Author Archive for: meiling

Hi GAMErs,

Today’s passage is John 4:15-30.  Let’s go!

John 4:15-18 (NIV) 
15  The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 
16  He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 
17  “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 
18  The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 

Verses 15-18: The Samaritan woman’s curiosity for the living water Jesus offers turns into a real desire for it. She asks Jesus for this living water, but Jesus responds by saying “Go, call your husband and come back.” Why does Jesus do that? It’s because Jesus knew that this woman had been in a handful of failed marriages, and now she was living with someone she was not married to. Subtly Jesus was telling the woman that in order to experience the living water that Jesus makes available, she needed to repent of sin.  

Hi GAMErs,

Today’s passage is John 4:1-14.  Let’s go!

John 4:1-3 (NIV) 
1  The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John,
2  although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.
3  When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

On verses 1-3:  Notice that Jesus was intentional and careful in his movements.

John 4:4-6 (NIV)
4  Now he had to go through Samaria.
5  So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
6  Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

On verses 4-6:  On his way from Judea to Galilee, Jesus goes through Samaria.  The people living in Samaria, called Samaritans, were a people of mixed Jewish and Gentile blood.  The fact that Jesus was tired from the journey speaks to his humanity.  Interestingly, it was Jesus’ humanity that led him to this divine encounter in the verses that follow.

Hi GAMErs,

Today’s passage is John 3:22-36.  Let’s go!

John 3:22-30 (NIV) 
22  After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized. 
23  Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were constantly coming to be baptized. 
24  (This was before John was put in prison.) 
25  An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. 
26  They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan–the one you testified about–well, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.” 
27  To this John replied, “A man can receive only what is given him from heaven.
29  The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. 
30  He must become greater; I must become less.

On verses 22-30:  I absolutely love and admire the humility of John the Baptist.  Instead of envying Jesus because Jesus was baptizing more people than he was and becoming more popular than he was (v26), John the Baptist displays incredible humility.  First, John says, “A man can only receive what has been given to him from heaven.” (v27)  In other words, instead of worrying about he didn’t have, John the Baptist simply focused on what he did have because of God’s grace and was thankful for it.  Likewise, may you not worry and fret about what you don’t have but be thankful for what you do have.

Hi GAMErs,

Today’s passage is John 3:9-21.  Let’s go!

John 3:9-13 (NIV) 
9  “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
10  “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things?
11  I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.
12  I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?
13  No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven–the Son of Man.

On verses 9-13:  Nicodemus was known as “the teacher of Israel” (v10 ESV, NKJV).  Yet here Israel’s teacher is unable to understand what Jesus, the Son of Man, was saying.  It shows that Jesus, the Son of God and Son of Man, had wisdom and experience that Israel’s greatest teachers could not match.  Teachers like Nicodemus were mere men reaching for heaven, whereas Jesus is the one who “came from heaven” to reach for men on earth.

Hi GAMErs,

Today’s passage is John 3:1-8.  Let’s go!

John 3:1-2 (NIV) 
1  Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 
2  He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

On verses 1-2:   Jesus’ most vocal opponents and critics were the Pharisees, the religious elite of Israel.  Yet even among the Pharisees, there were those who secretly believed that Jesus was a teacher sent from God.  One of them was Nicodemus, who was not only a Pharisee but also a member of the powerful ruling council of Israel (v1b).  Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night (v2), perhaps because he did not want to be seen as associating with Jesus.