Read the whole verse

We often talk about John 3:16.

“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”

What we don’t often do is talk about John 3:17.

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him”

Often we take certain Bible verses out of context, which can completely change their meaning.

Not so much in this case, and I’ll explain why in a second, but you have to understand a few things first.

Normally we quote John 3:16 to unbelievers, those who haven’t met the LORD.

We put it in front of them as a way to say, “Come as you are, He wants you and He loves you, and you don’t have to do anything to earn it.”

We want them to know that one of God’s greatest attributes, if they can really be rated, is His love.

We want them to know that God loves them.

John 3 is mostly a conversation between Jesus and a highly respected Jewish scholar named Nicodemus .

And that part of the chapter is where we find John 3:16.

“For God so loved the world…”

In this chapter, Jesus reveals a lot of things that Nicodemus didn’t understand.

“You must be born again…”

“'Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. “

“'No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.”

Needless to say, Nicodemus was very confused by the end.

I’m not going to go into all the things that he said in that chapter but Jesus' main point He was trying to make, in my youthful opinion, was that He was coming to save the world and that He was the messiah.

And here’s the cool part, the reason that we can quote John 3:16 out of context is that it is a universal truth.

No matter what version, no matter what language, no matter what time in history, everything we need to know to understand that verse is contained within itself.

Let me explain.

Proverbs 6:31, “Yet if he is caught, he must pay sevenfold, though it costs him all the wealth of his house.”

How do we know who is caught?

How do we know what he stole from the man?

How do we know what the person even did wrong?

This is just an example, I’m not going to go into this either, but you could totally check it out if you’re bored!

Anyway, we don’t know a lot of things about the verse, so how could we use it if we don’t really know what it means?

Other verses are different.

“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”

What is God doing? He’s giving His Son so we can have eternal life.

Why is God doing it? Because He loved us so much.

This is what I mean, we can answer this verse from what it says about itself.

Now, there will always be questions we can’t know the answers to unless we read the context too.

For example, did God send His Son to condemn us of our actions, as well as save us?

We can find the answer in John 3:17, the verse that comes right after, the context.

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

So, no.

God did not send His Son into the world to condemn us.

The big thing is that sometimes a verse can stand on it’s own, and sometimes it cant.

And if we take verses out of context, it can make it so we can’t understand the verse at all.

We need to be careful that we know what we’re reading because that’s what we tell others.

“I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll. “
Revelation 22:18-19