CSSPlus
Learning to Swim
Children's sermon
Object:
water wings or a floatation ring (the sillier-looking the better)
First Thoughts: The gospel of John is a difficult treatise even for scholars to understand. This passage has often been distilled into a simple meaning in our churches that our belief in Jesus saves us from hell. But that is misleading to the original text. Although a traditional teaching usually focuses on the afterlife, from the entirety of Jesus' teachings and actions we understand that salvation is to be practiced in our daily life -- the issue of redemption isn't only (or even mostly) about what happens when we die but about how we are to live.
