Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

The Naked Jesus

Home
Progressive Christian
Finding The YOU in Being Born from Above

Finding The YOU in Being Born from Above

Last updated on: January 6, 2016 at 12:52 pm by John O'Keefe

Finding The YOU in Being Born from Above 2016-01-06T12:52:03-05:00 John O'Keefe

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

To paraphrase the great swordsman Inigo Montoya [Mandy Patinkin] from The Princes Bride, ‘You Keep Using That Phase, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means .”

There are two points I desire to make in this post:

First: To truly understand what it means to be born again let’s look at the words Jesus uses in John’s recording of the life and ministry of Jesus [3:3]. The words Jesus used are Gennao [born, Strong’s #1080] Anothen [again Strong’s #509]. The phase gennao anothen. These are the words that have historically been translated as born again, but is that right? Over the past few decades people have come to the realization that born again is not a very good translation of the phase. Recently translators have claimed that the phrase born again literally means born from above. But, is born from above a good translation? Can it be translated in another way?

While I will give in and say that gennao does mean born, I want to focus on the second word anothen and desire to share a deeper meaning.

According to Strong, anothen could mean any of the following; from above, from a higher place; of things which come from heaven or God; from the first, from the beginning, from the very first; anew, over again. Like many Greek words, there are always nuances, depths where the word has many meanings and sometimes has a spiritual meaning. So, what if we expressed anothen in a different way?

Here is the usual way the verse is translated: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” [ESV]

Given the nuances of the word anothen we can translate John to read, ‘Let me say this as clearly as possible, unless you can go back to your beginning, the very first you the Divine created, you cannot see the kingdom of Divine.’

For me, understanding this concept is to understand that we are to return to the original person the Divine created us to be – the who we were meant to be before the world filled us with all the crap and garbage that flooded our life.

Second: Many people think that in order to be “saved” you must be born again, but is that the case? If we look at the words of Jesus we see he says, that if you are unable to connect with the original you, the you the Divine created, you “cannot see the kingdom of God” Notice, it does not say enter the kingdom. When we are able to see the true us, the one the Divine created, we see the kingdom of the Divine all around us. We start to express our lives in love, grace and compassion. You see, when we reconnect to the Divine, we find our true selves and we see the kingdom all around us.

Find the you the Divine created, see the kingdom all around you – when you do, life will be fulfilling and hold great meaning.

Previous Post

January 5, 2016

We Are The Answer To Prayer

Next Post

January 14, 2016 Christian Karma

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abuse bad Bad Theology Blue Christian Karma Christmas Church Clinton Coming Out Day Cruz Dance Dangerous Church Discrimination Disruptive Faith disruptive peace Disrutive Church Doctrine Dominionism Evangelism Faith Fun good grace Hell Hillary Inclusive Justice Keller Leadership love Messy Church Missional New Parable Open Peace Play Politics Prayer Progressive racism random Safe Church Sessions Story Theology Trump truth Uncategorized

Select a Month March 2019 December 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 February 2018 December 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 October 2015 August 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What was the primary light source in Biblical times?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Torch Bonfire Candle Oil lamp