God is love. Throughout all eternity the three divine Persons have known and delighted in one another, living together as a Holy Family bound in perfect love. But the love of the triune God is also focused on his creation, and in particular on us human beings, creatures uniquely fashioned in his own image and likeness, and who therefore have the ability to know and love God. In our text Christ is telling us that God the Father has gone to extraordinary lengths to make this precious ability ours once again.

Christian or not, every student of history knows that the Bible’s majestic story of creation, fall, and redemption through Christ turned the Roman Empire upside down, laid the foundation for Western Civilization, and even today is transforming people and nations all over the world.
But here is something you may not have known: John 3:16—the most famous verse in the Bible—contains the whole message of the whole book in a nutshell. It’s like a beautiful pearl tucked deep inside a giant clam or oyster. Here, Jesus Christ himself gives us the heart, the core, the very essence of the Word of God.
So then: For folks who may be new to the Bible, here are a few thoughts designed to open up the rich meaning of this pearl of great price.
GOD: This is the Supreme Being whom we encounter in nature, conscience, and the sacred scriptures of the Jewish people, through whose holy prophets he was pleased to reveal far more than nature or conscience ever could. In these scriptures we learn that there is one God—the creator, possessor, sustainer, and ruler of the universe—eternally existing in three divine Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Here in John 3:16 Christ is specifically referring to God the Father: He who gave God the Son to the world.
SO LOVED: God is love. Throughout all eternity the three divine Persons have known and delighted in one another, living together as a Holy Family bound in perfect love. But the love of the triune God is also focused on his creation, and in particular on us human beings, creatures uniquely fashioned in his own image and likeness, and who therefore have the ability to know and love God. In our text Christ is telling us that God the Father has gone to extraordinary lengths to make this precious ability ours once again.
THE WORLD: The reference here is primarily to the family of man that God, in the beginning, created to rule with him over the earth, and to journey with him down the long corridor of history. The human father of this family was the man Adam. In the Garden of Eden God tested him, to see if he would love and honor his creator by believing and obeying his word. It was a test of great consequence, since, by God’s wise decree, Adam stood in Eden as the head and representative of both man and nature. Alas, it was a test that Adam failed, with the result that evil, suffering, and death invaded the very good world that God had made. In particular, because of Adam’s plunge into sin, all of his children would henceforth be born in a state of sin: alienated from the life of God, centered on self, driven by dark passions, hostile to God, and disobedient to God in thought, word, and deed. What’s more, because of their sin, many of those children stood—and now stand—beneath God’s righteous anger, and are in danger of eternal punishment. Yet despite the depth of its sin, God still loves this family, just as he did its father, Adam. Indeed, his love is so deep . . .
THAT HE GAVE: It is God’s nature to depend on nothing; it is man’s nature to depend on God. It is God’s nature (and joy) to give to man; it is man’s nature (and joy) to receive from God. As the Bible teaches, God is the One who gives life, breath, and all things to his beloved creations. Here in John 3:16 Christ is speaking of a very special gift. Indeed, he is speaking of the Father’s supreme gift to the sinful family of man: his uniquely begotten Son.
HIS UNIQUELY BEGOTTEN SON: Throughout all eternity the divine Father uniquely begets the divine Son whom he loves. The Son is “God himself from God himself.” With a view to saving sinners from eternal punishment; with a view to begetting them afresh as his own dear children; and with a view to uniting them forever with the Holy Trinity, the Father, in an act of supreme love, gave his Son to the world in the form of the God-Man: the Lord Jesus Christ. Through his incarnation the Son entered the world as a last and better Adam: as the head and representative of the eternal family that God is now creating.
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Parents should ask school board members whether they plan to comply with Biden’s Title IX regulation. If the answer is yes, then traditionalist parents should look into transitioning their children—to private schools. 

Earlier this month, the U.K.’s National Health Service released the Cass Review, a report that urged Great Britain to pump the breaks on the experimental, sterilizing treatments marketed as “gender affirming care.” By contrast, earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Education issued its new Title IX regulations, which require public schools to facilitate a school-to-sterilization pipeline.
According to the Biden administration, Title IX of the Civil Rights Act now requires schools to treat students who suffer, or claim to suffer, from gender dysphoria as though they were the opposite sex. As the Cass Review argues, this is essentially a medical intervention. If you require teachers and students to treat a girl who thinks she is a boy as though she were a boy, you increase the likelihood that she will persist in that belief. The longer she does, the more likely she is to seek sterilizing hormone treatments and mutilating surgical interventions.
This is what Moms for Liberty called “grooming” back in 2021. At the time, the media compared this reaction with QAnon accusations of elite pedophile rings. But parental-rights activists pointed out that the description fit the stated position of major educational organizations. The National Education Association, for example, had passed a resolution declaring that teachers could influence children’s gender identity and ought to have total legal freedom to do so. And the organization behind the CDC-endorsed National Sex Education Standards is named SEICUS: Sex Ed for Social Change. If influencing children’s gender and sexuality to advance a social agenda isn’t grooming, what is it? Last weekend, Bill Maher offered liberals another term for this practice: entrapment.
Whether you call it entrapment or grooming, the Biden administration is now requiring all American public schools to affirm that children can be born in the wrong body. How exactly will that work?
For starters: a boy who says he’s a girl must be granted access to the girls’ bathroom or locker room. Because the Biden administration requires no documentation to affirm gender identity, and indeed because it refused to define gender identity at all, a boy could identify as a girl “fluidly.” The federal government protects his right to be a girl only when he enters a girls’ bathroom.
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It’s not uncommon to hear people suggest things like this. Marriage, family, and parenting are seen by many as distractions from what life is really about (amusement or travel or a career), or even worse, a sort of death sentence that marks the end of all our fun. For example, despite ample research showing otherwise, there’s a clear message in sitcoms and romcoms that the quickest way to become miserable and end a good sex life is to get married. Being single means being free and unencumbered, the story goes, especially for women.
In our recent conversation about the Dobbs case currently before the Supreme Court, Dr. Ryan Anderson described a similar sentiment: the claim often advanced by many in the pro-abortion movement that women “need” abortion in order to fully participate in society. Anderson observed, “If that statement is true, that is a condemnation of our society.” If we’re only fully human when we’re “free” from loving and caring for those closest to us, we have a puny vision of humanity.
So much of the American dream centers on pleasures and possessions, career paths and vacations, while seeing the dirty work of diapers, tending to a sick spouse, or making a meal for a neighbor as something between necessary and avoidable annoyances? Even Christians are tempted to imagine that in “real” Christian life and ministry, a big platform is preferable over caring for actual people.