English

Ah, John 3:16. The first bible verse I ever memorized way back in AWANAs at Hillcrest Baptist Church on the Westside in Jacksonville, FL.It's still a good one, and perhaps the reason it's so popular is that it captures the essential message of Christianity so well:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him, shall not perish but have everlasting life.

There are at least four basic truths here:

1. God loves us.
2. He sent His son.
3. We must believe in the Son.
4. Faith in Christ results in eternal life.

There are some elements of the gospel that are just as important, but not present in this one verse:

There is no explanation of why God had to give his Son, no description of sin. However, these important doctrines are discussed in surrounding verses in the same Chapter of John, in Nicodemus's discussion with Christ.

But the essential message of Christianity is not sin, but freedom from it through Christ, because of God's love, which IS the main point of this verse.

What's this about?

I've set a goal of learning John 3:16 in at least one language from every language family. This blog will follow my attempts to do so, with explanations of what's going on in each language, as I understand it.

I've already made progress: I know the verse in English of course, in Spanish and French, which are my second languages, in Turkish because I lived in Turkey for a year, and in Czech because I've visited the Czech Republic three times. Most recently, I learned it in Arabic, which is my first language that has no other reason than for the sheer fun of it.

With those five languages, we have three major language families represented, and three subfamilies of Indo-European.

Indo-European: English, French, Spanish, Czech

-Germanic: English
-Romance: French, Spanish
-Slavic: Czech

Turkic: Turkish

Semitic: Arabic

I have a New Testament in Farsi, which is Indo-European, of the Indo-Iranian branch, so that will probably be the next project.