

The Last Disciple is a series of Christian novels based on the Bible and Christian history. The first in the series, The Last Disciple: Crisis in Jerusalem, begins in the year 62 AD. Follow along while John faces multiple crises and comes to understand what it is to stand alone and lean only on the Lord. The series seeks answers to questions about the lives of early Christians. Where did they live? Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Rome. How did they survive in a hostile world?

To me, John lived such an amazing life. He walked with Jesus. And he protected Mary, the mother of Christ, after the Crucifixion. He lived for many decades after his time with Jesus. And he survived the great destruction in Jerusalem in 70 AD.

The Youngest Disciple

So what do we know about John? He had walked with Jesus when he was young, probably a teenager or very early 20s. He and Andrew were the first disciples of Christ. Before that, they both followed John the Baptist. John had the honor of being the first or second disciple, and he lived so long that he became the last disciple too.

Anyone who reads the New Testament would know John as:

• The son of Zebedee, his father, and Salome, his mother
• Brother to the disciple James
• A fisherman on the Sea of Galilee
• He and his brother James were friends and even fishing buddies with Peter and his brother Andrew
• Youngest of the 12 disciples.
• Author of five books of the Bible:
  • The Gospel of John 80-90 AD
  • The Letters or Epistles of John 90-95 AD
  • The Book of Revelation 95-98 AD

We read a bit about Peter, John, and Philip in the first half of the Book of Acts:

‘They sent peter and john to samaria’

But then that’s it for John. Radio silence for nearly 50 years. The verse about Peter and John in Samaria occurred at most a few years after Pentecost.

We don’t know why John waited so long to begin writing his books other than the Spirit did not move him to write until he was old. He was well into his 70s or even 80s by then. In his Gospel, the Book of John, we glimpse a rather shy and retiring writer. He never refers to himself by name, so we have to work hard to understand him.

Understanding the life of the last disciple, John, son of Zebedee, has become a bit of an obsession for me.

But it’s not just about John or even about me. I believe you’ll learn a lot about yourself and your own walk with God as you dig into the life of the last disciple.