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Sunset over Laguna Madre and the Port Isabel shoreline. I couldn’t decide whether to crop out the land, but then I realized with the water tower, the location could be precisely determined. The camera was on a boat just north of the causeway in the intra-coastal waterway channel.

Now you tell me this just happened! Nope. God made it.

There are a couple principles to start with.

Learn the passage as thoroughly as you can. You do that by reading it. At least five times. The next thing I do is copy it into a word processor (from Online Bible), separate the paragraphs, and take out all the verse numbers. Then I look at every sentence individually. When I am done with that, I know what the passage says, but not always what it, and every part of it, means. So the next thing is to decide what it means.

Some sentences are absolutely clear - “Jesus wept” - clear as a bell. But why did he weep? Knowing who he is and what he knew and the power he had, why did he weep?

The easy answer is that he was sad that Lazarus had died. That is why I would have wept, or you. But Jesus had power over death. If I had that power, I would not have wept over Lazarus’ death for that reason.

So what other passages talk about death? Paul says in Romans that death entered the world because of sin. So I conclude that Jesus wept over Lazarus death not for the reasons you and I would have, but because death, every death that has ever occurred, is the natural result of sin - rejection of Jesus. So when I consider that Jesus created us to have fellowship with us and enjoy us forever, and we (mankind) rejected him almost wholesale. . . . And then when he came face to face with the death of Lazarus, it symbolized the rejection of himself by the world, and by most of the men in the world. No wonder he wept. And how does he feel when an unbeliever rejects him? The same. How does he feel when we by choosing to disobey him prove that at least for that moment we do not believe him? Grieved.

So, if you are saying, how do you get all that out of two little words?, I don’t. Those two little words are in the context of the whole book of John. So why was John written? What is it’s purpose? The book of John is in the context of the whole Bible. Why did God write it? What was his purpose?

So you’ve got to read, read, read. Over and over again. These days, it’s easy to get audio Bibles and listen, if you have any commute at all.

Then remember that many other people have studied it before you. Who among them is trustworthy? What did they learn? What conclusions did they draw? You learn these things by listening to sermons and reading commentaries. There are some great lists of trustworthy men who preach(ed) and wri(o)te. They will not always agree. That is OK. Many of the best of them lay out all of the possible conclusions and then tell you why they believe theirs is the best. Then you make up your mind asking the Holy Spirit to guide you into truth.

The other part is, that I have lived more than half my life, heard many many sermons, and read many books (because I’m addicted to them). So the vast majority of what I have to say is just borrowed brains.

Hope this stimulates some thoughts.

In short -

1. What does it say?
2. What does it mean?
3. What should I do?

Senator Obama, Join my church! Although this link is really not humor, Scott’s Scrappleface is some of the best political humor around.