In John 3 Jesus does something quite unexpected: he reaches back to Numbers 21 from the Old Testament and evokes the image of that bronze serpent Moses lifted over the people as a cure for snakebites. The Israelites had to look at an image of the very thing that was afflicting them, and somehow doing…
After the midnight conversation with Nicodemus in which Jesus proclaims who he is and what he is about on earth, the gospel writer solidifies and catapults the message by bringing Jesus and the John the Baptist’s storylines back together in verse 22. Back in chapter 1, John the Baptist is introduced as the man sent…
Comments, Observations, and Questions I wonder what Nicodemus was thinking about when he walked home that night. My guess is that it wasn’t the Doctrine of the Trinity! Yet this is the Year B passage assigned for Trinity Sunday 2015. So what did he ponder? No clue. John doesn’t tell us. That’s ironic seeing as,…
Comments and Observations John 3:16 may be the most famous Bible verse in the world but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to understand. As Frederick Dale Bruner points out in his commentary on The Gospel of John, this entire chapter is fraught with mystery. The story takes place at night, the meeting seems to be…
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