Why does Jesus have a “disciple He loves”?

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GospelOfMatthew

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“One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him.” - John 13:23

It is mentioned a handful of times about the disciple Jesus loved which has been assumed to be John. Why is it that Jesus loves John? Why not Peter or James or someone else? Jesus intrusts Mary to John but can someone explain this love. Is it a translation issue where love as an English word isn’t expressing the correct connotation from the Greek as there are multiple Greek loves.

Is this to say that Jesus loves John more than any other disciple? No other apostle is called out singularly to a level like this except John but it remains unnamed. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
 
I’ve heard this as well, perhaps why it goes unnamed. But some theologians have said it is John for a variety of reasons. If it’s John, than it can’t represent all of us, at least not to such a level because it wasn’t specifially John as opposed to someone or anyone else - why John
 
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To me it illustrates Jesus’ humanity and makes him more relatable. Being God, we would assume Jesus loves everyone equally. But, because of his human nature, Jesus would favor some more than others for a variety of reasons.
 
I think some are capable of receiving and reciprocating the love of God to a greater degree than others, so it might seem God loves them more. If it’s a truth of faith that God loves more than others, I don’t know. Feel free to point me in the right direction. The Bible says God is love. Pure and complete.
 
GospelOfMatthew said:
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
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I think John did not wish to call himself by name or by the personal pronoun I or me. I understand this as an expression of humility.

I have seen something like this in scientific writing, where the author wishes to appear more formal, humble, or old-fashioned by referring to himself as “the author.”

John wasn’t saying he was the only disciple whom Jesus loved, but simply an unnamed disciple whom Jesus loved.
 
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Could it also have something to do with the tradition that John the Evangelist had made a commitment to perpetual virginity?
 
Whatever the author’s intent was in using the phrase (for humility because he didn’t want to name himself; to represent everyone reading; because he had a special relationship with Jesus like BFF or an older person who protects and teaches a younger one, etc.) the use of the phrase was divinely inspired because there are so many possible angles to it, we could think about it, and about the love of Jesus, for a very long time. It emphasizes the theme of love that runs through John’s gospel.

On one level, God doesn’t love certain people more than others - he loves the worst sinner as much as the best saint. On another level, some people are more special to God because of the way they respond to God, such as accepting His will or trying to do His will, the same way some of the people in the OT are more pleasing to God than others.

And in Jesus’ life, while he clearly loved all of humanity as God would love them, he also had special human relationships with a handful of people, including his mother, his friends Martha, Mary and Lazarus, his friend Mary Magdalene, Peter, and probably John. These relationships were meant to teach us things and to show us what being friends with/ loved by Jesus could be like, from us reading about them.

I don’t think calling oneself “the disciple whom Jesus loved” means that Jesus somehow loved that person more than the other disciples, or loved that person and didn’t love the other disciples. I think Jesus loved them all. It might have been in slightly different ways, the same way you might love all your brothers and sisters but have a slightly different relationship with each one.
 
There are three separate questions to be examined:
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• Is John the Apostle the beloved disciple?
• Is John the Apostle the author of the Fourth Gospel?
• Is the beloved disciple the author of the Fourth Gospel?
It is often taken for granted that the answer to all three questions is “Yes”. But there would be no logical inconsistency in answering Yes-No-No, or No-Yes-No, or possibly even No-No-Yes. And many people, of course, including some Catholics, would answer No-No-No.

Richard Bauckham examines the evidence at some length in his book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, published in 2006. In a five-page section entitled The Identity of the Beloved Disciple, on pp. 412-416, his main argument is that Jesus had more disciples than just the usually named Twelve, and that the Beloved Disciple was one of these, along with Nicodemus, Lazarus, and several others.

https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Eyewit...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1547634054&sr=1-1
 
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When you’re looking at the question of “does Jesus love some people more than others”, the answer will not have any negative implication for the questioner.
God is love. He is also omnipotent and omnipresent and omniscient and has abundance for everybody.
You can’t measure anything that God does on the scale of what people do.
People are limited in their capacity to form intimate bonds with other people. We simply don’t have enough time or intelligence or energy to give wholeheartedly to large groups of people, but God has no such limitations.
Also, God doesn’t form in-groups and out-groups the way people do. Heaven is not going to be a replay of middle school only a bit “nicer”. There will be enough love to go around and nobody will feel slighted or left out.

So, did Jesus love some people more than others? Well, His mother, certainly and St Joseph. The Bible says he loved Lazarus especially and wept at the news of his death.
But it’s not anything to worry about.
 
We can only speculate. I suspect it is related to the personality. St John was maybe more of a people’s person, more charitable and showing concern for others, so he was ‘The Apostle of love’ while St Peter was more spiritual/had greater faith so he was ‘The Apostle of faith’.
 
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Yes. Because he was many times under persecution where only Hope would sustain him. St Paul is to me ‘The Apostle of Hope’.
 
God is.

God loves all of us. I can’t comprehend God loving any one of us more than another. Even the BVM.

He may very well find one of us more pleasing than another. Like David versus Saul. But that doesn’t mean He loved David more. I don’t believe true Love works that way. Perfect Love that is.
 
Why does Jesus have a disciple he loves?
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Because he is fully human, and fully divine.

The only testimony we have that Jesus loved the evangelist comes from that evangelist.
Perhaps each of us could say Jesus loves us best. Hopefully each of us would say we are disciples Jesus loves.
 
GospelOfMatthew said:
“One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him.” - John 13:23

It is mentioned a handful of times about the disciple Jesus loved which has been assumed to be John. Why is it that Jesus loves John? Why not Peter or James or someone else? Jesus intrusts Mary to John but can someone explain this love. Is it a translation issue where love as an English word isn’t expressing the correct connotation from the Greek as there are multiple Greek loves.

Is this to say that Jesus loves John more than any other disciple? No other apostle is called out singularly to a level like this except John but it remains unnamed. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
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John was the one who called himself “the disciple Jesus loved” in the narration, not Jesus.
 
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St. Thomas Aquinas considered this question (as he did MANY questions) in the Summa, and wrote (ST I, Q. 20, Art. 3):
Since to love a thing is to will it good, in a twofold way anything may be loved more, or less. In one way on the part of the act of the will itself, which is more or less intense. In this way God does not love some things more than others, because He loves all things by an act of the will that is one, simple, and always the same.

In another way on the part of the good itself that a person wills for the beloved. In this way we are said to love that one more than another, for whom we will a greater good, though our will is not more intense. In this way we must needs say that God loves some things more than others. For since God’s love is the cause of goodness in things, as has been said (Article 2), no one thing would be better than another, if God did not will greater good for one than for another.
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To paraphrase, God loves all persons with equal intensity, but He loves different persons differently as He gives good differently to them.

An example of this principle is seen here, in Scripture, in the matter of charisms or gifts of the Spirit:
1Co 12:4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;
1Co 12:5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord;
1Co 12:6 and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one.
1Co 12:7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
1Co 12:8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,
1Co 12:9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,
1Co 12:10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.
1Co 12:11 All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
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fide said:
but He loves different persons differently as He gives good differently to them.
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it’s not just about give goods differently, like giving Paul $1000 in many tickets, and he gives Pierre $1000 in only one ticket. It’s the same amount he gave to each one but differently, it’s not in this sense that I understood Thomas.

God can give Peter $ 1000 and gives $ 10 to Paul , in this sense it will be said that he loved Peter more than Paul. But he gives each of them this money with the same fervor of love, in which case it will be said that he have loved Peter as much as Paul.
 
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