In considering John 3
● remember John’s declaration of purpose for his gospel: “but these [words] are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (20:31),
● remember also that this chapter contains one of the most familiar verses of the New Testament, making preservation of context necessary for keeping John 3:16 alive, rather than being a dusty trinket on the shelves of our minds,
● notice that the opening episode involves Jesus meeting an individual, similar to what happens with the woman at the well in the next chapter, suggesting that the testimony of these considerably personal encounters serves to support the signs Jesus offers,
● notice that Nicodemus, this “ruler” (1), testifies that Jesus is a “rabbi,” that he comes from God, and that Jesus’ “signs” (2) confirm this that “we know” (2),
● ponder Jesus’ choices to interject “born again” (3, 7) as a requirement for seeing the kingdom of God into his response to Nicodemus’ declarations and to repeat the phrase almost immediately,
● register that this second birth involves “water and the Spirit” (5) and being born “of the Spirit” (6),
● ponder Jesus’ turn to the figure of the wind (remembering that the same Greek word means “spirit” and “wind”) to suggest this second birth, like the wind in its reality and invisibility, needs to be separated from the sheer physicality of the first birth,
● count the times that Jesus uses “believes in him” (15, 16, 18),
● notice how “lifted up” (14) points to Jesus on the cross, suggesting that, like the serpent Moses had lifted up in the wilderness, people could look to the lifted-up Jesus and live,
● hear how “light … darkness” (19) and “believed in the name” (18) echo the language of darkness and light in chapter 1:4-8 and “believed in his name” (1:8),
● understand the transition underway as Jesus and John the forerunner are both baptizing and John’s disciples come to him with questions to which John replies with astonishing awareness of his own place in the course of events: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (30), and
● notice how the chapter closes with one more declaration of the central significance of being one who “believes in the Son” (36) and with the claim to believe enough to “see life” (36) means to “obey” (36).

Thank you,

Randy Tumlinson