John 3:1-21

Having studied John 3 earlier this year I discovered a great deal of mistranslation and misunderstanding of this instance in the ministry of Christ. Remember that John is not a synoptic gospel. Instead of starting at the birth of Christ John begins before the creation of the universe. John also uses a more Socratic approach to the retelling of the life of Christ. This just means that the Greek philosopher Socrates asked questions to teach and to learn. If you read through the book of John you find Jesus asking a lot of questions, teaching His audience through this type of discourse. Chapter three is one of these conversations. In verse one we are told a great deal about one of the characters in this chapter. John uses en, the imperfect tense and indicative form of eimi (2258) "be". This is the usual way John introduces someone. I say this because there are instances John uses ginomai (1096) "become" to introduce characters. Because of this if you come across ginomai in an introduction use the literal meaning such as in 1:6, "There became a man". In 2:23-25 we learn when this conversation takes place at the Feast of the Passover. This is important to understand why Nicodemus by night. We will look at that a little later but now we see that Nicodemus was a man out of the Pharisees. The method by which a young man could become a Pharisee depended on his father's position. If a young man's father was a Pharisee then he would be expected to follow in his father's path and be educated to get him past the academic cuts. If a young man didn't have a father who worked in the temple or was a Pharisee then he had to be an exceptional student to make the cuts along the way. This would lead them to the temple to be educated and then they would be initiated into the Pharisees. We see in verse 10 that Nicodemus wasn't just a Pharisee but also a teacher. Some Pharisees held government positions and taught. This is why John points out that Nicodemus was an archon (758), a ruler of the Jews. The Roman government realized that if they appointed the Pharisees over districts to interpret and judge according to Jewish law, they could keep the peace better. So in addition to being a government official he was a teacher. The name Nicodemus means victor among the people. It is interesting that he has a Greek name that isn't a Greek translation of a Hebrew name. He may have been from outside of Judea like Paul or his parents decided to name him with a Greek name. Next we see that Nicodemus came to Jesus by night. Unfortunately commentators have surmised that it was out of fear of the Pharisees. We saw that the Passover Feast was going on when Jesus was in Jerusalem. Passover was a big part of Jewish culture and a busy time for Pharisees. Being both religious and governmental officials they were required to procide over what the priests did not. So it was necessary for Nicodemus to meet Jesus at night after a long Feast period. Also there is another aspect that cancels out fear as a reason. Later in verse 11-12 we find out Nicodemus is not alone because John uses a plural pronoun "you". From the way Jesus addresses them they came with Nicodemus and were more than likely Pharisees. They often would go to check out new Rabbis to see if they were keeping the Law correctly. Keep that in mind when looking at the rest of the chapter I'll continue this tomorrow.

Mercy (cont.)

Mercy on my last post I explained from scripture is compatible with other gifts and also a requirement given to us to use. Prophecy and mercy have to co-exist otherwise the book of Jonah would not have been so remarkable. Jonah didn't want to see the city of Nineveh turn toward God because he knew God kept His promises and wouldn't destroy them. Jonah sits outside the city angry that they were not destroyed knowing they would be the ones to judge Israel according to prophecy. Habakkuk was shown the wickedness of Israel and he cried out for justice until he learned who God was going to use to judge Israel. His cry for justice was not merciless. Habakkuk tells us in 1:4, "Therefore the law is ineffective, and justice is never upheld for the wicked surround the righteous therefore justice comes out perverted." God had mercy on the righteous and the innocent who were being afflicted and oppressed by their own countrymen and women. However when Habakkuk learns that a foreign nation who is in his eyes more wicked than Israel his call for justice is tempered. But God knows compassion has to be stronger than pride. Habakkuk's pride didn't want a nation like the Chaldeans judging Israel because of the shame it would place on God's people. Notice that God's people. God showed Habakkuk that pride blinds an individual from seeing the reason shame must come even to the people of God. That end is blessing and mercy. In 3:18-19 we see that Habakkuk gets it and is humbled before the Lord, "Yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation, Jehovah is my strength and He has made my feet like hinds' feet and makes me walk on my high places." Without mercy Habakkuk would not have heard from the Lord and seen what he saw among the people. Both these prophets show us that Gal. 5:22-23 must exist within us in order for the the words of the Lord to come to us and out of us. Paul says agape, unconditional, sacrificial, proactive and responsive not reactive love must be an inward production of the Spirit followed by joy which is inward stability not moved by what is going on around you. Next is peace, the ceasing of our working against the Spirit and instead participating with Him, and makrothumia, patience with people or being slow to lose your temper with others, being predictable and mature. Following makrothumia is chrestotes being beneficially useful to those around you and then agathosune being beneficially good in addition to being beneficially useful. Next we see pistis, trusting because we are so persuaded by God and passionate to act out of that trust which leads to praotes understanding and trusting God's sovereignty that we treat each situation individually waiting for God to tell us what is the appropriate response. Out of all of these comes self-control or rather being master over one's body, emotions and logic. These characteristics actually define the mercy God wants us to have. For that reason we must not be spineless or an enabler but we must also be empathetic, useful in God's economy and proactive. Mercy like humility and agape must be God's possession and come only from Him or else we are promoting a bad imitation of the real thing and an enemy of the gospel.