John 3:16 by itself can be construed much differently than John 3:14-16 together. which means we also need Numbers 21. which means we also need Numbers 1-20. oh, and John 1:1 - 3:13, too, and every passage that connects to every passage in those. the more i look at scripture and examine it, the more it seems to be extraordinarily 'connected' in a graph-theoretical sense: all of it is interlaced to a very high degree, none of it being wholly separate from any other part, if all the paths between nodes were to be traced out.