Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Two Paths Before Every Person | The Gospels | John 3:1-21

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

Are you the same person in private that you are in public? Why did Nicodemus seek Jesus under the cover of darkness? And what does it really mean to be born again? In today's episode, Patrick shares how John 3:1-21 reveals Jesus's invitation to step out of the darkness, into the light, and experience the transforming work of the Spirit. Read the Bible with us! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and it's never too late to join! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passage: John 3:1-21

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. Silas Thorne was a decorated daytime precinct captain in late 19th century New York. He was celebrated by local papers for taking pickpockets off the streets and organizing youth sports leagues to keep kids out of trouble. While much of New York's police force was known for the corruption, Thorne was a vision of what a policeman should be and could be. But Thorne had a secret. night, he would travel outside of his own precinct's jurisdiction in civilian clothes and in a black mask and his intimate knowledge of police patrol schedules, response times, and weak points to break

into luxury jewel stores and empty their high-end cast-iron safes. He only knew how to break into the safes because of his work on robberies as a policeman. For seven years, he continued this charade, often investigating his daytime peers' confusion over these cases and leading them astray to cover up his tracks. He was only caught because a patrolman recognized his voice during a late-night heist gone wrong. We all faced the temptation to be one person by day and another by night. One person in public and a different in private. One person on the outside and a different on the inside. In John 3, we meet someone on a nighttime mission. His name was Nicodemus, and by day he was a well-respected Pharisee and a member of the Jewish People's ruling council called the Sanhedron. At some

point he must have encountered Jesus, heard him teaching, seen him doing miracles, but he was a member of the Pharisees, the sect most opposed to Jesus' ministry, most offended by his teachings, most bothered by his presence. So by day, he colluded with the enemies of Jesus, but by night he was something else. He was curious. He wanted to know more. He couldn't shake that maybe Jesus was who he said he was. John wants us to see this because he highlights one detail of nicodemean His story. He came to Jesus in the cover of night. There were no electric lights or cameras, just the stars and the moon and a few torches. Nicodemus sneaks in to where Jesus is staying to learn more. He's one man by day, a different man by night. Let's pick up in John 3, verse 1. Now there was a Pharisee,

a man named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you were doing if God was not with him. Jesus replied, Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. How can someone be born again when they are old? Nicodemus asked. Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother's womb to be born. It's tough to tell here whether Nicodemus is sincerely confused by Jesus or being deliberately difficult. Obviously, Jesus is using a metaphor, being born again. But regardless of his sincerity,

Nicodemus wants the metaphor explained. Verse 5. Jesus answered, Very truly I tell you, no one can enter into the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying,

you must be born again. The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear it sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the spirit. How can this be? Nicodemus asked. Jesus's teaching here is littered with word plays lost in English. The word spirit and wind

are all the same in Greek and Hebrew. So the comparison Jesus is making between spirit and wind isn't just metaphorical. It's built into the words themselves. He's saying that obviously no one can be reborn from their mother's womb, but one may be reborn of the spirit. And that the spirit cannot be controlled. He's like the wind. He comes and goes as he pleases. Just as you cannot see the wind except by what it moves, jostles, and shakes. You cannot see the spirit except by what he does in the lives of people. In other words, Jesus is telling Nicodemus, you've already seen the spirit working, you've seen the trees shaking, you've heard the rustle of the wind, you've already admitted it, you've already seen Jesus' power at work and miracles, in his teaching, and in the transformed lives

that follow. And that's the nub of Jesus' critique. Nicodemus can see what God is doing, but rather than allowing the wind to carry him away, he's staying in place, he's resisting. He won't give up his respectability in the daytime. His status as a Pharisee, a member of the Jewish council. He won't give up his reputation to participate in what God's spirit is doing, that he's seen, and that is precisely what Nicodemus must do to experience new birth from the spirit. Surrender everything and be carried by his wind. Jesus continues by explaining that he will be lifted up by which he means the cross. He says that all who look on him on that cross in faith will be healed and born again. All who refuse will remain sick with their sin. And then he concludes with some of the most famous words of the Bible. John 316,

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned. But whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only son. This is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed, but whoever lives by the truth comes into the light so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done

in the sight of God. I hope you can hear Jesus' challenge and invitation to Nicodemus. After all, it's Nicodemus who came to Him in the dark. And Jesus implies that Nicodemus came to him in the dark because he loves the dark. He loves respect. He's implying that Nicodemus is one thing by day and a different thing by night. And that the person he is by night, someone who loves power and honor and reputation and pride, that's who Nicodemus really is. And the same thing is, and the is true of us. But Jesus doesn't end there. He reminds Nicodemus that there is another path. He came to love the world, not condemn it, to die for the world, not prosecute it. And Nicodemus is part of that world. So the question stands before him. Will Nicodemus run toward God? Will he step into the light and

lay down his people pleasing, his obsession with what other people think, his reputation, his pride, his power, and be born again? We face the same question every day in our lives. There are only two paths toward the light and toward the darkness, toward Jesus or away from him. Jesus loves you and so he invites you to love him in return to come back to the light with all your sins and all your brokenness, to have those things revealed and then forgiven and ultimately healed. That is what it means to be born by the spirit, to have your heart turned inside out so that the darkness no longer holds you and you want nothing more than to run to the light, to live in the light, to be known by Jesus and know him deeply.