Book of John Essays

Book of John Essays Book of John Essay Book of John Essay One of the major themes of the Book of John is to prove that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God. What makes these miracles so special is the difficulty faced to create them and what each is trying to teach. There are seven main miracles, seven being a significant number throughout the bible, that are used to help better understand Jesus and his true identity. We can also find a last miracle in His resurrection, which in itself is simply put that Jesus is a part of God because of how impossible this action seemed. The last miracle is sometimes skipped as a sign that Jesus is the Christ and Messiah. This book was written from true events which is why it is made important and allows people to see who Jesus is. The reason these events are so significant is because they truly happened and carry a deeper meaning that was is read on the surface. The seven main miracles made by Jesus in the Gospel of John are each unique and significant in meaning to the people and the purpose that is behind each of them. The underlying meaning is what the reader should focus on, even though these miracles are claimed to be eye witnessed, making each of the miracles historically true, in a sense. The first miracle of the seven was the Wedding at Cana. This miracle is where the true glory of Jesus is revealed. This specific miracle leads to Jesus disciples having a deeper faith along with all his followers. This allowed his disciples to have a much more complex understanding of him. Jesus turned water into wine which could represent the old Israel converting into a believing Israel (hence the old wine into new). The turning of wine into water portrayed that Jesus is who all things are truly made. The main point of this miracle was to show that Jesus was the true Son of God which makes him the Messiah and is son-ship of God. The second miracle, or sign, is trying to illustrate that the word of Jesus is The Word of God. It does so by having the official leave and head home once Jesus said miou may go; your son will live. Because the official did not question how exactly it was his son would be cured and simply turned around and started going home meant that he believed Jesus without a doubt. In other words, you could simply say that the high official saw the Glory of God by listening intently. This showed the Jesus was the Glory by him saying something will be done, and even from afar, it happening. It means that despite the distance and how sick the young man was, Jesus can heal and is the healing to humanity and all else. This could parallel with the healing of Israel in the new age. This sign speaks to us about true faith and what can happen once we are devoted completely and believe in our hearts and souls that what Jesus commands shall happen. What made the third sign significant aside from curing a man that was lame is the emphasizes on the tact that the man nad been ill tor t eight years. The curing that Jesus did in this miracle can be applied to healing a lame Israel and will now be estored. This miracle did not have a complex form of working other than having the man listen to Jesus and do what he had been told to do and following orders. The lame man would represent Israel and Jesus would represent God, in a sense. This would mean that if Israel obeyed what was commanded of it, God could heal them from their lameness through his son, the Messiah. The curing of the lame man led to a greater faith in the already believing people, or a bigger doubt in the non-believers. The second part of this miracle focuses on how this healing was done on the Sabbath. Of course, the people that doubted argued that Jesus should be stoned because he broke the law of the Lord by working on the Sabbath. Jesus argument was that since he is the son of God he healed the man alongside God which would then mean that this miracle was allowed to be made since God was the one at work. Since certain people were so blinded by their doubt they saw this as breaking the faith by Jesus saying he was equal to God, in a sense. This made them angry and made them want to stone him. They did not learn the lesson that John was getting at, and they could not realize that in front of them stood Jesus, the true Messiah. No matter what miracle or action was done, their views could not be turned around to believe in Jesus. The fourth sign involves Jesus multiplying bread and fish which can be translated to mean that Jesus is the creative word. He is the giver of life, which is what the bread would represent. Jesus proves himself to be greater than Moses by being the true creator of mans provisions. Jesus points out that he can give physical life, but most importantly give spiritual life because he is the true bread of life. The Messiah is expected to feed people miraculously, which is exactly was Jesus does in the nstance. This would then mean the people recognized that he was a Messianic figure. Due to the misinterpretation because of the earthly minds that people have, they wanted physical life and not the spiritual sense of it. Therefore, they wanted to make Jesus an earthly king instead of the Messianic fgure that he was. Jesus then had to point out the true meaning of what he had done emphasizing that those who go to him in faith will find life. False faith would mean that the people believed in the miracle but not in who Jesus truly was. Receiving life through Jesus would illustrate a rusting response to him and who he truly was, the son of God. Since God is nature and God knows all and controls all, the fifth sign would then be attempting to make Jesus a true part, or equal to God in a fatherly-son way of being. The writer of the book of John focuses more of the mystery of how Jesus was able to cross the water without a boat. Jesus being able to walk on water meant that, just like God, Jesus could control the elements of nature and that he was some-what of a higher power than earthly things. This would mean that Jesus was connected to God in a deep and profound way. This miracle, again, reveals his true glory and would mean that believing and having true spiritual faith in Jesus would lead to true life. The sixth sign becomes significant once we read that the man that was healed was blind completely from birth. This was used to portray that Jesus was the light of the world sine he opens the eyes of those who were spiritually blinded from birth. Jesus also emphasizes that the blind nas not been punished and is not a sinner, tor his purpose in life is to show His Glory which would make the man an important person despite being blinded. This could be used to represent the people who were piritually blinded being healed and seeing who Jesus truly was. The blind man would be a spiritually blinded man instead of the physical blindness. Even those who clam to see are blind because they have not seen the light of life, or realize who Jesus truly is. It is only the true believers that understand the Jesus is the Son of God because their blindness has been healed, and the real consequence is that they will see the light of Glory and light of the world. The seventh sign reveals Jesus as the giver of life, and the giver of eternal life, and there is once again a stress on the term Son of God, and the glorifying of Jesus and n the fact that Jesus is both Son of God and Messiah. The raising up of Lazarus in a way very similar to that of the final resurrection is surely a pointer to that resurrection. It is a physical enactment of the glory of the coming general resurrection. So above all it reveals Jesus as the One Who has life in Himself, and as the One Whose voice as the Son of God can raise the dead. While His glory is not specifically mentioned at the end, it was underlined at the beginning. What has happened has revealed the glory of the Father resulting in He Himself being glorified, nd later in chapter 20 the writer goes on to draw our attention to the fact that Jesus is to ascend to His Father, in other words to the glory which He had had with Him before the world was. Again we have the contrast made in the narrative between those who saw and believed the truth about Jesus, and those whose eyes were closed. Johns hope was that his readers would be among those who saw and believed. Note also the reference by the Chief Priests and the Pharisees to signs, but again they were signs which were misunderstood and never properly interpreted. Although Jesus resurrection isnt identified as a miracle, but as The Resurrection, in the Book of John it can be seen as an eighth sign. This miracle revealed Jesus as the Son of God completely without a doubt. This is the greatest miracle of all and is done my Jesus and himself only. I find it significant that those who truly believe do not have to witness in order to be commended. Thus these eight signs, witnessed to as facts by the disciples, and occurring at specified places, manifest the fact that Jesus is both Messiah and Son of God to those who have true faith, with the consequence that they receive life. Although, they are undoubtedly central to the theme of the Gospel it is also unquestionable that they do not in themselves provide a foundational structure that can explain the whole Gospel, even apart from the prologue and the activities of John the Baptist and the passion narrative, do not build on these signs, but are separate elements in the narrative. Therefore, Johns selection of material is not to be seen as dependent only on the seven signs. He has a wider view. Chapter 7 does, however, in its own way bring out what men were thinking about Jesus. It commences with Jesus brothers encouraging Him to do signs openly, n order to win allegiance from the people, although again they are the wrong kind of signs because the aim was simply physical notoriety. And it goes on to deal with the fact that all were asking questions about Him. But they were not coming to the right answers, because they had not understood the signs. They too were blind. Some, however did respond to His miracles and would appear to have acknowledged His Messian ship, although not in the tullest sense required by John, and this eventually leads on in to a confirmation, and even expansion, of Jesus revealing Himself as the water of life and the giver of the Spirit.

How To Get More Followers On Social Media With 30 Awesome Tips

How To Get More Followers On Social Media With 30 Awesome Tips How on earth do they do it? How do your favorite brands, bloggers, and personalities get more followers that seem to be raging, shout-it-from-the-rooftops fans? It feels like social media  followers  just flock to these people, naturally, with no effort from them whatsoever. And all the  while, you’re here, working your backside off, just to pick up a follow or a like or a mention from someone. It’s frustrating, isn’t it? But today, that frustration is going to melt away. You’re about to learn how to get more followers on  your social networks in a very scientific way. And youre going to unlock those industry secrets that are going to skyrocket you to more people, better conversions, and better customer experiences. Here we go How To Get More Followers With 21 Ways That Will Boost Your #SocialMedia Traffic 1. Post After Lunch To Reach More People Research from Chartbeat shows 3 p.m. to 1 a.m. is the optimal time to share on social media, with social traffic being at its highest in the late afternoon: While there is still mileage in posting through the morning (more on that next), schedule the updates you want to convert most with, like blog posts, in this time window. 2. Find The Best Times For You To Share To Social Media It's a generality to say that posting in the afternoon is the best way to grow your audience. But there are better times to post on social media than others. To find out  when your own audience is active on social networks, grab this Google Analytics custom report  we custom-built for you with love from . :) It'll tell you when your  current audience is clicking through to read your content. That  will help you understand what your most popular social networks are so you can use your time more effectively. You'll be able to share your content even  smarter. So let's use your own data to strategically choose the best times to share.  First, choose the blog you'd like to apply the report to: That report  doesn't look like much at first, but right off the bat you'll see which networks are your most popular ones: When you click through to see the data for each network, you'll see the best days to post on that network. Take it one step further and click through on those days, you'll see the best times to post on that network, too. That Google Analytics custom report  will work with your own data that comes directly from your audience. Use it to schedule your social messages at the best times to increase your traffic and opportunity  to get more  re-shares that could help you get more followers. 3.  Share More Often To Get More Followers The folks  over at Beevolve recently posed the question: If you tweet more, will you get  more followers? And, well, the short answer is yes: The more you share, the more followers you will get. But as the boffins over at Buffer noted, this could be for a few reasons: You become more practiced and effective at tweeting. You’re more active and can interact with more people. You have a larger volume of valuable tweets for people to interact with. But while it’s not clear whether this is correlation or causation, it doesn’t really matter. Tweeting more will increase the amount of followers you have in one way or another. Just be sure you’re not only updating about yourself†¦ 4. Inform For 2x More Followers In the world of social media, you’re unknowingly categorized into two separate camps: Meformers: People who talk only about themselves. Like your friend Dan and his incessant lunch updates. Informers: People who bring value to the table. The updates of a meformer are inward looking and have more of the feel of a broadcast: While an informer shares outward-looking, valuable information- a little like this: Now there is nothing wrong with being a meformer. It’s fine to do that for your friends and family on your personal accounts, like the other 80% of meformers out there. However, if you do want to get more followers, Rutgers university found that informers have 2x more followers because their updates and content are of value to the reader. Think of it a little in the terms of blogging. You wouldn’t write a post where you only say, I  or me  all the way through it. And you’re probably not going to tell them about your cousin's latest drunken mishap either. So focus on curating valuable, outward-facing social messages  with a personal touch. Those who inform get 2x more followers. #blogging #smm5. Be Positive, Always Being quintessentially British, this is a bitter pill for me to swallow. But, the data doesn’t lie. Dan Zarrella’s research found that the more negative remarks you make, the fewer  followers you'll get: Not only does positivity help you get more followers, Neil Patel also analyzed data that suggests people are much more likely  to share positive content, especially when it connects to these emotions: Curiosity Amazement Interest Astonishment Uncertainty Get the followers and shares your content deserves by sharing positive social messages. 6. You Have One Hour To Keep A Follower According to Lithium, 52% of people who Tweet your brand  expect you to respond within one hour (even if you're a solo blogger, you're a brand). And, if that’s a complaint, it jumps right up to 72%. If you don’t respond, they’re likely to punish you by either negative word-of-mouth, unfollowing, or other means. While if you do respond in a timely manner: 34% are likely to buy more from you. 43% are likely to spread positive word of mouth. 38% will be more open to your advertisements. 42% will share your good work with their friends. That means  not only is responding quickly good for your business now, it’s good for lead generation and the future of getting more followers. 7. Cash In On Daily Trends While it might not be fitting for your business to share your Man Crush Monday (David Beckham, always), it turns out there is actually an optimal day for everything on social media: Pinterest research found that different days of the week had different connotations for people. For example, starting the week off on a positive high with fitness and ending with chilled food and crafts. Your feed might not fit all of these categories. But, there are specifics like quotes or humor you can use no matter your industry: 8. Take Care Of The Little Guy You want power users to interact with your content. I know every time Jeff Goins likes or comments me on Facebook, I do a little fan-boy giggle. But the truth, as confirmed by Mention, is that 91% of the people who talk about your brand will have less than 500 followers: You’ve just seen that responding to the people who mention you can have a big impact on your business and conversion success. So, no matter who gets in touch with you, be sure to acknowledge them. 9. Use Large Twitter Cards For 3x More Interactions Research from Canva and BuzzSumo found that large Twitter summary cards create 3x more interactions than any other form of card: While you may not  be able to use these for every update because it’s code that has to be embedded into your page, it’s beneficial for: Blog posts Promotions Surveys Generation tools Sales pages Where you can display them in a larger, more informative manner, like this one: To get this card, simply head to this developer page and copy this  code: Head over to your post in WordPress, hit the Text tab, and paste  it in at the bottom of your post: Then edit the sections inside the quotation marks. So, for this post, the code would look like: meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image" meta name="twitter:site" content="@" meta name="twitter:creator" content="@j4meswrites" meta name="twitter:title" content="Boost Your Followers Using Science" meta name="twitter:description" content="Want a scientific way to boost the amount of Social Media followers you have? Look no further..." meta name="twitter:image" content="http://.com/image-for-this-post-example-only" Reaching more people will inevitably help you get more followers. 10. Add Images To Facebook Updates For 2.3x More Engagement The decline in Facebook organic page reach has thrown a big wrench  in the engine  for social marketers. But, there are still some real glimmers of hope out there. That same research from Canva and BuzzSumo also found that adding images to your Facebook updates will give you 2.3x more engagement. Be sure to do this by uploading the image on its own, too. That way,  it goes into your Facebook post through the add photo’s function as opposed  to being pulled from the code on your post: 11. Use Video To Reach More People While photo posts are great for engagement, Facebook is slowly taking away the ability to reach more followers. In fact, it now has the lowest organic reach of any type of update, with video getting more than double that reach. You don’t have to be the one who  created that video content, either. You just need to upload it. Facebook might have been the start, but you can now experiment with video on tons of networks: Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google+ (well, YouTube) all have ways to use video to reach your audience. 12. Images Are Still King On Twitter, Though In a study of over 4,000,000 tweets, Stone Temple Consulting found that tweets with images had more than double the retweets  and almost double the likes  of those that didn’t contain images: More retweets equals more exposure. More exposure means more engaged followers. That’s a win/win right there. 13. Keep More Followers By Not Bulk Posting A big part of getting more  followers is keeping the ones you’ve already got; but if you’re guilty of bulk posting (I am), that could be problematic. Research from KAIST university in South Korea found that a big factor for people unfollowing is leaving too many posts at any one time: The survey participants unfollowed those who left many tweets within a short time, created tweets about uninteresting topics, or tweeted about the mundane details of their lives. So, take advantage of social scheduling  tools like   to space out your (exciting) posts across days, weeks, or even months instead of posting multiples at once. 14. Freebies + Offers = Fans + Followers A survey from Nielsen noted that... 52% of people who follow brands do it to learn about offers 38% follow to take part in competitions 33% do so to get access to freebies ...which is a lot of your follower base. In fact, more than  half of them are primed and ready to buy from or engage with you. So take advantage and let them spread the word for you at the same time. Create a competition or offer that involves retweets and shares, and you’ve got a campaign that will draw attention. 15. The 5 Essential Emotions Of Any Social Campaign There’s no way around it. The more shares, mentions, likes, and retweets your social campaign gets, the more followers you’re going to pick up along the way. But, what most social campaigns miss out on is emotion. And by doing that, you miss out on a huge opportunity to get more  followers. The big-wigs at Harvard studied marketing campaigns and the emotions that make them go viral. The results? Each campaign evoked at least one of these five: Admiration Interest Serenity Amazement Astonishment You’ll normally find you can combine two or three of these into any social media message. At the least, your headlines or content should create interest. If you want to see almost all of these encompassed in one sentence, look at this excellent piece of copy from Slavery Footprint: 16. Use The 3 Most Shareable Colors On The Internet I recently researched what makes the most shareable images on social media, and there  was some fascinating research in there. One of the standouts was this: Researchers at Georgia Tech studied over 1,000,000 images on Pinterest and discovered that using red, pink and purple in your graphics got you the most shares and interactions. Because, well, they’re deep visceral colours that create emotions like sexual arousal and failure in people. Try incorporating these colors into your next social media image by making them the focal point of your text, or the main image. The results could shock you. 17. Analyze Your Competitors (And Steal Their Followers) KissMetrics ran an interesting study about how to steal your competitor's followers. One of the most interesting aspects of that study- that you can use right now- is approaching their neglected fans. By running a competitor's Facebook page through FanPage Karma, you can see an analysis of Facebook trends, habits, and posting schedules. But, more importantly, you can see how that competitor  interacts with their audience. And, you’ll see that a lot of pages neglect their fans: And you’ll find that most of these pages are in the 60%+ for neglecting their fans' comments. So, you can swoop in by: Interacting with these people. Providing insights or answers the company  isn't. Building a community presence. Then you can  usher them back to your page without having to be all comment-link-spammy about it. 18. Be Authoritative About Who You Are Most people like authority, it’s just built into them. And, that’s been proven time and time again throughout history. But now it’s also come to the realm of social media. Dan Zarrella found that people who identify themselves as an authority have many more followers than people who don’t. So, don’t be humble in your profile. Identify yourself as who you are in the best possible light, just like you would on your resume. Knowing what you know now about meformers and informers, which of these sounds more appealing? Daydreamer, coffee enthusiast and author Writer, speaker, and the official author of the Blog The second one, of course. Because while the other is nice and accessible, the latter lets you make an instant decision on whether someone is worth following. 19. That Being Said, It’s Appearances That Really Matter†¦ OKCupid discovered that what you write about yourself on their dating site is less than 10% of what someone thinks about you. The other 90% is your profile pictures. And, that’s not just a stat that applies to dating sites either. It works for social media too. As Rand Fishkin found, having a brightly colored background  on your profile picture can make a big impact on the amount of followers you will get. Buffer’s extensive research into the psychology of profile pictures also validates that,  too. But you might be thinking, â€Å"I can’t have a profile picture like that; I’m a business†. For you, a simple logo picture will still be effective. And you can get creative with it, too, like KLM have done here: 20. Jump On The #Hashtag Bandwagon As much as you might think hashtags are a little silly, especially when you see them for toothpaste or toilet paper, they’re actually an incredible marketing tool. And, they can help you get more  followers much more effectively. Hashtags are  not only a big part of how we use social media; they’ve even started to become part of how you speak. Or, at least those up-to-date on popular lingo. More importantly, as Linchpin SEO shows, using hashtags  can help you get 2x  more engagement among other benefits: And, if you want to take a leaf from Marsha Collier's book, you can join in the conversation other people are having on your hashtag, like she does with the hashtag #custserv. Tuesday Customer Service Chat 9pET Is social customer service faster and better than other channels?#custserv pic.twitter.com/Eq4EnjbY9H Marsha Collier (@MarshaCollier) February 1, 2016 21. Post Milestones To Boost Your Organic Reach Post Planner picked up on a piece of information from Business Insider and Facebook that could seriously help you boost the amount of people you can reach there. Apparently, when you use the word, congratulations, more people pick up on your post. But this also appears to have carried on over to other milestones, too, such as: Weddings Graduations Landmark trips Babies or birthdays Awards And it doesn’t appear to just be speculation, either. When I posted a recent update about visiting Machu Picchu, a milestone event in my life, the engagement I got was huge: That  is much more engagement than my standard post at 12 to  20 likes a time. Some of these likes and comments came from people I hadn’t interacted with in years on Facebook, too. Other travelers, I was with reported getting 200 to 300 more interactions than normal on their Machu Picchu posts also. Post Planner also saw similar results from landmark posts when they looked at the most viral posts from Facebook’s top 50 brands, too. BONUS: 9 New Tips From The Team 22. Write Super-Catch Social Media Copy What you write on social media matters. So does how you write on social media. It's common to see social media copywriting faux pas. Brands, in particular, have a tendency to write sales-driven posts that simply aren't engaging. So, what's a marketer to do? Get good at writing exceptional post copy. Spend time crafting your posts. Don't just slap the first thing you think of on your social channels and call it a day. Here are a few pointers: Avoid anything that sounds like SPAM or includes a hard call-to-action (especially on Facebook). Try to keep your post lengths reasonable. Make use of image text. Best practices for this vary by network. However, using images to tell more of the story can make it easier to write clear, crisp, and concise posts. Here's a great example of this last point from Gary Vaynerchuk: This post does two things well: His post copy is short and catchy ... ... and it ties in nicely with the image text. The social sharing stats are proof this resonated with his audience too. 23. Reach Out To New And Interesting People It's easy to forget that social media is about being, well, social. That seems weird when you say it out loud. If social media is about connecting with others, then why do  so many brands seem so self-absorbed? The answer is because they often place sales first and conversation second. What they fail to realize, however, is they have that equation backwards. The solution here is simple: talk to people. Respond to all your Facebook comments. Tweet a shout-out to someone you think is crushing it out there. Whatever you do, don't just talk about yourself. This gets back to being an informer instead of a me-former. TIP: You don't have to wait for someone to talk to you first. Go out there and strike up a conversation. Twitter is a particularly great network for this. 24. Follow Others Everyone wants an enormous tribe of loyal social media followers. However, you have to give a little too here. Follow other accounts in your industry and people who follow your brand. This accomplishes two things: It makes it easier to monitor what your followers are talking about on social media (so you can create content that addresses those interests). It prevents you from looking anti-social. This is especially true on Twitter.  Just be sure to stay within Twitter's best practices. The more accounts you're following, the more opportunity you have to make connections with others. Stay within reason  and follow accounts you genuinely find interesting, and  you'll attract more and similar followers. 25. Add Shareable Content To Blog Posts This simply means incorporating graphics that can easily be shared socially on their own. For example, consider adding infographics or quote graphics that add context to your blog post, but can also tell a complete story on their own. This is a tactic we use at all the time. It's a great way to get more mileage from your efforts, and also provides you with the kind of easily shareable content that can attract more followers. 26. Be Consistent This should be a no-brainer. However, posting consistently is often tough for overworked content marketers and social media managers. Using a tool (such as or others) can help you maintain  a consistent  posting schedule across all your social channels. This is essential for engaging, retaining, and growing an audience. However, that's not all it means to be consistent. It's also important that your messaging remain consistent across networks too.   If you're building a cross-channel campaign, it's also important to ensure all messages on all networks  support  the same  overarching campaign theme.  If you say one thing on Facebook, you don't want to say something contradictory on Twitter (for example). Once again, we'll let Gary Vaynerchuk demonstrate this point: 27. Include Social Sharing Buttons On Your Blog And Website It's frustrating to read a great article, only to find there are no convenient social media buttons to share it with your followers. Including social sharing buttons in optimal locations on your pages makes it easier for readers to share your content. That, in turn, increases your ability to reach more people and grow your following. 28. Sometimes, You Gotta Pay To Play Paid promotion works well on social media when done correctly. In fact, Twitter even provides guidelines on how to build campaigns specifically to gain followers. 29. Use A Plugin Click-to-tweet plugins add attractive tweet boxes into blog posts for easy sharing. If you've been following our blog for a while, you've probably seen these in each post we publish (including this one). Here's an example of what they look like: Build your social media following with these 30 tips:Including click-to-tweet buttons makes it easy for readers to share your posts effortlessly. Here are two WordPress plugin options to consider: by (hey, we made this!)   by Warfare Plugins  (another excellent option from our friends) Both of these plugins are easy to use and can help attract Twitter followers (provided your posts are worth sharing). 30. Include Social Media Links In Your Email Signature You're probably sending plenty of emails to folks in your industry. Why not give them an easy way to find your company on social media? Drop some links to your brand's social profiles in your email signature for a quick win. If you use Outlook, it's even possible to add actual social media icons to your signature. Now You Know How To Get More Followers To Grow Your Traffic Okay, you’ve been hit with a lot of data there. But all of it is easy to do and super  valuable to help you get more followers on any social media channel. It doesn’t matter if you’re starting from scratch, or trying to increase your six-figure audience base, all of this data when applied will help you: Reach more people. Convert more people to your content or site. Get more social shares and authority. Now, the only question that remains is, which one are you going to start with to get more followers? Let me know in the comments!