didn’t want the general public—and especially the other sixty-nine members of the Sanhedrin—to know that he’d been visiting Jesus, the miracle worker. Later in the chapter, in verse 10, Jesus called Nicodemus “the teacher of Israel,” not “a teacher of Israel.” This suggests that Nicodemus was not only one of the seventy rulers, but he was probably the best known or perhaps the most respected. In other words, this was not a narrow-minded, religious bully. He was very astute, very articulate, and very