Now available
In His Story is here. Come and see.
Our Catholic guide to the Gospel of John, all 21 chapters, one at a time. Pick your copy and you can start reading tonight.
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$58$49with code FOUNDING · first 100 copies, through Nov 10
- A paperback made to be written in
- The digital edition in your inbox right away, so you can start tonight
- Order by Nov 30 to have it in time for Christmas
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Start tonightDigital edition
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- All 21 chapters of John as a PDF
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Not ready yet? Read Chapter 1 free.
You’ve heard John 1 every Christmas Day. But have you ever really read it?
The whole first chapter of In His Story, our Catholic guide to the Gospel of John, is free. Tell us where to send it and you can start tonight.
It’s a regular night. The dishes are done(ish), your phone is face down, and your Bible is open to a page you’ve heard read aloud since you were little.
Twenty minutes later you know why John opens with a poem instead of a manger, what his first readers heard in the word “dwelt” that might get lost today in translation and time, and which question Jesus asks before He teaches anyone anything. You close the book having understood a chapter of Scripture, on your own, on a random Tuesday.
“What do you seek?”
John 1:38
Those are the first words Jesus speaks in John’s Gospel, and He says them to two people who have started following Him down a road without really knowing why. Chapter 1 ends by turning the question back around to you, 2,000+ years later.
It’s a strange thing to be asked what you actually want from God. And it might take some practice; the first two disciples didn’t have an immediate answer either.
Chapter 1, printed and written in.
What twenty minutes with John feels like
Every chapter opens with a short prayer, so you show up focused before you start reading.
Then The Story So Far catches you up in a couple of paragraphs. If it’s been nine days, nine months, or nine years since you last opened the book, you don’t have to confess that to anyone (except maybe your priest) or start over. You just keep going.
A Closer Look is the part you’ll come back to before the next trivia night, or in a spirited debate around the dinner table. It slows down on the small words you’d read straight past today, the ones with more nuance than they let on. The word behind “dwelt” can be read as “pitched his tent,” the same picture as the tabernacle in the middle of Israel’s camp, and all of a sudden ‘that Christmas Gospel’ is telling you God moved in next door.
What’s Actually Happening Here walks through the chapter scene by scene until the poetry fog clears. By the time Nathanael asks, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” you’ll recognize him. He’s all of us before our morning caffeine boost.
And then it gets personal. In Your Life asks where this chapter is already showing up in your life. There’s room on every page for notes, thoughts, answers, and questions.
Made for the days it’s hard to keep up.
There’s no streak here (promise, there’s no Duolingo owl coming to get you!). No 5 a.m. alarm, no color-coded highlighters, no reading plan you’re already three days behind on. If you miss a week, the chapter waits for you, and you can pick right back up when you’re ready.
You get the reward of feeling like you’ve really read something. One chapter you understood will stay with you longer than a month of skimming and playing catch-up to stay on schedule. Bring your Bible, a pen you like, and whatever’s in your mug.
Sunday starts to sound familiar.
You already know more of John than you think. “Behold, the Lamb of God” is John 1:29, and you hear it at every Mass, right before Communion.
Catholic Lens notes run through each chapter and show where a verse meets the life of the Church. In Chapter 1 that’s Baptism in “children of God,” the Eucharist in “the Word became flesh,” and the day Simon gets a new name before he has done a single thing to earn it.
The next time you’re in the pew, a line you’ve said a thousand times lands differently, because now you know where it came from.
John 1 is only the first afternoon.
After it comes:
- a wedding that runs out of wine,
- a Pharisee who waits until dark to ask his questions,
- a woman who leaves her water jar at the well,
- a friend called out of a tomb,
- breakfast cooked on a beach, and more.
In His Story stays beside you through all of it, chapter by chapter. By the last page you’ll have read an entire Gospel, with enough context to help it really sink in.
The Founding Reader presale is open now. The first 100 print copies are $49 instead of $58 with code FOUNDING, with the digital edition included so you can start reading instantly while your print copy is on its way, in time for Christmas. Digital on its own is $15. The Founding price ends November 10.
Want to start smaller?
Twenty-One Days in John is a free printable that gets you through the whole Gospel at a quicker pace. Includes one thing to watch for in each chapter and a page to catch the verses that stop you. Get the free reading plan
There’s room for you here.
Maybe you’re opening a Bible for the first time. Maybe you’re back after years away and not sure if you’re allowed to just walk in anywhere. Maybe you never left and you want something more, or just something different.
The first disciples in John 1 didn’t earn their way in either. They followed Him home and stayed the afternoon. Start there.
