Understanding Christianity - the role of the Fourth Gospel ("John")

The role of IV Gospel in my understanding of Christianity is of a means to the end of understanding. 

Once I had grasped that understanding, from then the validity and authority of the gospel became almost irrelevant. Much as if it were a work of explicit fiction that expressed truth, like Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

But! In order really to engage with IV Gospel, I needed to be convinced it was worth the sustained and intense effort that was required.

Of all the Bible, I was most sure of the authority and value of IV... That was my starting point. I felt sure that, if truth were to be found, that's where it would be.

So I was able and keen to put in the effort of grappling with IV, and then it yielded a clear and simple understanding... 

But the truth of that understanding was then discerned by "intuition" - by my deepest attainable sense of inner sureness.

This intuition was something tested across time and in whatever was emerged or struck me, as life continued, as challenges were encountered. As I used my new IV Gospel understanding in living.

The new understanding "worked".

And at a certain point I felt a strong sense of Yes - This is real and true.

That's how thing happened for me.