among the wolves

Last Saturday at 3 PM I gathered with nine students to study John 3:1-21. Seven of those students were part of WULF - Wash U's League of Freethinkers. With the end of the semester rapidly approaching and no guarantee that they would want to continue to study Scripture with me in the spring I gave three of their leaders the choice of which passage we would explore and they chose John 3 - Jesus and Nicodemus.

Needless to say as I stood in front of the group and shared some background information on the passage and the basic ground rules of inductive Bible Study I felt like I was about to be fed to the wolves. Facilitation wise, it was probably one of the most difficult studies I've ever led. They had a really tough time actually making observations and kept diving directly into interpreting the passage. After a couple of hours I was exhausted and unsure if any of the main points were coming across. In hindsight, however, I can see some of the things that were happening:

• A couple of the students were clearly wrestling with the idea that spiritual birth is something that comes from "above" rather than something we can manufacture on our own.
  

• The tension created by the location of a verse about God's love as it is expressed in sending Jesus (3:16) and a verse about the condemnation of those who persist in unbelief (3:18) evoked a very strong negative reaction from one student in particular. Again, this gave me insight into his spiritual questions and struggle with the Gospel.
  

• Several of the students thanked me afterward and expressed that they had never actually studied any part of the Bible.

I expected hard questions and I definitely had those in abundance. I also expected that we wouldn't be able to answer them all adequately in the time allowed. This was also true but it provides an opportunity for further conversation with individuals who participated.

I would very much appreciate your prayers as I follow-up with the WULF students and challenge them to continue to explore Scripture with me this spring.

advent

Come, thou long-expected Jesus,
born to set thy people free;
from our fears and sins release us,
let us find our rest in thee.

Israel's strength and consolation,
hope of all the earth thou art:
dear desire of every nation,
joy of every longing heart.

The lines of Charles Wesley's hymn have been running through my head for the past couple of weeks. I am more thoughtful about this season of expectant waiting than I have been in the past. Clear identification of the unmet longings lying buried in your heart will do that to you.

And so I find myself desperately hoping for the arrival of this long-expected Jesus all over again.