John answered Jesus’ call together with his brother James. With Peter and James he witnessed moments such as the Transfiguration, the raising of Jairus’s daughter and Gethsemane. The Gospel places him near the cross and among those who ran to the empty tomb. In Acts he goes to the temple with Peter, faces interrogation and insists that they cannot stop speaking about what they have seen and heard.
In Revelation John says that he was on Patmos because of God’s word and his witness to Jesus. His vision is sent to the churches in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. Scripture does not say that John died in Ephesus; that connection comes from early witnesses such as Irenaeus and Eusebius. The Ephesian tradition should therefore be presented as early church memory, distinct from the Bible’s explicit statements.