John 3:16… and the rest!

John 3:16 is pretty well-known by anyone who hangs around a church. A hopeful verse:

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

But the passage doesn’t end there… and something really goes wrong when we stop reading at verse 16… and we see the results of ‘verse 16 only readers’ passing by us every day. So, let’s take a look at the rest of what goes with it:

16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.

17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him.

18 The one who believes in Him is not judged; the one who does not believe has already been judged, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

19 This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.

20 For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light so that his deeds will not be exposed;

21 but the one who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be revealed as having been performed in God. (John 3)

Do you see the difference? Just believing in verse 16 seems so easy, sounds so sweet… but after verse 16, it continues… about judgment, about our choices, about our behavior, and about the consequences of that…

Herds of people who love to hear verse 16, but when it comes to verses 17-21, they say ‘yeah, but’… and that’s where things go terribly wrong.

Because what do you actually believe in? The complete story, or a piece you’ve pieced together yourself?

Something to think about…