God desires all men to be saved...all men or all men?

     When it comes to reading the Word of God it is quite easy to read a verse and forget that there is a surrounding context. What I mean is this; we are prone to looking at verses in the bible in isolation, and because of this, we can easily misinterpret what the word of God is actually saying. For example: in the book of Revelation chapter 3 we see Christ speaking to the Church of Laodicea. In verse 20 we read “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” This verse is used by many Christians when they are evangelizing to unbelievers. It goes something like this “if you open up the door to your heart and let Jesus in, He will surely come in and you will be saved”.  There is a problem when saying something like this (or something similar) or using this verse to witness to an unbeliever and it is mainly this: In this chapter and specifically this verse, Christ is speaking to the Church, not un-professing unbelievers. I hope this example shows why understanding the context is important. Having the understanding of context will help us in our further study of particular verses, and our main text of focus will be in 1 Timothy 2:4 “who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”  Before we begin let’s look at this verse with a surrounding context.

The Real John 3:16

     Traditions, things passed on through time that people believe and often  without question. This not only happens throughout secular history but also through Christian Church history. We as humans are often , I believe, either too scared or too apathetic to challenge the status quo. Because of this apathy, the Christian Church suffers the way it does. Instead of taking heed to 2 Timothy 2:15 we accept things without any careful study because of the majority acceptance. But this is why we are here today. We are here to study and to learn in-depth the things of our Christian faith. We are here to challenge the status quo of some of the things that are said or believed in the Churches today. Now, I am not saying that all tradition is wrong and not to be believed, but I am saying that there will be traditions that stand true and strong and there will be some, when challenged, that fall and are found to be simply not true. John 3:16 is one of the most wonderful and also often quoted verse in the entire Bible. It is a verse that you yourselves have memorized in Sunday school; or even if you were saved in your older years, it is a verse you have heard many times. You see the verse on billboards, bumper stickers, T-shirts, and Tim Tebow's face during the College football championship game a few years ago. But what does this verse mean? How is this verse normally seen today, and how was it seen in the past? Are we taking this verse for granted and feel no need to think deeper to what it possibly means? To look at it in isolation, without the surrounding context? I think so. I challenge you to put on your thinking cap and don't be afraid to challenge yourself in the study of this verse. I encourage you to read this and not let your emotions dictate you, but rather let the truth you learn dictate your emotions. For I am human like you and we do not like to be wrong, but if we claim Christ as our Lord then we must submit ourselves to the infallible Word of the living God. Here we go, lets get into the verse.

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16 ESV