A Fresh Perspective

In John 3, Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a religious leader, comes to Jesus by night. He comes by night, no doubt, because he doesn’t want to risk his reputation, position, and standing with his group who has a very negative view of Jesus. Such is the power of the group (family, church, denomination, political party, social group, country, etc.) to tell us who we are and keep us in the dark. Night is also symbolical of where Nicodemus is at this stage in his life journey. He is in the dark – blind to the truth of God. However, and this is the really important thing, he senses a need to know beyond what the other Pharisees are saying. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be taking this risk to talk to Jesus. Unlike so many of his colleagues, who see in Jesus only a threat to their power and place, Nicodemus sees in Jesus a man who radiates something special. A person who is authentic and compassionate, honest and courageous, and who seems to really know God. Now, let’s be clear on this. We are ...

This is a strange story to say the least. Terrible things happen to Job because God gets in argument with Satan. Satan here is a member of the heavenly council, not the symbol of evil we come to know later in the New Testament. With God’s permission Satan inflicts great disaster. In most of the Old Testament God was believed to be the cause of both good and evil. For example, Amos who prophesied in the first half of the eighth century B.C.E. asks: Does disaster befall a city, unless the Lord has done it?” And the implied response is: Well, of course God has done it. God brings blessing and God brings disaster. That’s what God does. Satan says to God: “Have you not put a fence around Job and his house and all that he has?” This is why he is staying the course, suggests Satan. So God decides to let Satan go after Job to prove Satan wrong. I hope you understand that this story is fiction. Scholars would call this sacred myth. It is a kind of extended parable. Job is actually ...

John 17 is set in a context of Jesus praying. Though what follows is framed as a prayer, the instruction of the disciples that began in chapter 13 continues. An important theme in this prayer has to do with the relationship of Jesus’ disciples to the world: v. 6: “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. v. 9: “I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world. v. 11: “And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. . . . protect them in your name that you have given me” v. 14: “the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world. v. 15: “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. v. 16: “They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.” v. 18: “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. vv. 22-23: “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that ...

Jesus said to Nicodemus: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above” (John 3:3).   While all the Gospels are theological/spiritual renderings of the story of Jesus, John’s Gospel stands apart from the Synoptic Gospels (called as such because they share a common view of Jesus). It is packed with theological symbolism and double meanings. For example, when John tells us that Nicodemus, a Pharisee who was a member of the official Jewish council, comes to Jesus by night, on one level he comes secretively concealing his actions from the other Jewish leaders, but on another level it is John’s way of telling us that he is in the dark about spiritual reality. He is spiritually unenlightened. The phrase “born from above” contains a double meaning, which is lost in translation. It could just as well be translated (as it is in many translations), “born again/anew.” Also, in this Gospel, misconceptions and false assumptions aboun...