Bible Commentaries
1 John

"That You

John, one of the Lord's apostles, was a son of Zebedee and Salome. He and his brother, James, were fishermen, along with Peter and Andrew. Jesus called them to be a fishers of men. The family did have servants, which may indicate they were more well off than most of their day ( Mat_27:56 ; Mar_15:40-41 ; Mar_1:20 ; Luk_5:1-11 ). John, along with Peter and James, were especially close to the Lord. Those three were the only apostles to witness the raising up of Jairus' daughter, the events on the Mount of Transfiguration and Jesus' deep agony in Gethsemane. He and Peter were the first apostles to view the empty tomb ( Mar_5:37 ; Luk_8:51 ; Mat_17:1-5 ; Mat_26:36-45 ; Joh_20:1-10 ).

It seems likely that John was the one who leaned on Jesus when the Lord instituted the Lord's supper, as well as being the "disciple whom Jesus loved." That would, of course, also mean that he was the one into whose care Jesus entrusted his mother ( Joh_13:23 ; Joh_21:20 ; Joh_19:25-27 ). Woods says, "From the writings of 'the church Fathers' it appears that John spent much of his later life in Ephesus in Asia Minor...." We do know he was exiled to Patmos, which Woods describes as a lonely island in the Aegean Sea...." This likely occurred when Domitian was raining a terrible persecution on the church. During the time of his exile, John wrote the book of Revelation. Woods also indicates the early church fathers thought "that in the reign of the Emperor Trajan he was allowed to return to Ephesus where he lived to ripe old age, dying when near one hundred years old."