I thought I knew God until I read this verse and this verse actually made me fall in love with him all over again once I read it in this context.

But the verse I'm speaking of is John chapter 1, verse 14, when it says, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Now, what's really powerful here that I found isn't necessarily what's being said, but who it's being

said to. So when we look at this in context and ask ourselves what this would have meant to

original audience, what I found was this is John, and he's writing to a mixed audience of Jews and

Gentiles. And that's important because the Gentiles that he's writing to grew up in a Greco-Roman

world, which means that

they grew up learning about all these Greek gods when it comes to Apollos or Zeus, fill in the blank.

And so when they're hearing that the word being Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us,

this would have been radical to them. This would have completely shocked them, rocked their

world, and been different from anything they ever heard of because the guys that they grew up

learning about in terms of in Greek mythology, they never became close. They never came off

of their throne to make them known to the people. They never sacrificed or

gave. Like their religion and their worship and their walk with these gods was all about

appeasement and doing things to get into their good graces. But it never signified that they

came close. And so when they're hearing that Jesus became flesh, they were like,

oh my goodness, there's a God that would actually do this for me. Like there's a God that would

inconvenience himself to come and meet me where I'm at. I've never heard of anything like that

before. And so when I was reading this, it just made me realize, like,

you know, you've heard about the whole idea growing up in church, at least for me, in John 3, 613,

right? This infamous verse of God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. But I think

after understanding John 114 in this context, it brought God's love

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