An Imperative

When I became a Christian at the age of 49, my mother gave me my grandfather’s Bible. It has become one of my prized possessions. It is a 1917 copy of a Scofield Reference Edition. It is of course the Authorized Version of the King James Bible. Although the many enlightening notes by C.I. Scofield, who is a famous nineteenth and twentieth century Bible scholar, are of great interest to me, I must admit I am much more taken with the hand written notes penned by my grandfather. My grandfather died when I was ten years of age and my memories of him are vague, due mostly to the fact that he and my maternal grandmother lived hundreds of miles away from us.

In Chapter three of the Book of John at verse 3, which reads,

3 " Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.",

my grandfather had penned with a very fine nib in red ink, “N.B. a universal necessity”. I am much affected by those few words penned sometime, I suspect, in the 1920’s. He has summed up in a very understated way the significance of these words spoken directly by Jesus.

I am very much confused by the way that we tend to pick and choose what is important to us in the Bible. Main stream religions have been doing this for two thousand years. The more mature I become as a Christian, the more I am aware of the significance of the actual words spoken by Jesus while he was on this earth. This is a message from the Son of God spoken directly to us and indeed what he has to say is “a universal necessity”.

In verse 5 of the same chapter, which speaks again of this process of spiritual rebirth in different terms, my grandfather has written “imperative necessity”. Again he has succinctly understated the significance of this verse.

A much respected elder at our chapel, while speaking from the pulpit, told the story of a devout Christian man who had often stated the plain fact that, “You must be born again. Why must you be born again? Because you must!”

Just what is this term “born again”? What does it mean and how does it change your life? I will address these very issues in my next blog on July 11, 09.

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