1 John Love and Fellowship In Christ A Personalized Account by Allan H. Franks Allan Franks has been a Pastor in the Church Of The Nazarene since 1977. He currently resides in Loudonville, Ohio where he is Lead Pastor and Counseling Director at the Loudonville Church of the Nazarene. He is married to Brenda and they have two married daughters and four grandchildren. 1 Table Of Contents Introduction – page 3 Introduction to 1 John – page 4 A Personalized Account of 1 John The Word of Life: 1 John 1:1-4 – page 8 Walking in the Light: 1 John 1:5-2:6 – page 11 Loving God’s Way: 1 John 2:7-17 – page 17 Believing Right: 1 John 2:18-27 – page 23 Children of The Father: 1 John 2:28-3:10 – page 28 Loving One Another: 1 John 3:11-24 – page 34 Clearly Counterfeit: 1 John 4:1-6 – page 39 The Source of Love: 1 John 4:7-21 – page 42 Loving God and Overcoming The World: 1 John 5:1-5 – page 48 The Witness of the Spirit: 1 John 5:6-12 – page 50 Confidential Knowledge: 1 John 5:13-21 – page 53 Bible Study Guide – pages 58-89 2 Introduction My desire in writing in this personalized style is to try to help the reader hear what God is saying to them in a very intimate and personal way. It is not my desire to try to rewrite scripture, but rather to show that God really does speak to us individually and personally from His Word. I am not a Biblical scholar, but I have spent hours and hours studying the individual words of every verse. I looked the words up in the original Greek language and in many different translations of the Bible before I wrote each personalized verse. Before I personalized each verse, I asked the Lord to speak to me from His Word and He has been faithful to do so over and over again. What you will read in this book has been personalized and internalized in my heart forever. I have been personalizing the Bible for my own benefit for over 40 years. It has been a labor of love. I have heard the Lord speak to me from His Word in a way that has changed the essence of who I am. Over and over through the personalizing of His Word, the Lord has affirmed His love for me. I have found the Lord to be a personal God who knows me and wants to communicate with me at a very deep level. My hope is that you too will hear God speak to you in a deep personal way as you read this personalized account of His word. May God’s voice come to you clearly and dearly as you read. God bless you! 3 Introduction to 1 John Tradition tells us that after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70, the Apostle John and a core group of followers moved to Asia Minor. The apostle settled in Ephesus and soon influenced churches in several major cities. Sometime around A.D. 75-80 John wrote his Gospel, which circulated both as a missionary tract and as a report of the Son of God’s life and teaching for believers. The Christian church was firmly established by now but, as we know from 2 Timothy, 2 Peter, and Jude, destructive heresies were introduced by false teachers. The letters of John, and particularly 1 John, were probably written as a response to this internal crisis. John’s final work, Revelation, was written near the end of the first century. This first letter of John’s is warmly personal in character. John does combat heresy. But he does so in a pastoral way, by repeatedly emphasizing basic doctrines about Christ and the Christian lifestyle. Again and again we read that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh, that righteous conduct is essential in those who have been born of God, and that love is the mark of vital relationship with God. One story about John, reported in Jerome’s commentary on Galatians, tells how he was carried into the congregation when he was old and unable to say anything except, “Little children, love one another.” When asked why he always spoke these same words, John replied, “Because it is the Lord’s command, and if this only is done, it is enough.” There may be no epistles in the New Testament that better remind us of the basic truths which Christians believe and which we are called to live. Date The letter is difficult to date with precision, but factors such as evidence from early Christian writers (Irenaus and Clement of Alexandria), the early form of Gnosticism reflected in the denunciations of the letter, and indications of the advanced age of John, suggest the end of the first century. Since the author of 1 John seems to build on concepts and themes found in the fourth Gospel, it is reasonable to date the letter somewhere between A.D. 85 and 95, after the writing of the Gospel, which may have been written in 85. Recipients 1 John 2:12-14, 19; 3:1, 5:13 make it clear that this letter was addressed to believers. But the letter itself does not indicate who they were or where they lived. The fact that it mentions no one by name suggests it was a circular letter sent to Christians in a number of places. Evidence from early Christian writers places the apostle John in Ephesus during most of his later years (A.D. 70-100). The earliest confirmed use of 1 John was in the province of Asia (in modern Turkey), where Ephesus was located. 4 Clement of Alexandria indicates that John ministered in the various churches scattered throughout that province. It may be assumed, therefore, that 1 John was sent to the churches of the province of Asia. Gnosticism One of the most dangerous heresies of the first two centuries of the church was Gnosticism. Its central teaching was that spirit is entirely good and matter is entirely evil. From this unbiblical dualism flowed five important errors: 1. Man’s body, which is matter, is therefore evil. It is to be contrasted with God, who is wholly spirit and therefore good. 2. Salvation is the escape from the body, achieved not by faith in Christ but by special knowledge (the Greek word for “knowledge” is gnosis, hence Gnosticism). 3. Christ’s true humanity was denied in two ways: (1) Some said the Christ only seemed to have a body, a view called Docetism, from the Greek dokeo (“to seem”), and (2) others said that the divine Christ joined the man Jesus at baptism and left him before he died, a view called Cerinthianism, after its most prominent spokesman, Cerinthus. This view is the background of much of 1 John. 4. Since the body was considered evil, it was to be treated harshly. This ascetic form of Gnosticism is the background of part of the letter to the Colossians (2:21-23). 5. Paradoxically, this dualism also led to licentiousness. The reasoning was that, since matter – and not the breaking of God’s law – was considered evil, breaking his law was of no moral consequence. The Gnosticism addressed in the New Testament was an early form of the heresy, not the intricately developed system of the second and third centuries. In addition to that seen in Colossians and in John’s letters, acquaintance with early Gnosticism is reflected in 1st and 2nd Timothy, Titus, and 2 Peter and perhaps 1 Corinthians. Occasion and Purpose John’s readers were confronted with an early form of Gnostic teaching of the Cerinthian variety. This heresy was also libertine, throwing off all moral restraints. Consequently, John wrote this letter with two basic purposes in mind: (1) to expose false teachers (2:26) and (2) to give believers assurance of salvation (5:13). In keeping with his intention to combat Gnostic teachers, John specifically struck at their total lack of morality (3:8-10); and by giving eyewitness testimony to the incarnation, he sought to confirm his readers’ belief in the incarnate Christ (1:3). Success in this would give the writer joy (1:4). First John was written to dispel doubts and to build assurance by presenting a clear picture of Christ. 5 Entering history, Jesus was and is God in the flesh and God in focus – seen, heard, and touched by the author of this letter, John the apostle. John walked and talked with Jesus, saw him heal, heard him teach, watched him die, met him arisen, and saw him ascend. John knew God – he lived with him and had seen him work. And John enjoyed fellowship with the Father and the Son all the days of his life. The elder statesman in the church, John wrote this letter to his “dear children.” In it he presented God as light, as love, and as life. He explained in simple and practical terms what it means to have fellowship with God. John opens this letter by giving his credentials as an eyewitness of the incarnation and by stating his reason for writing (1:1-4). He then presents God as “light,” symbolizing absolute purity and holiness (1:5-7), and he explains how believers can walk in God’s light and have fellowship with him (1:8-10) with Christ as their defender (2:1,2). John urges them to obey Christ fully and to love all the members of God’s family (2:3-17).