It's day seven on our 40-day tour through the gospel of John, and we're up to John

chapter three starting in the 22nd verse. We're going to wrap up the third chapter of John

on this episode of the Pastor Mike Drop podcast.

Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for diving deep into God's Word. I pray and hope that it will

bless you and strengthen your faith in Jesus Christ. I've got a question for you, especially those

of you who are Iowans, are you a fan of the Iowa State Cyclones? Or are you a fan of the Iowa Hawkeyes?

Is it University of Iowa for you or Iowa State University?

In Iowa, that's a question that we all have to answer.

Some of us chair for both teams, but a lot of Iowans pick one or the other.

It's usually a friendly and fun rivalry, but sometimes it tips out of control into an

unhealthy area. Even if you don't live in Iowa, and I know a lot of people are tuning in from all

over the country and around the world, I'm sure you could probably think pretty quickly of a rivalry

that exists like that near you. Hopefully fun and friendly, but not always the case.

That's what's happening in our Bible reading for today. John chapter 3, verse 25, says a debate

broke out, a rivalry was brewing between John the Baptist disciples and a certain Jew. Most

Bible scholars think that that certain Jew means a temple priest, a scribe, a Pharisee.

And maybe that Pharisee's other scholars say more specifically would be Nicodemus, who shows up the beginning of Chapter 3,

because we're still in that same story.

Regardless, there's a debate.

There's a rivalry between John the Baptist disciples and the Jewish

scribes over ceremonial cleansing, which is an old covenant issue. If you're paying particularly

careful attention, something just rang a bell inside of your head. And if you've been tuning

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