Spending over a year mostly ignoring social media and the news to study the General Epistles during the period of Covid lock down, finger-pointing and fearmongering is without doubt one of the most worthwhile things I have done. Serializing the results and posting them as essays on this blog, on the other hand, ranks among …
The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth.2 Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, just as it is well with your soul. 3 I was overjoyed when some of the friends arrived and testified to your faithfulness to the truth, …
The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth, and not only I but also all who know the truth, 2 because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever: 3 Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and …
The end of 1 John is abrupt and even disjointed. One wonders if it’s an end at all, or if John was interrupted and never got the chance to pen the ending he intended. Whether that is the case or not, the letter ends with the following four paragraphs. I write these things to you …
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. …
True knowledge is not intellectual; it is personal; it is a form of love because true knowledge is an attribute of the interaction of God abiding in us and our abiding in God, which is the essence of love. That’s the point of 1 John 4:1-10 (considered in the previous essay). In that passage, John …
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit …
I focused on 1 John 3:4-10 in a separate essay so we could understand the implications of that series of present active participles that stretch across two paragraphs, but that group of verses includes parts of two paragraphs, and thus, two separate thoughts. The paragraph break is between vv 6 & 7 (in the middle …
Continue reading False Teaching, Persecution, Truth, and Action
Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive …
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we …
Just Another Jim 