Gospel of John

“Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” ~John 3:3 (KJV)

This question has come up a lot over the years and has been addressed here before (see this post from 11 years ago titled Are Swartzentruber Amish “saved”?), so I did a video on it as well. As explained in the video, Amish do believe in the concept of being born again as detailed in the Gospel of John. But the language they use to describe themselves, and more importantly the lens that they view this new birth through are different.

In an nutshell, Amish have a more community-oriented way of viewing Jesus’ words to Nicodemus, rather than a more individualistic one. This is explained well in chapter 3 of the book The Amish Way: Patient Faith in a Perilous World (Kraybill, Nolt, & Weaver-Zercher), which I cite in the video.

I also discuss the related concept of assurance of salvation. In a second nutshell, the Amish do not profess assurance of salvation, rather speaking of a “living hope” of salvation. However there is one prominent exception to this, detailed at the end of the video. Runtime: 8:41.

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