John 3,1-21
1 There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:
2 The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou do, except God be with him.
3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
4 Nicodemus saith unto him, how can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?
5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
9 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be?
10 Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?
11 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.
12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
13 And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
Hello everyone, I am kiki. Chinese name of our second phase of the program is “读经大讲堂”. The English name is “Bible study”.
We will adopt a relaxed also enjoyable learning mode to take you into a new learning world. Each time I will make a personal summary and analysis from the perspective of a learner, and then Sister Ingrid will help me conduct in-depth learning and problem discussions with everybody.
I hope that such an interesting and interactive process can bring new knowledge experience to you all. The following is my interview with my sister on related issues. Today is the fifth lecture on the Gospel of John 。Everyone is welcome to leave a message in the comment area for discussion!
2.My summary of John 3rda time study:
There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus. He was a high official man of Jews, and probably very powerful.
One night he went to talk to Jesus. The Pharisees were very knowledgeable about religion, and Nicodemus knew that Jesus was a special teacher because the miracles Jesus performed had God’s help.
Jesus told Nicodemus an important secret: to enter heaven, one needs to be born again.
Nicodemus didn’t understand. He thought how could a person be reborn when he was old?
Jesus explains that to be born again is not to be a little baby again, but to be like the wind, which we feel but don’t know where it comes from or where it goes.
Likewise, it is amazing that new life comes from the Holy Spirit.
Nicodemus still didn’t understand, so he asked Jesus what was going on.
Jesus said, “You are the teacher of Israel. You should know these things. I tell you what we know and we testify of what we have seen. But you do not accept our testimony. “
“I told you earthly things, and you didn’t believe it. If I told you heavenly things, how could you believe it?”
Jesus went on to say that only the Son of Man from heaven, who is himself, can tell people about heavenly things.
He mentioned the story of Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness, meaning that he would be lifted up like that so that whoever believed in him would have eternal life.
“God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.”
“God sent his Son into the world to save people, not to judge. Those who believe in him will not be condemned; those who do not believe are already condemned.”
“When light comes into the world, some people don’t like the light. They prefer darkness. These people do bad things and are afraid that the light will reveal their evil deeds.”
People who do good things will move towards the light, because the light can show that their actions are dependent on God. And it works.
So, Jesus is the Son of God and he wants to help us be reborn and enter heaven. But many people miss the opportunity to be saved because they don’t understand or are unwilling to accept the truth.
We must pursue the truth in order to obtain real life and happiness. Now please let Ingrid sister help me make a summerize.
3.Sister’s comment from my studying summary:
(around 350-500 words or less you decide it)
Hello sister, your summary was very good. Nicodemus belonged to the council of the Pharisees, the Sanhedrin, who judged Jesus later for to die on the cross. Nicodemus and another secret follower of Jesus were not present in that court at night.
Nicodemus said: We know that you came from heaven because nobody can do theese signs if God is not with him. So the pharasees knew about Jesus and their motivation to kill him was religious jealousy provocted by the devil in their hearts.
The pharesees knew a lot about the law of Moises and the old testamony, the book of the Jewish people. But even the book told about Jesus, they were because of their religious thinking not able to recognize him.
Jesus tells Nicodemus, that a natural person has to be born again by water and spirit for to enter the kingdom of God. When a person is born again in that manner, she or he will get a spiritual person and a new identity in Christ.
In the epistels of Paul, Paul mentiones often the old person, the flesh and the new person, the spiritual being in him.
When we are born again, our flesh is crucified with Christ and the spirit in us begins to live as a citizen in the kingdom of God.
- Q list part: base on John 3,1-21 items:
Okay.Base on above bible study content, now let me ask sister some related questions.
- How does the concept of “rebirth” that Jesus mentioned to Nicodemus apply to personal growth and development in our lives?
“Rebirth” in Asian culture refers to the next life after reincarnation.
So it’s very different from the understanding here. Sister, please tell me in detail.
In Asian culture it means, that a soul is born again as a baby, with a new body and a new identitiy. The karma will cause a good life or a bad life.
But the Bible says, man shall die once and after that judgement. According to the bible, we live only once.
The concept of Karma does not work neighter. We commit all sins and when we accumulate the sins of a further life together with the life now, our karma is never positive.
Christian context of rebirth is to become a spiritual being. All sins are washed away by the blood of Jesus and we can begin once again to live a holy life which pleases God. The bible calls this the way of santification.
No one is totally saint in this world accept of Jesus, but as a Christian, we are following Jesus and become more and more like him.
- How does a person’s spiritual “rebirth” or transformation positively impact their professional life and work ethic?
What are the main changes between your life after being “reborn” and before?
It is the same as in Asian religions: There are limits which you can t do as a Christ. I can for example not work as a doctor in an abortion hospital, because the bible says clearly: You shall not kill. When I commited a mistake, I can t tell a lie to my boss, I have to admit it.
But the most important thing is: I shall do everything as for the Lord. So it does not matter, if I have a good or a bad Boss, if my work is hard or not. At the place where God has put me I shall be light and salt and do the things as for the Lord.
- How can a person find the same strength and resilience that Jesus displayed when faced with life’s major challenges or setbacks?
It is difficult to find this strength, because Jesus was the son of God, but he was human, too. So he suffered and was tempted as we are, but he was without sin.
I think we can learn out of the temptations that are recorded in the bible, how the devil tempted Jesus and how Jesus defended himself. The devil often temptes us to be proud, that we can get a lot of things on earth and that we can do miricales and other things. But we have to learn, that these thoughts come from the kingdom of darkness and take them under the obedience of God and take decicions that please the Lord
- How is the idea of being born of the Spirit different from our physical existence?
Because modern physics defines the existence and destruction of matter differently than the Bible does, how does this affect our daily interactions with others?
The idea of being born again meanes to repent and follow Jesus. That provoces rebirth. We are, as I mentioned crucified with Christ and live a new life with him.
Paul explaines, that the message of the cross is something stupid for the wise scientists of the world. It is reveiled for the poor and simple people.
Even I know modern scientists that are reborn, too, because the read the bible and came to the conclusion that it must be the truth.
- How do we compare the unpredictability of the wind to the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and what does this teach us about the unpredictability of life?
We live because we have got a spirit from God who God inhaled in our body. When we die, this spirit goes back to God, our body to the graveyard and our soul to the place of glory or the place of punishment.
When we are reborn, the Holy Spirit tells our spirit, that we are children of God and that we have a place to go after death.
Many people confuse the talking of the Holy Spirit with other Spirit. In this case we have to exercise to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit and when we learn to obey more and more, the louder he speaks into our life and leads us every day.
Unfortunately we never know when we die, so we are dependent, that the Holy Spirit gives us wisdom how and invest our time for to get a fruit out of it.
- How can we, as us, emulate Jesus’ response to Nicodemus when dealing with others’ doubts or questions?
Jesus said to Nicodemus, that the father loved the world so much, that he gave his only son for to save us. And when other have doubt, we have to explain, that we are lost.
Therefor Jesus said, God does not want us to perish but to give us eternal life. When a person does not accept, that he must be saved, it is difficult to explain the gospel.
As Jesus said, a lot of people love the kingdom of darkness or don t want to know that we only can live in the light or in the darkness and so it is difficult to explain the gospels.
For to get a question, people with doughts have to come to Jesus and ask and than Jesus promises: Those who seek will find.
- How do we work to bridge the gap between earthly understanding and heavenly wisdom in our decision-making processes?
Because although we are children of God, not every child is smart.
Decisions must be found in obidience. When we make a decision we can be obidient to the kingdom of heaven or the darkness.
Each time we are obidient to the heaven, we grow in wisdom and grace and we learn more and more to walk as Gods child in this world. When we learn to act in obedience, the intelectual level of us is not important.
We get wisdom from God which has a higher value as earthly intelect and education.
- What lessons can we learn from the parable of “Moses lifting up the snake” to help us through adversity or need guidance?
Jesus wanted to tell Nicodemus, that he will be crucified like Mose lifted the snake in the wilderness.
The people Israel was murmuring against Mose and God and that was because God sent snakes among them and a lot of people became very sick. So Mose lifted up an copper snake in the wilderness and everyone who looked by faith on the snake was saved.
Jesus on the cross was lifted up like this snake, he was between heaven and earth to be in the gap between God and us for to make peace between God and us.
From nature we are rebells, too, but by looking at Jesus and standing before the cross, we are saved.
- In times of confusion or uncertainty, how can one find comfort and clarity from the assurance of eternal life offered, and what actions should we take?
How will God guide us?
Jesus says: Nobody comes to me if not the father pulles him. So we can read the bible, rely on the father and hear the inner voice when the Holy Spirit wants to reveal the Gospel to us.
