As an example to parents everywhere and to save the world (from himself), God had his own son tortured and killed.Yes, this is meant to highlight absurdity, injustice, and violence, and seems a bit irreverent, but honestly, it's spot-on; this is what the verse is saying, and this is what Christianity is about! There are different theological approaches to what this really means when you understand it, but by far the majority view is that humanity was doomed to go to Hell because of Original Sin, and in order to be reconciled with God, there needed to be a perfect sacrifice to erase it, which could only be the killing of a completely innocent human being in the person of Jesus Christ.
Does God love everyone? The answer is yes. Period. Obviously, however, it's complicated. I think it's important to note that it's entirely possible for a person to have more than one emotion towards another person at the same time, so why can't God? Confession time here: I have a daughter with mental health issues. She's been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and her behavior is sometimes erratic. There are times when I find myself hating her, but even when I feel that way, I never stop loving her. I think a lot of what is on this contradiction page is resolved by understanding that God sometimes has a love/hate relationship with certain people. Let's see... Yes, God hates entire nations sometimes, but it's usually because they are so steeped in sin that they are hurting people; sometimes God has felt that the hurting was so bad that they needed to be destroyed. God didn't hate Job; Job was simply suffering so badly that he incorrectly assumed God must hate him. Apparently, God hated Esau; he really wasn't a very good person.
I answered the question of how many sons God has in John 1
Is salvation by faith alone? Sort of. I answered a similar question in the last post, in which I said faith is important, but true faith leads to good words and deeds, so they are found together. It's actually the main theme of James, that faith is not complete without works. It's worth noting that a lot of the verses in the bottom of the page are from the Old Testament, which didn't often deal with the concepts of salvation and the afterlife, and those verses are actually about how to live a good life, which is nonetheless also important. However, "The just shall live by faith," appears several times in the New Testament, but is a quote from Habakkuk 2:4, so the importance of faith is indeed taught in the Old Testament. Matthew 5:20 is not making the claim that you need to be righteous to enter the Kingdom of heaven, but is rather hyperbole essentially saying that it takes more than righteousness. Matthew 19:17 needs context; Jesus is saying that one needs to be perfect and sinless to go to Heaven, but when the man Jesus was talking to claimed to be sinless, Jesus showed him that money was his idol. I believe 2Corinthians 5:10 and Revelation 2:23 (and maybe Revelation 20:12-13, it's not very clear) are referring to a non-salvific judgment; there is a theological understanding of judgment in the afterlife that while faith is what gets you into Heaven, in Heaven, there are different levels of reward waiting for believers based on their amount of good works. The question of how people are judged by God is a closely related matter, which I answered in my last entry.
Verse 22 is worth noting for a minor detail of "came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judea." It's not specified where the meeting with Nicodemus occurred, but it's very likely that wherever it happened, it was in Judea already. It may be that John's Gospel is a collection of stories thrown together by an editor. Did Jesus baptize anyone? I think John 4:2, especially following so closely on this passage (remember that as originally written, there were no chapter divisions or verses), gives us the answer to clarify what is said here: Jesus's disciples baptized, but Jesus didn't. While it sounds like a contradiction between this chapter and the next, I think what is going on here is that when John was writing this he realized that he made it sound like Jesus was baptizing, but didn't mean to, so he simply clarified shortly afterward. The baptism of the Holy Ghost is an entirely different thing, and happened first at Pentecost. The timing of the calling of Peter and Andrew I covered in John chapter one.
How much power did Jesus have? Jesus was essentially all-powerful. The reason why he couldn't grant John and James's mother's request was, at least I always believed, that they didn't realize that what they were asking was to be crucified with Jesus, and that wasn't meant for them. The reason Jesus was unable to perform many miracles in his home town was that nobody there believed in him, so there simply wasn't enough opportunity!
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