“That which we have seen and heard we declare to you that our joy may
be full.” - 1 John 1:4
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| Byzantine picture of the apostle John teaching a disciple. |
Our small, discussion-based Bible study at the chapel (Wednesdays at 7:15 - you are cordially invited) has
given me truck loads to think about lately.
We started studying First John a couple weeks ago and so far we've covered a whopping four verses. Like
John in the prologue of his letter, I find myself so full of what I’ve learned
that my happiness depends on sharing at least some of it.
The first four verses of First John set the stage for the rest of
the epistle. If we check out mentality
during these four verses we miss the setting for everything that happens later and we are highly likely to misinterpret the book. Reading different commentaries and listening to
various sermons on first John has convinced me that when a person goes wrong on
a passage, it is because they have lost sight of the theme and purpose
of First John.
A common approach to First John is the “tests
of life” view. Warren Wiesbe’s comments are typical of it: “Eternal
life, the life that is real, is a gift from God to those who trust His Son as
their Saviour. John wrote his Gospel to
tell people how to receive this wonderful life (John 20:21). He wrote his first letter to tell people how
to be sure they have really been born of God (1 John 5:9-13).”
Watch out! This is a bad approach! If John wrote his gospel to tell people how
to receive life (and he did), then wouldn’t a person know they had eternal life
if they did what John told him to do? There’s
a lot of screwy theology behind the tests of life view, but leering behind it all is the
assumption that a person could believe in Christ and not know it.
