John 3:1-21 Step 1 Pray & Step 2 Survey

John 3:1-21 Step 1 Pray & Step 2 Survey

by | Apr 29, 2025 | 1-21, DISO studies, John 3

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Hi there!

I’m posting this with the National Day of Prayer (Thursday, May 1, 2025) on my heart. Will you join us, friend, even for just a minute or two? I hope so. You can find out more here: https://www.nationaldayofprayer.org/.  

Even if you don’t see this till after May 1, I ask you to pray anyway. Take a moment now and intercede for our country, all its teachers and leaders of any sort (even if you don’t agree with them). The Bible says we should “Confess [our] sins to each other and pray for each other so that [we] may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results (James 5:16 NLT).” Don’t forget, if you’re a believer, Jesus’s blood on the cross has made you righteous: our prayers have great power and produce wonderful results!

Last Week’s Work

MY PRAYER
Isn’t God’s timing so perfect?! Here’s my usual prayer, customized a little for this study:

Father God, thank you so much for Your Holy Spirit in me! As I study John 3:1-21 again, I ask—as always—that my eyes, ears, and heart stay open to His gentle instruction. Help me dig into the passage with hope and understanding, that I can see what You want me to focus on, understand it the way You meant it, and use it to glorify You and build up Your church here on earth. In Jesus’s name I pray. Amen!

HUH? and WOW! MOMENTS
Next, I read John 3:1-21 and focused on my reactions. Here’s what I noted:

HUH?s

  • Does Nicodemus the ruler and teacher show up anywhere else in the Bible? What does his name mean?
  • What is Jesus talking about “born again (v3),” and “born of water and the Spirit (v5)”, “born of flesh” and “born of the Spirit (v6)”? Are they all different things?
  • Why might someone want to get into the kingdom of God (vv3,5)?
  • How is “everyone who is born of the Spirit” like hearing the wind and not knowing where it comes from or goes (v8)?
  • How is Moses lifting a serpent in the wilderness the same as the Son of Man being lifted up so people will believe and have eternal life (v14)?

WOW!s

  • Nicodemus didn’t ask a question, he just made a statement about Jesus’s identity; but the text says Jesus answered him (v3)!
  • This born again thing seems to be a big deal: without it people are blind to the kingdom of God (v3) and can’t get into the kingdom of God (v5).
  • Jesus came to the world so people who believe in Him won’t perish; they’ll have eternal life (v16)!
  • It seems there’s an abrupt shift in topic between vv16 and 17: Jesus starts out talking about death (perishing) and eternal life (16), then shifts to condemnation and judgment (vv17-21). I don’t follow the train of thought there.

Seems like I have a lot more questions than ah-ha!s about this text—even though I’ve already done at least one in-depth study on it! This week, I’ll be praying about which one of the above to focus on in this series.

Dig-In Challenges

If you’re studying this passage with me, listen to the Spirit this week, and choose a personal Huh? or Wow! to dig more deeply into. Going forward, I’ll refer to this as your personal treasure from John 3:1-21. It can be something you noticed in your study, one of the items I’ve listed above, or anything else the Holy Spirit has laid upon your heart as you think about this passage. As we study, we’ll consider everything in the chapter, but we’ll gradually narrow the focus to the verses that talk about our treasure.

Then:

  1. PRAY for the Spirit to help as you choose your focus for the remainder of this study. Write this personal treasure from the Holy Spirit in your journal, along with the verse(s) that focus(es) on it.
  2. MINE: Read John 3:1-21, focusing on the setting (who’s involved, and where and when the action took place). Note anything the Spirit emphasizes about the characters involved, any locations mentioned, and any timeframes discussed.

I hope you’ll join me again soon!

GO TO WEEK 3 >

John 3:1-21 Step 1 Pray & Step 2 Survey

John 3:1-21 (The Greatest Gift) DISO Study Introduction

by | Apr 22, 2025 | 1-21, DISO studies, Introduction, John 3

Hello and thanks for joining me in this Digging into Scripture Ourselves (DISO) study of John 3:1-21. I’m glad you’re here!

This is the third of seven studies I’m calling Restoration. I explored these passages years ago using my original “20 Questions” version of DISO, but those posts are no longer available online. To minimize confusion, I’ll be working through the texts again, this time using the current process. I can’t wait to see what new revelations the Holy Spirit will show us this time!

Let’s Study John 3:1-21! 

This week, I’ll begin by praying and surveying John 3:1-21. If you want to study on your own, too, here’s what I recommend you have ready:

  1. A copy of John 3:1-21, plus access to the entire Gospel of John.
    I like to refer often to the text I’m studying and sometimes make notes on it, so I copy the passage from https://www.blueletterbible.org, paste it into a word processing program like Google docs or MS Word, change the formatting to suit my preferences, and print it out. If you want to use the ESV translation, here’s a pdf of my Scripture study sheet with lots of room for doodles and notes.
    NOTE: for the first time, I noticed footnotes in this passage! Most are interpretation-related, so I went ahead and included them on my study sheet for consideration in Step 3.
  2. A study journal.
    We’ll spend the next seven weeks immersed in and learning about John 3:1-21. And the work we’ll do each week builds on what came before, so plan to record at least some highlights from your work over the coming weeks. I’m old-school and like the pen-and-paper method for journaling my studies, but it’s okay if that doesn’t work for you. If you don’t have time to write out or type your notes, consider dictating them into a notes app, or recording audio files, instead.

Or, you may decide to just read the posts I publish here. That’s good, too, because you’ll become familiar with the process and see how the Spirit speaks to my situation. You may find that’s enough to make it worth your while to keep checking in with me, even if you can’t dig into John 3:1-21 yourself now.

Dig-In Challenges

So, here’s how I’ll be studying this week:

  1. PRAY: I’ll be creating a prayer with which I’ll start my weekly study sessions. I’m going to write it in my study journal, so I’ll have it handy every time.
  2. SURVEY:  Then I’ll read John 3:1-21, noting anything that makes me say, “huh?” (as in, “I wonder what that means?”) or “wow” (as in, “that is so awesome!”). I’ll record these and later ask the Spirit to direct me to the one I should dig deepest into right now.

If you’d like more information about these steps, check out this printable summary of the process I’ll be using over the next eight weeks. Or, you can always reach out to me with your questions through my contact page or at [email protected].

I’m looking forward to sharing what I discover in this process with you, along with relevant snippets of my previous study from 2020, so I hope you’ll keep checking in with me each week!

GO TO WEEK 2 >