The 2025 World Watch List from OpenDoors released this week. It’s the most authoritative report you can get on locations around the world where Christians face persecution and discrimination because of their faith. OpenDoors conducts on-the-ground research in 150 countries around the world, then shares the top 50 most dangerous countries each year. The organization has a presence in 70 nations where Christians face heavy persecution, lending substantial aid and standing alongside those suffering for their faith in Jesus.
You can download a copy of this year’s World Watch List by clicking here (you can also order print copies for your church, if you want). I encourage you to take some time to thoughtfully read through the reports on each country, the requests from our brethren who live there, and the individual stories bravely shared. Then, if you can, visit the Arise Africa page and add your name to the petition that Open Doors will present to the African Union, the United Nations, other groups as part of a four-year campaign to aid God’s people in sub-Saharan Africa.
One thing that struck me deeply is that when asked how other people can help, persecuted Christians ask for prayer. “Pray for my child,” asks a man who escaped North Korea (p. 9). “Pray that God will give me strength,” asks a woman secretly ministering in Yemen (p. 11). Manga from Nigeria, who was nearly killed for refusing to deny Jesus, asks us to pray “for strength to remain firm” and “that fire for Jesus” would keep burning in their hearts (p. 15). Pastor Soré from Burkina Faso requests prayers that Christians there “stay firm in their faith” (p. 29). A man from Mexico requests prayers for hope, strong hearts, and growth of the church (p. 41). A believer in China shares, “Thank you for praying. I feel that I am not by myself. Through your prayers, I can feel that God has been looking after me to make me feel secure” (p. 23). It’s just like what the early church did–facing persecutions, encouraging each other to stand steadfast in the faith, and praying for one another.
Finally, pray for us, brothers and sisters, that the Lord’s message may spread quickly and be honored as in fact it was among you, and that we may be delivered from perverse and evil people. For not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one. And we are confident about you in the Lord that you are both doing—and will do—what we are commanding. Now may the Lord direct your hearts toward the love of God and the endurance of Christ.
2 Thessalonians 3:1-5, NET
As I mentioned in my 2024 blog recap, we have readers coming to LikeAnAnchor from all around the world. That includes thousands of people in Nigeria and India, as well as hundreds more from many other countries that appear in the World Watch List. I’m very grateful to have you here reading and, as the Apostle Paul frequently said, I remember you and make “mention of you in my prayers.” I don’t know most of you personally, but you are in my thoughts.
My friends, we might feel discouraged or powerless when we think about the opposition that we and/or our brethren in the world are facing, but we must remember the power of the God we serve. Praying to Him isn’t just something we do because we can’t do something more; prayer is one of the most powerful things that we can do to help others. Let’s never forget to pray for our brothers and sisters around the world.
A quick note on next week’s post: if you read my newsletter, you’ll know that I’d planned on sharing a study this week on the connection between waiting and hoping in the Hebrew language. I needed more time for that study, and when I read the World Watch List report this week, I felt moved to share this instead. We’ll be back to our regular Bible study posts next week.
One of the big lessons we can learn from the Bible is that God wants us to be prepared. There are a lot of warnings in the Bible, and we’re told many things in advance so we won’t be surprised. There are also many examples we can look at, particularly things that happened to Jesus Christ, that give us hints about what we might go through.
Following Jesus in Everything
Writing about Jesus, the author of Hebrews said, “he was obligated in all things to be made like his brothers, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:17, WEB). He became like us, and we’re supposed to become like Him. If Jesus did something, then we shouldn’t be surprised that we’re supposed to do that as well.
“If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you too ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example—you should do just as I have done for you. I tell you the solemn truth, the slave is not greater than his master, nor is the one who is sent as a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand these things, you will be blessed if you do them.”
John 13:14-17, NET
We’re supposed to follow Jesus’s example. We’re even supposed to become perfect just like God the Father is perfect (Matt. 5:43-48). We can also expect that many of the things Jesus experienced will be things we go through as well. He took part in flesh and blood like us, He was tempted just like us (though He never sinned), and He learned humility and obedience just like we have to (Heb. 2:14; 4:15; 5:8; Phil. 2:5-8). If something happened to Him, we shouldn’t be surprised that it happens to us.
“Remember what I told you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they obeyed my word, they will obey yours too.”
John 15:20, NET
We might marvel when we look at how the disciples handled persecution in the book of Acts. They even rejoiced “because they had been considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name” (Acts 5:41, NET). They’d seen Jesus persecuted and they knew that they shouldn’t expect to be treated better than their master. He put up with unjust persecution for following His father, and so they put up with unjust persecution for following Him. It’s part of following His example.
We get to see how the disciples handled the truth of Jesus’s statement that, “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” in the book of Acts. We also get to read about Peter’s take on this topic in his first epistle, where he applied Jesus’s words to the whole church body of believers (and expanded it to include other types of suffering as well).
Dear friends, do not be astonished that a trial by fire is occurring among you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice in the degree that you have shared in the sufferings of Christ, so that when his glory is revealed you may also rejoice and be glad.
1 Peter 4:12-13, NET
Often when something bad–or even just inconvenient–happens to us, our human reaction is to bemoan, “Why me?” Peter thinks we shouldn’t be surprised by tough things, even if it’s something that could be categorized as “a trial by fire.” It isn’t strange, it’s just part of life as followers of Jesus. Our Messiah suffered persecution, so why shouldn’t we? He was tempted and tried (see Matt. 4:1-11), so why wouldn’t we be? That doesn’t make it easy, but it is expected.
We sent Timothy, our brother and fellow worker for God in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen you and encourage you about your faith, so that no one would be shaken by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we are destined for this. For in fact when we were with you, we were telling you in advance that we would suffer affliction, and so it has happened, as you well know.So when I could bear it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter somehow tempted you and our toil had proven useless.
1 Thessalonians 3:1-5, NET
Like the people of Thessalonica, we’ve been given warnings that life will be hard sometimes. We read the Bible and listen to sermons, and we know that following God doesn’t exempt us from facing trials (though He does promise to work all things out for good in the end and give us a way to endure trials [Rom. 8:28; 1 Cor. 10:13]). That doesn’t always stick in our heads, though, when bad things happen. That’s one reason it’s so important to be connected with Messiah’s community–so people can check on and encourage you just like Paul did for the Thessalonians.
For this is the gospel message that you have heard from the beginning: that we should love one another,not like Cain who was of the evil one and brutally murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his deeds were evil, but his brother’s were righteous. Therefore do not be surprised, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.
1 John 3:11-13, NET
John spends a lot of this epistle talking about how God loves us and our duty to love Him and each other. He also points out that when we love in a Godly way, it’s a radical departure from how the world lives. We’re supposed to love our fellow Christians–everyone who is fathered by God, practices righteousness, and is growing toward perfection (1 John 3:1-16). In contrast, many people in the world hate those whose deeds are righteous (John 3:19-20;15:18-19). That shouldn’t surprise us–it’s been that way since Cain and Able.
I didn’t plan on this blog post to focus so much on persecution and trials, but when you start studying warnings that’s a main theme that pops out. I suspect it’s because God and the Biblical writers know that the hardships we encounter can keep us from enduring unless we develop a strong root system of faith (see Mark 4:1-20). There are other warnings, though, and cautions so that we’re not surprised.
“For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. Remember, I have told you ahead of time.”
Matthew 24:24-25, NET
God tells us a lot about the future. We don’t know when the end time events that He prophesied are going to happen (Acts 1:6-7), but Jesus gave us plenty of warnings about what those times will be like and how we’re supposed to guard ourselves as we get closer to the time of his return (Matt. 24-25, and many other prophecies). He told us these things before they happened so that we won’t be misled (Matt. 24:4-5), alarmed (Matt. 24:6), deceived (Matt. 24:24), unprepared (Matt. 24:42-44; 25:1-13), or shirking our duties (Matt. 24:45-51; 25:14-46).
God doesn’t tell us exactly what’s going to happen or when in our lives, but He doesn’t leave us in the dark about his overarching plan. We won’t know the specifics of trials we face before they happen, but He warns us they will happen and promises He’ll be there through them. He wants us to join His family, and sets us up for success.
“You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I am.I have told you now before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe.”
John 14:28-29
When we see God follow through on His promises, it strengthens our faith. He’s given us many insights into how the world works, what we can expect, and what we’re looking forward to so that we can develop a deep, strong faith and trust in Him. We can have confidence and peace, knowing that God has already assured us of His good plans and purposes related to us and the world. We can also trust Him through trials, knowing we’ve been warned of them in advance and having the perspective that God will use them to refine us and that He’ll be with us no matter what comes.
Two Sabbaths ago, my dad gave a message in our church group about personal revival, specifically on the topic of rekindling a waning interest in Bible study. I was feeling a bit down emotionally at the start of that following week, and I remembered he mentioned a Hebrew word often translated “revive” that I thought it might be encouraging to look at more closely. It turned into such an interesting study that I didn’t get this post finished for last week and skipped posting so I could spend two weeks studying and writing.
The Hebrew word in question is chayah or haya (depending on how you want to transliterate it into the English alphabet). It’s Strong’s number H2421 and entry 644 in the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (TWOT), where the authors devote nearly three full pages to haya and its derivatives. It’s a very important word in the Old Testament writings, with the root word appearing 270 times, and it’s translated as “live,” “alive,” “quicken,” “nourish,” “recover,” and “revive” (along with a few other less frequent phrases) in the King James Version. The closely related derivative chay (H2416) appears 498 times, and it’s most often translated “life” or something that is alive, e.g. “a living thing.” Today, let’s take a closer look at these words and see what we can learn.
The TWOT says the root verb haya means “to live or have life” (in the simple Qal stem) or “giving or restoring life” (in the word’s two other verb stems) (p. 279). The “range of meaning” also includes “‘to preserve or sustain life’ or ‘to nourish’ … ‘or to restore to health, to heal, recover'” (p. 280). Key to understanding this word is that it is usually very concrete rather than an abstract idea.
“The OT speaks of life as the experience of life rather than as an abstract principle of vitality which may be distinguished from the body. This is because the OT view of the nature of man is holistic, that is, his function as body, mind, spirit is a unified whole spoken of in very concrete terms. Life is the ability to exercise all one’s vital power to the fullest; death is the opposite.”
R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke; TWOT entry 644, p. 279
We might think this is a very different viewpoint from the New Testament, but that’s because we’ve been influenced by modern ideas about people being bodies with spirits or souls rather than unified wholes. The idea that humans have a soul that’s separate and immortal came into Christianity from Neoplatonic philosophy about 200-300 years after Christ’s human life (see “Rethinking Heaven: Capturing A Vision Of The Resurrection” and “Relational Faith: A Book Review and Theological Reflection“). We’re “spirit, soul, and body” (1 Thes. 5:23, WEB) as a unified whole, living our lives as human beings made in God’s image.
While chayah can have slightly “less concrete” meanings, such as living “by the words of God ‘not by bread alone’ (Deut 8:3; Ps 119:50, 93)” even these uses are grounded in “the biblical unity of man’s nature” and seem to refer to both physical “prosperity as the gift of obedience” and “the spiritual quality of life” (TWOT, p. 280). There are also hints in the Old Testament that chayah refers to the eternal, spiritual life God offers after death, not just the physical life that He gives us (Ps. 49:9; Prov. 12:28; 15:24; Dan. 12:2). The concreteness of the word ties in well with the Biblical teaching that there will be a bodily resurrection (i.e. we’ll be resurrected as spirit beings with spirit bodies, not something ghostly or disembodied).
Since chayah is used so many times in the Bible, I thought I’d focus today’s study on the ways that it’s used in the Psalms (just to make things a little more manageable). I did this by looking up chayah (H2421) and chay (H2416) with the program eSword, which yielded 82 matches in the psalms (31 chayah, 51 chay). This includes several categories of verses, including ones describing God as “the living God” (Ps. 42:2; 84:2) and talking about us being in the “land of the living” (Ps. 27:13; 56:13; 142:5). I want to focus, though, on the ones that speak of how God impacts our lives (click for examples).
Surely goodness and loving kindness shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in Yahweh’s house forever.
Psalm 23:6, WEB
The much beloved Psalm 23 shows Yahweh’s involvement with David’s whole life (and ours as well). God is the shepherd who provides all our needs, restores our souls, guides us, guards us, and comforts us. Chay appears in the last verse, providing a conclusion to the short psalm. When we remember that the life represented by chay can involve nuances of preserving, sustaining, nourishing, and reviving, it deepens our understanding of the quality of life that God wants to give us.
In another section of scripture, Jesus said, “I have come so that they may have life, and may have it abundantly. I am the goodshepherd” (John 10:10-11, NET). Obviously, the word chay doesn’t appear here because the New Testament was written in Greek rather than Hebrew, but I think we can see how the meaning is connected. God wants our lives to be good, not just abstractly but in a real, tangible way.
I have set Yahweh always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my tongue rejoices. My body shall also dwell in safety. For you will not leave my soul in Sheol, neither will you allow your holy one to see corruption. You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. In your right hand there are pleasures forever more.
Psalm 16:8-11, WEB (footnote on v. 10: “Sheol is the place of the dead”)
As with Psalm 23, chay appears in the conclusion of Psalm 16 (also a psalm of David). Long after David’s death, the apostle Peter said that this Psalm is really “about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did his body experiencedecay” (Acts 2:31, NET [italics mark allusions to Psalm 16]). David was a prophet, and he knew he was writing about one of his descendants who would be the Messiah/Christ (Acts 2:22-33). A lot of this psalm also feels personal, though, and I suspect that we can read it on both levels: a messianic prophecy and an expression of David’s assurance that God will take care of him.
I’m not sure how much David understood about God’s ultimate plan to bring human beings into His family, but it is accurate that God won’t leave us in the grave forever. It’s also accurate to say that he shows us “the path of life” in multiple senses: the path to walk in order to have a good life here on this earth, and the path to eternal life with God forever.
I find it ironic that I’ve been struggling to focus on and finish this study, which was inspired by a message about reviving a waning interest in Bible study. For some reason, I’ve just had a very hard time for this post with going from reading Bible scriptures to knowing how to put them together and what to say about them.
In the Psalms, there are several times where chay or chayah are translated “revive” (as well as the more common “life” or “live”). It shows up a lot in Psalm 119. This whole psalm is like a love letter to God’s word; every single verse talks about God’s law, ordinances, statues, precepts, way, etc. Here, we learn that revival (chayah) is found in the words of God.
My soul is laid low in the dust. Revive me according to your word!
Psalm 119:25, WEB
I will never forget your precepts, for with them, you have revived me.
Psalm 119:93, WEB
Hear my voice according to your loving kindness. Revive me, Yahweh, according to your ordinances.
Psalm 119:149, WEB
It seems that the solution to my problem focusing on study is to persistently come back to God and His word even if it takes a while for things to come together and make sense. In fact, that’s the solution to all of our problems. It’s not like there’s anywhere else to go for answers. As Peter said when Jesus asked if the twelve wanted to go away after several other disciples decided not to listen to Him anymore, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68, NET).
We can physically survive without having a relationship with God, but we can’t have full, abundant, and eventually eternal life apart from Him. He doesn’t promise that we’ll never have tough times or difficult feelings, but He does promise life-giving revival in Him and His word if we come to Him during those challenges.
As has been my tradition for many years now, I want to start this year with a look back at the stats for my blog. This past year was a big one for me; I spent a little over half of it pregnant and the rest of it caring for our new baby girl. I missed a few weekly posts this year, but honestly not as many as I’d though I might given the many distractions from writing (I posted 48 of the 52 weeks in the year).
I talk about this more in my newsletter today, but 2024 marks the 10-year anniversary of year-end posts. I started this blog in 2013, and the end of 2014 was the first year I did a look back at my most popular posts (one of which is still on this year’s post popular list).
These are the 10 most popular posts on my blog this year. They all date from pre-2024 (older posts tend to attract more long-term traffic). WordPress changed something in their stats report this year, so unfortunately I can’t see which posts published in 2024 were the most popular.
The one that surprised me most was seeing “Wanting Children While Single” in this year’s top posts. It’s something I wrote back in 2016 and while it sparked a few comments, it never really had high numbers of views before this. I’ll probably never know, but I do wonder what it was that made people gravitate to this topic in 2024.
Several years ago, I added 30-day scripture writing plans to the resources available on here on Like An Anchor. You can see them all and download them for free by clicking here. These were the most popular in 2024 (ranked by numbers of downloads):
I’m always amazed by how many people visit my blog from all over the world. There are far too many countries represented to list here, but here are the top 10 in terms of the number of visitors this past year:
United States
United Kingdom
Canada
India
Philippines
Australia
South Africa
Nigeria
Germany
Russia
Thank you so much to everyone who reads, follows, likes, and comments on my blog or sends me emails. It means so much to me that you enjoy my writing! I hope you have a wonderful new year 🙂
Sometimes, as Christians, we hear and use phrases that sound good but aren’t actually in the Bible. Many common Christian phrases like “What would Jesus do?” are inspired by scriptures, but aren’t actually a quote from anywhere in the Bible. For phrases like this, we need to make sure that we’re not just using them because they sound good. We need to check if they’re actually backed up by the Bible. Sometimes they’re accurate according to scripture, and sometimes they’re not.
We talked about one example earlier this year: “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” This sounds like something from Proverbs, but it’s really from a 17th-century poem by Samuel Butler. In this case, the popular phrase distorts the meaning of similar (though not identical) Bible scriptures.
Another common phrase in modern Christianity is “find your identity in God” or “find our identity in Christ.” There is no scripture that tells us to do this exact thing; it’s not a quote from the Bible. That doesn’t necessarily make it inaccurate, but it does mean we need to check it out carefully and examine the underlying assumptions.
Based on the tagline for this blog (“Finding our true selves in the people God created us to be”), you can probably guess that I think finding our identity in God is a solid Biblical idea. But it is good to remain open to questioning our assumptions and being corrected by the Bible, particularly for topics like this where it’s not a quote from scripture. It’s good for us to study to prove whether our assumptions are right or wrong.
Image by Matt Vasquez from Lightstock
What Does It Mean?
When someone says you should “find your identity in Christ,” what do they mean? Answering this question is a first-step toward checking if the phrase lines-up with scripture.
The word “identity” in this context means “the fact of being who or what a person or thing is” and “the characteristics determining who or what a person or thing is” (Google/Oxford Languages definition). It’s about who you are and who you or others think you are. In today’s world, it’s become increasingly common to talk about how we identify ourselves. We’re told we can fill in the blank in, “I identify as …” however we want. People today want to determine their own identities.
In a Christian context, the phrase “find your identity in Christ” generally means a couple similar things. It means we should let God define who we are rather than listening to our own “I am” or the world’s “you are” statements. In other words, we believe what He says about us is true even (especially) when it contradicts what we might say about ourselves or what others say about us.
It can also mean becoming more and more like Jesus until His identity becomes our own. If identity is “who or what a person” is and “the characteristics determining” who they are, then having the same identity as Christ is just another way of saying we should become like Him. For the purposes of this post, we’ll operate on the assumption that “find your identity in Christ/God” means 1) believe the things God says about who you are, and 2) become like Jesus Christ. As we’ll see, both of those ideas do show up in the Bible.
Image by Who Is Like The Lord from Lightstock
What God Says About You
I’ve written about this topic before, but it’s worth revisiting in today’s context. There are many places in the Bible where God makes “you are” statements to His people or where God’s people make “I am” statements that we can identify with. From scripture, we know that we are (collectively) the temple of God (1 Cor. 3:16-17; 2 Cor. 6:16-18) and we belong to Him (1 Cor. 6:19-21). God also describes us as people worth dying for (Rom. 5:8), as salt and light in this earth (Matt. 5:13-14), as called and chosen (1 Pet. 2:9), and as friends and siblings of Jesus Christ (John 15:14, Rom. 8:16-17). We are greatly loved and highly valued by both the Father and the Son (John 3:16; 15:13-14).
We can also look at examples of how God interacted with specific people to see how He encouraged them to redefine how they see themselves to line-up with how He saw them. Let’s consider Moses for a moment. When God appeared to him in the burning bush, He called Moses to free his people from slavery in Egypt. Moses did not think he was qualified (Exodus 4:1-17). He protested, “they will not believe me, nor listen to my voice” and “I am not eloquent … for I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue” (Ex. 4:1, 10, WEB)).” God answered both these protests; He could make Moses believable and give him the ability to speak. God did agree to make Aaron Moses’s spokesperson, but with God’s help Moses eventually grew to the point that he could speak on his own (all of Deuteronomy, for example, is an address from Moses to God’s people). God knew who Moses could be, and He helped Him get there. God did a similar thing for Jeremiah.
The Lord’s message came to me, “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb I chose you. Before you were born I set you apart. I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.”
I answered, “Oh, Sovereign Lord, Really I do not know how to speak well enough for that, for I am too young.”The Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ But go to whomever I send you and say whatever I tell you.Do not be afraid of those to whom I send you, for I will be with you to protect you,” says the Lord. Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I will most assuredly give you the words you are to speak for me. Know for certain that I hereby give you the authority to announce to nations and kingdoms that they will be uprooted and torn down, destroyed and demolished, rebuilt and firmly planted.”
Jeremiah 1:4-10, NET
In terms related to our topic today, Jeremiah didn’t identify as a prophet. He identified as a poor speaker too young for the Lord’s important work. But God had a different identity for him that was backed-up by God’s protection and power. Later, God offered even more reassurance, saying, “I, the Lord, hereby promise to make you as strong as a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall. You will be able to stand up against all who live in the land” (Jer. 1:18, NET). Like many of us today, Jeremiah probably wouldn’t have described himself as a strong person, but with God’s help he became someone who can stand against any foe (as we can today with God’s armor [Eph. 6:10-18]).
Image by Marcus from Lightstock
Becoming Like Jesus Christ
Jesus is our model for living a Christian life. If we say we have a relationship with Him and His Father, then we ought “to walk just as Jesus walked” (1 John 2:6, NET). He left “an example for you to follow in his steps” (1 Pet. 2:21, NET; see also John 13:14-15). Over and over, New Testament writers point to Jesus as the one we’re supposed to be like. We “walk in love, even as Christ also loved us” (Eph. 5:2, WEB), we’re told to “please his neighbor for his good to build him up” because that’s what Christ did (Rom. 15:1-3, NET), and “have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had” (Phil. 2:5, NET).
One of the goals of our Christian walk is to become like Jesus, inside and out. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians about how we understand the things of God because God’s spirit is inside us, he also said “we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16, NET). In the same passage, he talks about those who are “mature” (1 Cor. 2:6) and those who are “infants in Christ” (1 Cor. 3:1, NET). I think the implication here is that the more mature we are as Christians, the more we understand the things of God and have the mind of Christ (see also Heb. 5:11-6:3). Becoming like God is our goal.
(See what sort of love the Father has given to us: that we should be called God’s children—and indeed we are! For this reason the world does not know us: because it did not know him.Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that whenever it is revealed we will be like him, because we will see him just as he is.And everyone who has this hope focused on him purifies himself, just as Jesus is pure).
1 John 3:1-3, NET
Much of what we are told to do as God’s followers is “so that you may be like your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:45, NET; see Matt. 5:43-48). He is making us fully part of His family, to the point that “we will be like him” in the future. When we have that hope of eternal life with God as His family members, the natural and necessary response is to work on making ourselves like God the Father and Jesus Christ.
Being part of God’s family is an identity that is higher, better, and far more important than our other identities. Paul is a great example of someone who had an “identity” that most people of his time would envy, but he gave it up so that he could identify with Christ.
If someone thinks he has good reasons to put confidence in human credentials, I have more: I was circumcised on the eighth day, from the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. I lived according to the law as a Pharisee.In my zeal for God I persecuted the church. According to the righteousness stipulated in the law I was blameless. But these assets I have come to regard as liabilities because of Christ. More than that, I now regard all things as liabilities compared to the far greater value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things—indeed, I regard them as dung!—that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not because I have my own righteousness derived from the law, but because I have the righteousness that comes by way of Christ’s faithfulness—a righteousness from God that is in fact based on Christ’s faithfulness.My aim is to know him, to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings, and to be like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Philippians 3:4-11, NET
Paul didn’t stop being an Israelite, Benjamite, or highly-educated Pharisee when he started following Jesus. Those identities just didn’t matter nearly as much anymore. Similarly, I don’t stop being a wife, mother, American, red-head, or someone with a master’s degree when I follow Jesus, but those identities aren’t nearly as important as my primary identity as a Christian. Being Christian makes me a better wife and mother, putting both of those roles in a new perspective. My citizenship in heaven (Phil. 3:20) supersedes my identity as an American. My visible/ethnic identities like red-head and white take a back seat to knowing I’m a child of God, part of one human race He created (Acts 17:26-28). My education becomes something that’s not worth boasting about because knowing God is so much more important (Jer. 9:23-34; 1 Cor. 1:26-31).
There isn’t a Bible verse telling us to find our identities in Jesus, but the phrase does reflect solidly Biblical ideas: believe what God says about who you are and become like Jesus Christ. Believing God is a first-step of faith (Heb. 11:6), and that includes believing the things He says about us and about the future He has planned for us as His family members. As we grow in our relationships with God and follow the example of Jesus Christ, we’re supposed to become more and more like Him. Just like Moses, Jeremiah, Paul, and other faithful men and woman throughout the ages, we should find our primary identity–the fact of our being and the characteristics of who we are–in God.
We all know John 3:16. Even non-Christians know this verse. It’s displayed and quoted perhaps more than any other part of the Bible.
But do you know where it is, contextually? I’m fairly good at remembering where scriptures are, but it’s easy to get your memories mixed up and if I’d had to guess, I might have said it’s in one of Jesus’s many addresses to crowds of people. It’s actually part of his answer to a question Nicodemus asked when he came to Jesus privately, at night after the crowds were gone.
Knowing the context doesn’t change the profound truth that “God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16, WEB). But it does enhance our understanding of Jesus’s point if we know what else Jesus said when He made this statement.
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Setting the Stage
Unlike other gospel writers, John begins not with Jesus’s human birth but with pre-Creation. He establishes Jesus’s divinity before anything else (John 1:1-18), then goes into John the Baptist’s testimony about Jesus (John 1:19-26), and the first disciples gathering to Jesus (John 1:27-51). Then he records Jesus’s first miracle (John 2:1-11), then the first Passover during Jesus’s ministry, when He cleared those buying and selling out of the temple and began attracting attention from the religious leaders (John 2:12-25). Then, while Jesus is in Jerusalem for Passover, we come to the conversation we’re studying today.
Now a certain man, a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council,came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus replied, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time, can he?”
John 3:1-4, NET
We learn several things about Nicodemus in this introduction. First, he was a Pharisee, a member of an influential religious and political group whose members “were strict and zealous adherents to the laws of the OT and to numerous additional traditions” (NET footnote on John 1:24). In addition, he was “a member of the Sanhedrin, the highest legal, legislative, and judicial body among the Jews” (NET footnote on John 3:1). He was an expert in the scriptures and how to interpret them. It was enough to recognize Jesus as a teacher sent by God, based on the miracles He performed, and to prompt him to come to speak with Jesus privately to learn more. I have to wonder if he might have suspected Jesus to be the Messiah, but came privately because he didn’t want others to know what he was thinking.
As is often the case, Jesus jumped right in with a statement that doesn’t seem like a logical reply to the other person’s remark, but which starts the conversation that they need to have with Him. In this case, one of the words He uses has a double meaning in Greek. When Jesus says, “unless a person is born from above,” the word translated “from above” (anōthen) can also mean “again” (NET footnote on John 3:3). Nicodemus seems to assume Jesus meant the second meaning, since he asks if a man can be born from his mother a second time.
Jesus answered, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must all be born from above.’ The wind blows wherever it will, and you hear the sound it makes, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Nicodemus replied, “How can these things be?”Jesus answered, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things?”
John 3:5-10, NET
I often marvel at how much people in New Testament times knew based just on reading the Old Testament. I’m not sure if I could have read those scriptures and realized what signs to look for to recognize the promised Messiah (of course, the main thing it would have depended on is if God decided to open my eyes). But here, Jesus is marveling at the fact that Nicodemus was a “teacher of Israel” and didn’t understand that someone would need to be born of the spirit. He should have known this already, at least in part, just like he should have been able to recognize from the law, prophets, and psalms that Jesus is the promised Messiah (Luke 24:44; John 5:39). Jesus doesn’t hold Nicodemus’s lack of knowledge against him, though. He continues the conversation and reveals more of God’s amazing plan.
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Earthly and Heavenly Things,
Jesus answered, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things?I tell you the solemn truth, we speak about what we know and testify about what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony. If I have told you people about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven—the Son of Man.Just as Moses lifted up the serpentinthe wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
John 3:10-15, NET (italics mark an allusion to Num 21:5-9)
I find this part a little confusing. When Jesus said, “we speak,” who is “we”? I’m not sure if He’s referring to Him and His disciples or to Him and His Father. And what did He mean, “I have told you people about earthly things and you don’t believe?” Their conversation up to this point is about spiritual rebirth and resurrection, but is that an earthly thing? Or is He referring to something that happened earlier during Passover, like rebuking people for making the temple a marketplace?
We’re not the first to ask these questions. The NET translators have an extensive footnote on John 3:12. They suggest that, since it’s most logical to assume Jesus is speaking of what He just told Nicodemus, that “earthly things are not necessarily strictly physical things, but are so called because they take place on earth, in contrast to things like v. 16, which take place in heaven.” This would make “the necessity of a regenerating work from above, by the Holy Spirit” an “earthly thing,” but God’s love motivating His plans a “heavenly thing.”
Maybe we could think about it like this: the “earthly things” are related to what God is doing here on earth. Being “born of water and spirit” sounds like something that begins with baptism. The process of being born into God’s family as spirit beings starts now, during the physical lives of those who commit to following Him. It’s a process initiated by something God in heaven chose to do, a “heavenly thing” that’s described in the next part of this conversation.
“For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him. The one who believes in him is not condemned. The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.”
John 3:16-18, NET
We don’t have record of Nicodemus saying anything after verse 9, but I have to wonder what he was thinking at this point. Was he struck with awe at the revelation that God had sent His own Son to earth as the promised Messiah? Did he understand what Jesus was telling him here? Or did he walk away confused, unsure what it meant for God to give His son to save the world? We don’t know, but he does speak up for Jesus when other Pharisees tried to arrest Him (John 7:45-52) and he helped Joseph of Arimathea bury Jesus after His crucifixion (John 19:38-40). It seems logical to assume Nicodemus became one of Jesus’s disciples, though perhaps not very openly.
Life in the Son
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We’re here to look at John 3:16, one of the most famous Bible verses. It shows up near the middle of Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus. We’ve already looked at the lead-up to this verse and the discussion of being born from above/again. Now, let’s look at how Jesus concludes this discussion.
“For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him. The one who believes in him is not condemned. The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. Now this is the basis for judging: that the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed. But the one who practices the truth comes to the light, so that it may be plainly evident that his deeds have been done in God.”
John 3:16-21, NET
It might seem a little weird to read about judgement and condemnation right after reading that Jesus came to save the world. But it really does fit very neatly into a whole-Bible understanding of the plan of God. When people choose sin (as all do [Rom. 3:23]) the natural consequences of that is death (Deut. 30:15-19; Rom. 5:12-15; 6:23). God’s justice and righteousness specifies that there is a consequence for sins. He also has the right to judge His creation. Now that the Light has come into the world, it is time for people to repent and change before the judgment (Acts 17:30-31).
When God judges, He doesn’t want to condemn. That’s one possible outcome, but that’s not His goal. God loves (agape) everyone and wants them to come to repentance, receive salvation, and gain eternal life (1 Tim. 2:1-4; 2 Pet. 3:8-9). That is made possible through Jesus and because of His and the Father’s love: “for God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16, WEB). This incredible truth ought to prompt us to believe in Jesus, practice the truth, and come to the light to walk with our God.
Like An Anchor 