Chunks: The Letters of John

You’ve probably heard the expression: as a Christian, it’s possible to talk the talk without walking the walk. Something similar may have been true in John’s community. Those who left had used the name of Jesus, but believed and taught things about him that went against the gospel. They did so, John suggests, because they were too attached to what Eugene Peterson calls the “Christ-denying world.”

Jesus’ last words to his disciples in the Upper Room, before he turned to pray to his Father, were “Take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). He had already told them there would be trouble after he was gone, and said this to encourage them. John seems to echo that thought as he encourages his readers. Jesus lived a fully human life, he seems to say, and yet he overcame his trials. So g...

Nobody knows for certain what the secessionists—the people who left John’s community over a theological dispute—believed and taught. But many scholars believe it was probably some form of Gnosticism, a kind of spirituality that greatly valued the possession of special knowledge and devalued the physical world. Some Gnostics would have denied that God would inhabit something as lowly as a human bod...

At the opening of chapter 4, John advises his readers to beware of false claims to have a word from God and wisely “test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” But how does one go about doing that? We need to be careful, of course, not to apply any doctrinal tests blindly or harshly, but there are some dividing lines. And according to John, one of them is this: Do you believe that “Jesus C...

In some ways, John’s world may have been a bit less complex than ours; he didn’t live in an age of information technology in which we are bombarded by differing opinions and ideas from every side. But the confusion his readers were experiencing in the wake of the controversy that divided the community was difficult enough. At the beginning of chapter 4, therefore, John introduces the idea that bel...

Although the word “spirit” appears almost 400 times in the New Testament, it doesn’t appear in 1 John until the end of chapter 3—and it will play a significant role in the opening verses of chapter 4. But here, it serves the purpose of reinforcing his readers’ confidence that they are on the right path, abiding in God as they should.

Various versions of the so-called prosperity gospel assume a dangerous and unbiblical theology, taking verses out of context and treating them as divine promises that will be fulfilled for anyone who has enough faith. We find just such a verse in 1 John 3, a statement that seems to echo something Jesus himself told the disciples in the Upper Room. In this episode, we’ll explore both statements in...

As Jesus did before him, John has made love a central mark of discipleship, a way of knowing who is truly a child of God. As we saw in an earlier episode, he held up Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross as a primary example of such love. But for an anxious and confused community that had been divided by controversy, that might seem like an impossibly high bar. How will John reassure those who may...

Love is one of John’s central themes. But he doesn’t quite define it the way a philosopher might. Rather, he points to Jesus as an example of what true love looks like when it’s lived out. Drawing once again on the teaching of Jesus in the Upper Room, John encourages his readers to go beyond mere words and to take loving action.

I confess to worrying a little about how people might use John’s black-and-white language. In a world as polarized as ours, there’s always the temptation to self-righteously consider ourselves to be God’s children and treat others who believe differently as being of the devil! In this episode, therefore, we return to the Sermon on the Mount to explore how the teaching of Jesus might help us avoid...

Given his fondness for stark contrasts like light versus darkness, John’s language can sometimes sound a little extreme. People who hate their brothers and sisters, he says, are murderers, just as Cain was a murderer! But here, he is echoing what Jesus himself taught in the Sermon on the Mount, and he uses these words to encourage his readers to examine themselves.

In earlier verses, John has already alluded to the story of Adam, Eve, and the serpent in the Garden of Eden. In continuing to speak about sin, John now turns briefly to the story of Cain and Abel, the sons of Adam and Eve. The sibling rivalry between Cain and Abel, unfortunately, ended in murder. John assumes that his readers already know the tale—and uses it to teach them about love and hate.

In previous episodes, we’ve explored how what it means to be born again, and John’s fondness for stark contrasts. In 1 John 3:9-10, there is not only the contrast between God and the devil, but the children of God and the children of the devil. Here, we’ll examine his words against the background of the story in John 8 of a confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees.

As a writer, John likes to work with stark contrasts like light versus darkness, truth versus lies, and sin versus righteousness. In chapter 3, he adds another: God versus the devil. In this episode, therefore, we’ll explore his words against the background of the story of the serpent and the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3.

The previous episode described the ways translators have solved the puzzle of what seems at first glance to be a contradiction in 1 John. In this episode, I’ll use the fairy tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears (yes, you read that correctly!) to suggest that the tension inherent in his words may serve a positive purpose.

One of the puzzles for interpreters of 1 John is the way in which he seems to say in one place that Christians still sin, but in another place seems to say that Christians don’t or even can’t sin. How should we understand this?

One way of thinking about sin is that it’s breaking God’s law. But the apostle John adds that “sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). As we’ll explore in this episode, he’s referring not just to outward behavior but to the condition of our heart, in which we rebel against God’s authority.

What is hope? In this episode, we go back to the story of Abraham in Genesis 22 to illustrate the nature of what the Bible means by hope. Then we return to 1 John, where the apostle speaks of the hope of Christ’s return in the future, and why that matters to how we live now.

The consequence of being born again, by the initiative of God, is that we are therefore God’s children. And just as we sometimes talk easily about being “born again,” so too do we speak freely about being God’s children. But the language comes with the expectation that we will live in a way that shows what it means to be part of this family, with God as Father…

The stories of Genesis 2 and 3 suggest that shame came into the world with the consciousness of sin. Is it possible that any of us could stand before Jesus without shame? But John seems to suggest precisely that: we can and should abide in him so that when he returns “we may be confident and unashamed before him” (1 John 2:28).

When Nicodemus the Pharisee came to Jesus, he was confused by Jesus’ talk about being “born again” (John 3:3). As Christians today, we may find the language unremarkable. But do we know what we’re saying? And why it’s important?

As someone who has been a professor for decades, I’m a little troubled when John says to his readers “you do not need anyone to teach you” (1 John 2:27). And I can easily imagine how people who don’t believe they have anything to learn from others might use such a verse to justify their stance. But what does John mean?

Jesus had a lot to say in the Upper Room, on his final night with his disciples before his arrest and crucifixion. There is much in John’s letters to suggest that the apostle kept thinking back to what Jesus said that evening. In this episode, we explore how what John writes in 1 John 2:24-27 echoes what Jesus taught in John 15, when he encouraged his disciples to “abide” in him as a branch of a g...

As mentioned in the previous episode, John seems to call the people who left the community liars, because they reject the truth about Jesus. What truth about Jesus did they reject? One can’t be sure when we only have one side of the conversation. But what John says later, at the beginning of chapter 4, suggests that the folks who left denied the Incarnation, the declaration that Jesus was God in t...

It’s not until near the end of chapter 2 of 1 John that the apostle explicitly says that some people have left the community, though the hints are there throughout. Certainly, there was no need for him to say this earlier since the recipients of his letter obviously already knew! But in trying to reassure his readers that they know the truth about Jesus, he implies that the people who left are lia...