Summary: I received the gospel in a nutshell once, or what someone felt was the gospel. It was literally in a nutshell, though the shell was now emptied of its nut, was stuffed with a slip of paper with a verse from scripture on it. It had been a youth group activity with an aim for evangelism. The members of the group had been told to choose their favorite Bible verse, to write it on a slip of paper, and then to stuff it into an emptied nutshell. I imagine it was a painstaking process. But (I have to be honest) it was lost on me. I just don't think you can fit the gospel in a nutshell, even figuratively; I just don't think you can adequately sum it all up. Holding the open shell in my one hand and the slip of paper in my other, I thought of Jesus telling people, "Come and see." Not a summation but an invitation, not an abstract but an expanse: come and see. These are among the first words Jesus is remembered to have said according to the gospel of John. Having been called out by John the baptizer, "Look, here is the Lamb of God!" having attracted then the attention and the following of two of John's disciples, Jesus turned to them and asked, "What are you looking for?" Their response was also a question, and an odd one, "Rabbi, where are you staying?" Jesus answered, "Come and see," which they did, the story telling us, "They came and saw where Jesus was staying, and they remained with him that day." Following this, they not only became Jesus' disciples but called a third as well, Simon Peter.
