Week 42 John 3
A long time ago I heard a story about a guy who had escaped from the Cambodian Killing Fields. He landed in a Thai refugee camp where someone gave him a bible. He treasured the bible because it was the best paper he could find for rolling his cigarette tobacco. Smoking his way through the bible he got to John 3 but before lighting up he read the verse for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
He didn’t believe in the Lord but the words about how God loved the world stuck with him.
That basic idea – that God loved the world – is a helpful point to get reminded about from time-to-time since other bible content seems to dispute it.
So there’s a couple of things for a bible reader to keep in mind. First: if I’m reading an episode in the bible and I get the sense that God hates the world then I’m coming away with an inaccurate sense of God’s feelings. Second: if I find a basic principle in the bible (for instance God loves the world & is working a plan to save people) then other things that I read – even things that sound like they’re contradicting it – don’t get to make the basic axiom non-axiomatic.
Note: quote from John 3:16 (NIV). Eventually the Cambodian cigarette-guy believed in the Lord.