1 John Introduction
Introduction
The letter known as 1 John was sent to a group of believers who were in the midst of an unsettling situation. Some of them had abandoned faith in Jesus the Messiah as it had first been taught to them. They found the proclamation that God had come in a human body impossible to reconcile with the common Greek idea that the flesh is evil and only spirit is good. But despite their denial of the Messiah, their immoral lives and their lack of practical love, they claimed to know God and belong to God. They asserted that their spiritual insight put them above the rest of the group, which they demonstrated by deserting the fellowship. Those left behind were deeply shaken, uncertain about everything they had been taught.
Someone who was close to this community and who had been an eyewitness of Jesus wrote to reassure them of what they had heard from the beginning. The author doesn’t identify himself, but very likely he was the apostle John. Much of the language is similar to the Gospel of John. The letter testifies to the reality of the Messiah’s coming in the flesh, reassuring the believers that they have full access to the truth. It emphasizes godly living and practical caring as the signs of those who genuinely know God.
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1 John Introduction: NIVUK
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The Holy Bible, New International Version® (Anglicised), NIV®
Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.®
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1 John Introduction
Introduction
The First Epistle General of John is actually more like a sermon than a letter. It lacks the usual greetings, thanksgiving, and closing greetings (or blessing) that are standard features of letters in the Greco-Roman world and in the several examples of letters that are now part of the New Testament. First John seeks to warn its readers against false teachings and to encourage them to live according to the true faith which they received from the apostles. The readers are told that certain opponents of Christ (KJV, “antichrists”) have left the true faith (2.18,19), but they still perpetuate their false teachings and deny that Jesus is the Christ (2.22). This type of false teaching typically viewed the human body and the physical world as evil, so that salvation essentially meant becoming free from the body and the world, and even from moral responsibilities or compassionate caring for the poor. Such “antichrists” even denied that Jesus really had a human body (4.1-3). But, this letter says, echoing the Gospel according to John, true Christians will strive to live in the light and love one another (1.7; 2.8-11; cf. John 3.19-21). They will affirm Jesus as the Christ. And because they know that God is love, the faithful will love one another and care for one another (3.11-18). It is Christ who is the model for this self-giving love (3.16), and it was Christ's singular commandment to his followers that they love one another (John 15.12). Right conduct of life flows from right faith and teachings. Ancient tradition ascribes the three Epistles of John to the writer of the fourth Gospel, and the many thematic and verbal affinities with that Gospel support that conclusion.
Outline
Living in the Light (1.1—2.17)
Children of God and Children of the Devil (2.18—3.10)
The Love that Comes from God (3.11—4.21)
Faith's Victory: Whoever Has the Son Has Eternal Life (5.1-21)
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King James Version 1611, spelling, punctuation and text formatting modernized by ABS in 1962; typesetting © 2010 American Bible Society.