1 John • Introduction

This morning, we're going to have an introduction of our seven-week Bible study, which we've called Light, Love, and Logic, and it's going to be a verse-by-verse study through 1, 2, and 3 John. And I'm not going to share a lot about the text itself this morning because that's going to be for you to discover when you start studying independently on your own and then coming back. What I want to do this morning is share some information and some insights that will be helpful for you to launch into your study. And we don't have lots of time, so I'm just going to get right into it. When we start a new book of the Bible by a different author than we have done recently, we want to ask ourselves some questions like, who wrote 1 John? And you might look at me and say, well, that's a silly question because the name of the book itself is a little bit of a spoiler there. But if you have read the first few verses, you will note that it's not clear who the author is. We don't have, like some of the letters of Paul, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the saints in Ephesus. That's not how 1 John starts. 1 John starts with that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life. Now what writing style might that remind you of? If you've read your Bible a little bit, it sounds an awful lot like the Gospel of John, and it is. And in fact, this week there will be a lot of dovetailing with John's Gospel and this letter. And so we have tradition from the first century and Bible scholars that all agree that these books, even though they are not named, were written by the apostle John, 1, 2, and 3 John are all from him. And that's why they've been titled that. So the next question we could ask is when were these books written? And that might seem like a boring question, but it's super relevant, and I like to keep a mental timeline. It just helps me in my thinking. And so most people know, especially Christians know, that on our timeline we have the death and resurrection of Jesus at AD 33, all right? And so John, the apostle, remained in Jerusalem from that point all the way to the destruction of the temple in AD 70, when many of the Jews were scattered around. And then he went to the region of Ephesus and he stayed there. The Gospel of John was written around 85 to 90 AD. From 90 to 94 is when he wrote the epistles. And I'm probably going to use the word epistles instead of letters because there's no other time in my life that I use the word epistles, okay? Kind of fun to say, isn't it? But we just know them as letters. And then after that he wrote the revelation of Jesus Christ. About 95 to 96, while he was exiled on Patmos, he returned to Ephesus and he died around 100 plus AD. So why are these dates important? Because dates can just be just numbers out in the air. But the reason that it's important before we start studying this is to kind of get a bearing on how long it had been from when the followers of Jesus first launched into what we now call Christianity. Now we've already studied the first 10 chapters of Acts here, the first days of the last days. And so we know a little bit about that first decade and what it looked like. But now 60 years have gone by. That's a long time. I'm not even that old. But this is a long time for what was initially very clear about what it meant to be a follower of Jesus. And now it has become a little bit more obscured. To give us perspective, the Holocaust has been 70 years ago for us. Most of a generation has passed away in that time. We can culturally no longer agree even on what the word Nazi means. Dictionaries have even changed the meaning. And so you see how things become obscured over time. So since John is the one that lived through all of these decades of the early church life, the Holy Spirit inspired him to give us this letter, which is a sort of a discipleship manual to bring us back to the core, back to the core of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. So who did he write this to? Who was the audience? And we always have to remember that the Bible is not about me. The Bible is about God. The Bible is written for me, but before it was written for me, it was written for someone else. Who was the someone else that this letter was written for? Well, 1 John was meant to be a circular letter, which to be circulated in and among the churches of Ephesus. And so that is who the audience is there. 2 and 3 John are written to a specific church and a specific person, and we'll talk about that when we get to that week. But John writes in a friendly, fatherly, and a firm manner. And so I want to talk a little bit about John, because again, when we study a new book with a new author, we want to get the backstory. What makes this guy tick? And the reason that that's important is because our Bible tells us that all Scripture is breathed out by God. I know this, and you know this, because if you walk down the stairs into our children's ministry area, the poster says that. All Scripture is breathed out by God. And men wrote as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. But God allowed something of their personality to be imprinted in what they wrote. And that's why our Bible has such texture and such dimension to it. When you read Luke and Acts, written by Dr. Luke, he's a doctor. He's very detailed and technical in his writing. When you read something written by the Apostle Paul, he has a straight, linear logic that he follows through. When you read something, when you read the Gospel of Mark, which is actually according to Peter, you have these words, and immediately, and immediately, you see that personality come out. And when you read Matthew, this is fascinating, Matthew, who was a tax collector, accustomed to working with sums and amounts and quantities, whenever that guy talks about faith, it's a comparison. Oh, you of little faith. Great is your faith. And John doesn't mention faith at all. But what John mentions is the word abide. Abide is mentioned 13 times in his Gospel, the Gospel of John, compared to zero by all the other Gospel writers, and Paul only uses it twice. John uses the word love 40 times in his Gospel, two times more than all the other Gospel writers put together, and another 36 times in the epistle that we're going to study. And so we get a little of his personality imprinted in this, and that's going to give us something, a new dimension for us to enjoy. So who is John, anyway? This is not John the Baptist, okay, because he was beheaded before Jesus was even crucified. This is John, the younger brother of James, the sons of Zebedee from Capernaum by the sea in Galilee, and John and James were fishermen with their father. John wasn't always the beloved disciple, the apostle of love and abide. He started off as half of this brother act, this hot-tempered brother act that Jesus called the sons of thunder. That's what they were like when he picked them up, and in fact, one time, they wanted to see if they could call down fire on a Samaritan village and destroy it, and Jesus, of course, intervened on that. But I want us to look at where Jesus picked him up, okay? And Matthew tells us that Jesus was walking by the sea of Galilee. First he calls Simon and Andrew, says, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And then we see this verse that it says, James and John were in the boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets, and Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father, and they followed him. That's Matthew 4, 21 and 22. So they spent the next three years along with the other 10 disciples following Jesus. And John followed Jesus first to Simon Peter's house, where Jesus healed his mother-in-law of a great sickness, and she got up and started serving them. He followed Jesus to Bethany, where Lazarus had died, and watched Jesus call him forth from the grave. He followed Jesus to sit at the table at the Last Supper and actually recline upon him and ask him, who is the one that's going to betray you? John listened intently over those years to Jesus when he... He said, I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the true vine. I am the gate for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the resurrection of the life. And John is the one that listened to that and put it in his gospel, so that we have the richness of that. And we studied that in the iambs of Christ. John was among the three closest of Jesus' apostles, Peter, James, and John, and was up on the mountain when Jesus was transfigured before their eyes, along with Elijah and Moses showed up. These three were in the garden with Jesus in that night of agony to pray with him. John was among the two, Peter and John, as they were sent to make preparations for that last supper. And after Jesus was arrested, they followed him into the court of the high priest, only those two. And actually, Peter stayed in the entryway, but as John was known by the high priest, and he went in. And it was the two of them that then ran to the tomb. But the younger John waited respectfully for the elder Peter to go in first and investigate. But it was John alone at the cross whom Jesus said to him, would you take care of my mother? And so we see that John has this prominent place in Jesus' life. And it's very sweet. After Jesus ascended into heaven, Peter and John were this dynamic duo that we read about in those first chapters of Acts that the Lord was really working through. In fact, the Holy Spirit had changed them so much that as the gospel message went up to the Samaritans, and Philip was the one that took it up into Samaria, they called for Peter and John to come up because the people, half Gentile, half Jew, started believing. I don't think Philip really knew for sure what to do with that. And Peter and John went up there. And this time, instead of calling fire down for destruction on the Samaritan village, those two were the ones that prayed down the fire of the Holy Spirit on those people, and they were filled with the Spirit. So the Lord just changed them. But what I want to read is from Acts chapter four of an assessment when Peter and John were brought before the high priest. This is what they said. When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished, and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. Those six words right there, they took note that those men had been with Jesus. That gives us a believability and a credibility for John. And by the time he wrote these letters that we're gonna study, he'd been a follower of Jesus for 60 years, okay? He'd been a faithful elder in Ephesus for a couple of decades now. And he was the final remaining disciple. All others had been martyred. He was the only one left, and he knew it. And he had things to say. And the Holy Spirit inspired him with things to say, and then the Holy Spirit preserved it so that we have it to read today and to study today. So we want to talk about the purpose. I love it when a writer makes his purpose crystal clear. John did this in both the letter that we're about to study and also in the gospel account. I want to start with the gospel account. And in the gospel, in John 23, he said, these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. So in the gospel of John, he said, this is written so that you might believe that's his purpose, made it crystal clear. Now, when he writes the letter, the circular letter, this is what he says in 1 John 5, 13. I write these things to you who believe, you who already believe, you're Christians, in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And so this letter, the purpose of it is that so we may know what abiding in the Lord looks like, what this eternal life that we are beginning, that we have begun now that continues on, what it looks like. So I want to share just a couple of cultural and historical things that I think are gonna help you this week while you begin studying. God, like we said, gifted John with many years on earth and he had the opportunity to observe both the healthy growth of the church of Christ and problems and dangers as well. Sometimes a biblical writer will confront problems without explaining the problems and we end up with a little bit of a one-sided thing. Let me give you an example. If your birthday's on July 15th and I come to your house with a big planter that's all planted up and I leave you a little birthday card and I say in that card, you have to give this a gallon of water in the morning and another gallon of water after dinner. Happy birthday. I didn't mention in the card, because your birthday lands on July 15th and it's 105 degrees and it's going to be 105 degrees for the next six or eight weeks, you need to give this. See, I didn't say all that. Why didn't I say it? It was obvious. You get a planter in July. You have to give it a lot of water. The context of the situation was obvious. We find that in the Bible sometimes. So we have to look and say, what is the context of this situation so that I can understand a little bit of just the instructions and not the backstory. And so that's what we want to talk about. One of John's most serious areas of concern was false teachings, which he called Antichrist. Antichrist, not meaning the Antichrist that would rise up in the last days, but meaning teachers and teachings that were anti-Christ's teaching, against what Jesus had taught that John absorbed for those three years, okay? He also wasn't talking about different religions. Like if you want to go and believe in a different religion, knock yourself out and go do that. He was talking about things that were infiltrating and masquerading as Christianity. That's what he means by false teachings in here. And one such teaching was Gnosticism. And it comes from the Greek word gnosis, G-N-O-S-I-S, which merely means knowledge. And it's difficult to pin down throughout the first centuries exactly what Gnosticism always looked like and always meant because it was a little bit different. But the core was substituting intellectualism and knowledge for faith. And in doing so, it also often promoted a independent speculation in the secret knowledge that I have, what I think, what has been revealed to me above the corporate tenets of the faith. And when I say corporate, I mean what had been decided in a community aspect among the apostles themselves because they were there. So an independent rather than a community. So can you see the little bit of a link with our jelly bellies? I set you up at your table to taste something and merely say what your independent speculation was as to that particular flavor. No one was going to argue with you among your peers. No one was gonna say that is not apricot, that is peach. A little bit of silliness, but that was the point. The Gnostic influence was an amalgam of popular beliefs of the day mixed with authentic Christian doctrine to produce something that was a little bit more appealing to them. And we might not call it Gnosticism today, but it certainly describes our buffet-style Christianity that many people adhere to and claim as their brand of faith. And we see this culturally in our culture where first you go and look at the Christian doctrines and choose the ones that you like and discard the ones that are either uncomfortable or embarrassing or difficult to figure out. And then you look at the commands of God and you decide which ones are truly to be obeyed and which ones should just be kept a little bit more optional. And then you look at love one another, the biblical aspect of love for one another and substitute inclusiveness for one another and tolerance for one another. And that's our buffet-style Christianity that we're facing today. And those are the three great themes of 1 John that we are going to cycle through over and over. Truth, which he often calls light, obedience to God's commands, and love for one another. There's also a couple of style elements that I want to point out that I hope will be helpful before you start studying and The first one is when I said that John cycles through these themes I really meant it he cycles through them and unlike Luke or Matthew or Paul who are linear thinkers and use linear logic John uses a circular logic and What I mean is his he Cycles through topics over and over leaving them open in kind of a spiraling manner sort of like the children do at our family camp they go they ride around and around and around those loops, you know and The style question of circular or linear is neither right nor wrong. It's just different from one another So I'm happy to study a different kind of a book My personal take on it is that if you tend to be a little bit more of a teacher type personality you like linear logic and you If you're a little bit more of a mentor Counseling prayer partner sort of a personality you probably love this Open-ended sort of a circular logic where you just let's keep this all Juggling and keep talking about it So John's writing also the second style issue is his writing is black and white His vocabulary makes use of lots of opposites that we are going to find over the top We have to remember the Bible was written for us, but not first First it was written for its own audience and the audience that it was written for was much more Comfortable with the black and white dualism that John uses they embraced it That's how they thought darkness and light love and hate that was great for them Think of it like this Star Wars is a good example when we watch a Star Wars movie. We fully expect that the The Jedi's are going to be fully immersed either in the power of the force or in the power of the dark side That's our expectation. We're totally fine with that. We don't expect or even want gray area in between but in our Cultural life we love a lot of gray area in between we're not Comfortable with things being so black and white I want to give you example When we get to chapter 2 verse 4 it says whoever says I know him, but does not keep his commands is a liar and The truth is not in him That's a black and white statement. We don't use Chapter 3 verse 8 whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil for the devil has been sinning from the beginning truth, but we're not accustomed to it I Want to mention these things so that we are prepared to accept this letter that we're studying and embrace it as it was Written I don't want us to be discussing at the table and say well What I think John really meant to say here No He meant to say just what he meant to say and we want to get into that and say what can I learn how can? I be changed by reading what he really said Don't expect a linear argument where themes are presented Developed and brought to a conclusion and don't expect a large volume of gray space Now the last thing I want to talk about is just our method practical terms This is our method for how we're going to study you're going to need a Bible If you have an ESV that's going to be super helpful to you because this Bible study is written for the ESV It's not mandatory if you don't have one you're welcome to take one of our church paperbacks home You're going to need a notebook and you'll need this the study guide which you have and each week We're going to study one chapter of John And then the final week will study both the letters of 2nd and 3rd John in that one week each week's chapter is broken into four days of study with a final page with questions for Discussion and thought which I think will be useful in your table discussion, so you can choose whether you want to Study you know one two three four days And then take a fifth day to go through those or you may want to go to that page first Read through those questions get some of that in your mind, then go back and start your study. Whatever you want to do your study guide will tell you each day to begin your study with prayer and You know whenever it is that you have time to do this Shoot up a prayer short or long and I say that because I Struggle with comprehension can anybody else read the Bible and make out your grocery list at the same time? Like I have I have a hard time focusing I need to ask the Lord before I start reading something help me to focus Otherwise my mind can be I'm like reading the words and my mind can wander But anyway So don't underestimate the power of asking the Holy Spirit to help you learn and then we read through the whole chapter for that week Repetitive reading is a form of memorizing if you read something repetitively You know you'll have it memorized after a while And I think you'll shock yourself if you actually do read that chapter every day that week And then in your study guide it says to write out the focus verses for the day It's only usually a few verses and I've done this in my journal for these short studies It's only a hundred and five verses I think for 1st John and so to write it out gives me a great sense of accomplishment I first learned this Mary Lynn I observed her about a decade ago writing out things. I'm like well I can do that and However, I want to say if that's not your season of life if that is not it then Just print out Something in double spaced so that you have something that you can mark and write notes on and that sort of thing it is Acceptable and we won't think any the less of you if you come with something typed, okay? and Then lastly to actually go through the study guide for that day and those questions Hopefully are going to help you again with our comprehension Which is just the reading for understanding? What does this say it'll help us with our interpretation saying? What does it mean? What did it mean for the original audience and with our application saying? What does it mean to me? And how should this text change my rhythm of life? One last thing I just want to encourage you with I love studying books of the Bible together in community. We've got about 60 women here in Ontario that are studying and then plus you know we have more in Vail and up in Oxbow on this page, and it helps us to contextualize things in the Bible when we studied Philippians this summer and We came to that familiar passage rejoice in the Lord always Were we a little bit shocked to find out that the context sent where that was sandwiched in was unity and agreement? It was two women in the church not agreeing with one another and that that was sandwiched between that and be reasonable let your reasonableness be known by all and so it's when we get to a Verse like beloved let us love one another for love is from God familiar to most everyone in this room Does anyone know the three verses ahead or behind and why that context is in there see I love this to discover those kind of things and it saves us from Saying things like doesn't it say in the Bible somewhere that as if each one of those Verses in the Bible are a jelly belly. It's like oh I like the cherry one and I like the watermelon one and I like the popcorn one and I like and you know no no We're gonna study in the context of all the verses before and after and I think that it's going to give us Just a great insight, so are you interested are you excited? All right, I hope that this hasn't been That's why I was really thankful that Amy had a real ministry song because I don't feel like this was a ministry message This was informational what I wanted to do was launch you into the best possible Success to get into your personal study to hang with your personal study and to come back and to share that at your Discussion table so Lord. We thank you for the opportunities that you've given us Lord to have this time to really Dig into what you have inspired The writers to say to us and Lord. I want to ask you To open up our hearts So that as we read as we study as we apply it to our lives that we will ask you permission to change us To be changed by what we read Lord to hold tightly to the truth To have a heart to obey you and to have love for one another Lord And so that's our prayer and our hope and we just ask for your grace to accomplish this in Jesus name Amen You