Good Saturday morning! Yeehaw, still in the 40's this morning; autumn is coming in at last. Of course, this only means that we will need our heaters in the morning and a/c in the afternoon. Got some great photos last night...which reminds me, where is my camera? Still out in the kitchen. I remembered the coffee, but forgot the important thing... or is that the less important thing. Coffee is so much better on a cool morning than a warm, humid morning. Praise God for the wonderful taste of coffee. It's hard to believe that I couldn't stand the stuff once upon a time. You won't believe this, but I just fetched another coffee and forgot you-know-what. Must be the cat's fault; surely I'm not coming of Plugger age just yet. Back in a sec, I really must upload the photos before the card is full.
John 3:11 "I assure you, we tell you what we know and have seen, and yet you won't believe our testimony."
Whoa, Jesus changes persons here! I have often wondered why my Bible study notes ignore this point. It seems very significant to me. For one thing, we know that Jesus never stuttered or misspoke. We don't even read an 'um' in his speech. I watched an interview with Mark Harmon yesterday and without pre-written lines, the great actor's speech is as 'um' ridden as the any of us. Jesus didn't have this problem, and I don't believe it is due to the writers editing his words. Just as Jesus never apologized, he also never misspoke. So why the change from "I assure you..." to "we tell you"? This must be significant. A book my mother gave me last weekend has an interesting statement about this section of Scripture.
He [Jesus] speaks with divine authority of the miracle of regeneration as well as of the inner mysteries of the Triune God. (Kretzmann, Paul, E. (1921) Popular commentary of the Bible Vol 1. Concordia:St Louis.)
I do like those old books! Jesus gives Nicodemus his own assurance as the Son of Man, and then testifies from the authority of the Triune God. With the use of "we" Jesus brings God the Father and the Holy Spirit as witnesses to his words. Unfortunately for Nicodemus, Jesus also gives his assurance that he won't be believed at this time. We take from this that Nicodemus listened to the Word, but did not receive it from this first interview with Jesus. While we take a moment to reflect on how sad that is, we can turn that to a moment of joy because Christ sent his word to the Gentiles as a result of this unbelief among his own people. We will also read about Nicodemus again around the time of Jesus' crucifixion, so don't give up on Nicodemus just yet.
Jesus brought the witness of the Trinity, and we praise God for his words of life for us. The witness is giving his testimony, next week we will read some of his wonderful words!
Have a great Labor Day weekend!
Bucky
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