John seems to me to be the young man who has a tremendous heart for Christ, who leaves the temples and synagogues, the traditional places of learning where he was respected as a bright young up and comer (John 18:16) to follow after where he believes God is calling him from. John leaves it all behind to investigate the person of John the Baptist who has been declaring the Lord is coming soon, where he then becomes his disciple.
John's account of the John the Baptizer appears much more personal than the equivalent record in the synoptics, (John 1:29), for whereas Luke records the sermon given to the people John we have a first hand account of the matter (John 1:35-39) where John testifies personally that Jesus is the Christ before Jesus calls them out to follow Him.
That's why I think (and I mean this is only as a conjecture) that after making a scene and appearing to everyone in the temple at Jerusalem that first year Nicodemus had a personal chat with John. John explained that yes, he was Jesus disciple, and yes, he thought there was a good reason for believing in Jesus as the Christ. Nicodemus, who was sympathetic to John, decides then to go for himself and see this rabbi by night.
If they were friends in some way it would go a long way to explaining why Nicodemus makes a three fold showing in John's gospel (John 7:50, 19:39 being the other two) and nowhere in the other Gospel accounts.
So perhaps John was informed of the secret council decisions of the Sanhedrin like in John 11:47 because Paul was on the council and later told him. Or perhaps it's because he had friend(s) on the inside and they talked it over later on as they pieced it together.
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