God So Loved The World

"God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son. Anyone who believes in him will not die but will have eternal life.

John 3:16 (NIrV)

This week, we'll be doing a phrase-by-phrase study of John 3:16. It's a favorite verse of my younger son's and since older brother is out of town, we're tailoring our family devotion time to younger son.

Today, we're looking at the first phrase "For God so loved the world..."

• For is the Greek word γάρ which implies that what immediately follows is giving a reason. Thus, God loving the world is the reason for what we'll be studying the rest of the week.
• God is the Greek word θεός which means a deity. Here of course it is referring to the one true God. This is the root word from which we derive the word theology for the study of God.
• so is the Greek word houtō which means in this way. This may be referring back to the previous part of chapter 3 where Jesus says He will be lifted up and verse 15 tells us "that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life"
• loved is from the Greek word ἀγαπάω which means love. This kind of love is a moral love and denotes longing after rather than just having affection for. We commonly hear this described as unconditional love. Here we can think of it as being an active love wanting the object of the love to be drawn near.
• the world comes from the Greek word κόσμος (kosmos) meaning the world. The word implies an orderly arrangement that God is tending and caring for.
• Taking this all together, God loving, longing for, and wanting to be with, those that He had created and was taking care of, is the reason for...

We'll study what He did because of this love as we work through the week.