Around here, moms make scrapbooks when kids graduate from high school. They gather pictures. They pull out the press clippings and the awards. They are putting together pieces to tell a story about this person they love, to show other people glimpses of the real person.

If a dad did it, the scrapbook would have lots of the same stories, but some different ones. If a family friend stepped in to help, it would be a little different. Similar stories, but now gathered from conversations. The friend would be sure to talk to as many different people as possible.

Whoever was doing it, there would be a point: to help you understand this part of the life of this person. The huge pile of pictures, the memories lived but never written, the conversations would all be piled on the table as the scrapbooker thought and re-lived and selected and rejected. Not all the stories would be in the same order for each scrapbook maker as the pieces are gathered to tell the larger story. But each person is making a true story.

I thought about this when I wanted to tell a friend about how to approach the four books we call “The Gospels”. There is the feel of gifted scrapbook creators. They contain biography, sermons clippings, family stories. They are more detailed in some parts of life than others. But they are collected intentionally to tell the story of someone very important. And the intention was, at least for John, pretty simple:

Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.