Archive | 1 John

image by Kiel Latham

Few things are more fun for a teenage boy than sneaking into the girl’s cabins at camp. I remember indulging in a little covert operation once with a friend of mine. We had dodged security and made our way in to the so-called holy of holies. After hanging out for a while, we heard the sound of footsteps closing in. I frantically slid underneath the bottom of the bunk bed on one side of the cabin. My friend was slightly larger than I, so he kicked a girl out of her bed. She hid underneath it, while he climbed in and quickly threw the covers over his head. The door opened quickly, accompanied by a flashlight and a voice:

“Is everything alright in there?”

As the flashlight started checking the bunk beds, I was sure we were going to be found out. Everyone was holding their breath, on the verge of giggling.

Fortunately, we escaped that time. I suppose this is sort of a confession.

My point in revealing that deep-dark secret is this: what will you be found doing when the flashlight hits you? Continue Reading →

image by negatendo

There are two verses in the New Testament that just drive me crazy when people misinterpret them. The second one is part our text today. Here they are:

Do not worry about . . . what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what you ought to say. (Luke 12:11-12 NRSV)

You do not need anyone to  teach you. . . . his anointing teaches you about all things. (1 John 2:27 NRSV)

These verses have been used to excuse exegetical sloth many times. I’ve heard of preachers who don’t prepare at all—they just walk up to the pulpit and engage in small talk until they feel moved to speak on something.

That’s clearly not the intent of these verses. If it were true, the irony would be unbearable: John would be teaching his people that they don’t need anyone to teach them!

These two verses teach different things, although they have been twisted into a unity. The first text from Luke says that God will give his followers divine wisdom to know what to say when they’re being persecuted. It’s certainly not an excuse to avoid studying scripture. The second verse is the subject of this devotion. Continue Reading →

image by free sample

We’re approaching Christmas. Picture Jesus, the newborn infant, lying in a manger. Now answer these questions:

• Did the newborn Jesus cry like any other newborn or was he supernaturally peaceful?
• Would the newborn Jesus be recognizable as something different from the rest of humanity by a stranger, or would he look just like any other crying baby?
• Hebrews tells us that the world was created and is sustained through Jesus. In his infant mind, was he holding and spinning the galaxies around in space, or do you think he only cared about pooping, eating, and sleeping?

How you answer those questions reveals a lot about your Christology. The ancient church discerned that Jesus was fully God and fully man. That’s fine in the abstract, but difficult to figure out in reality. Continue Reading →

image by Austin Moody

I don’t understand why people pray that other Christians would be anointed. I’ve led worship quite consistently for the last decade, and for some reason, “the anointing” people pray for is more important for musicians—at least that’s what I’ve been able to figure out. Everyone knows that while preachers need to be anointed, it’s the musicians who light it up (tongue firmly planted in cheek).

If you’ve prayed for someone to be anointed, don’t feel bad. I think I know what you’re trying to say. You’re asking God to let his servant feel his presence, right? That’s a great prayer, but it has nothing to do with being anointed.

TV shysters are particularly adept at throwing this word around. The picture above shows a good example of it. (By the way, if the anointing is the Holy Spirit, how is it possible to have 10 times infinity?) Continue Reading →

image by Julia Freeman-Woolpert

Halloween was highly controversial in Bible College. Half the school was hopped-up on Rebecca Brown and Chick Tracks, while the other half thought Halloween was all about cute kids and candy.

I found myself among the candy contingent. That explains why, in my third year of college, my friend and I dressed up like Kiss (including the face-makeup) and trick-or-treat-ed at my various professor’s houses to see what they thought about the whole night. It was an evening to remember (and yes, we did return with candy).

The problem with sensational media-driven events like Halloween, is that they make a caricature of evil. They give the Devil a red face, pointy horns, and a goat’s behind. Evil is portrayed as something so ridiculous, it can be ignored with a knowing smirk. Continue Reading →

image by Jayel Aheram

John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world . . .”

1 John 2:15 says, “Do not love the world . . .”

There’s an apparent contradiction—a mixed message—here. You can’t get around it linguistically. The same author wrote these verses using the verb agapaō for love and the noun kosmos for world in each case. Either we are not supposed to imitate God by loving the world, or there’s some other explanation.

Let’s take a closer look. Continue Reading →

image by coba

If there’s one thing any self-respecting preacher should be good at, it’s the ability to digress. I’m sure you’ve heard a few diversions from the pew. One minute the speaker’s following the inner-logic of the message, the next minute he’s off on some tangent.

John does that exact thing in these verses. One minute he’s locked in debate against the false teachers who had infiltrated his community, the next minute he’s encouraging his congregation to remember the benefits of following Christ.

In the hands of a wise pastor, there’s nothing wrong with a good digression. Continue Reading →

image by elh70

I’m still adjusting to the whole parenting thing. Let me share one of my frustrations with you: toys. I remember watching the commercials that came on during cartoons as a kid, longing to own every single trinket that was marketed towards my age bracket. Now, I feel differently. I’ve turned my back on that childhood infatuation with all things shiny and plastic.

I don’t think I can count the number of times I’ve stepped on one of Ryan’s toys. The biggest problem comes in the evening. Our living room light fixture is remote controlled. Since we need to keep everything breakable above Ryan’s reach, we’ve found a place for the remote control on top of our entertainment centre. This creates an interesting evening routine. When it’s time to go to bed, I make my way to the entertainment centre, deftly stepping around the plastic Tupperware shapes, and the Fisher-Price Little People. Then, I turn and scan the floor, memorizing the placement of the various toys. After I’ve got a good grasp of the layout, I turn off the light, walk through the toys in the dark, and (usually) make it to the bedroom without stepping on something too painful.

I share this to make a simple point: it’s easy to stumble over things when the lights are off. John made the same point in his letter. You’ve likely heard the familiar saying, “love is blind”. John used the image of light and darkness to teach the opposite of “love is blind”. It’s only when we love that we are in the light and can truly see. Continue Reading →

image by cnraether

Contradictions. Flip-flops. U-turns. These words get a lot of mileage on CNN every election season. The pundits on one side are always looking to find opposing views within the other camp. The public can put up with a lot of things from a candidate, it seems, but not a change of mind.

A surface reading of 1 John 2:7-8 makes it sound like John himself has joined the ranks of the flip-floppers (NRSV):

I am writing you no new commandment, . . . I am writing you a new commandment.

Which is it?  Old or new? Let’s look deeper and see what the commandment is, and look at whether it’s old or new—or both.

. . .

To make things difficult, the commentators don’t even to agree on what commandment is being referred to here. Kruse thinks the commandment is to believe in God’s Son, Jesus Christ, since John equates it with the word they heard from the beginning. Bultmann thinks that the command is a way of referring to the gospel in general—John simply replaced the plural term with the singular. I tend to agree with Stott on this issue, though:

[John] does not explicitly reveal what the nature of this commandment is; but since the subject of verses 9-11 is love, and since the ‘new commandment’ which Jesus gave was ‘As I have loved you, so you must love one another’ (Jn. 13:34; cf. 15:12, 17), it is plain that the command concerns brotherly love.

This interpretation adds poignancy to the way John begins the sentence: beloved (agapētoi). John refers to his church as agapētoi six times, with this being the first. He’s essentially saying: Beloved, be-loving!

So is this command to love old or new? It’s both. John probably referred to it as old and fundamental, because he was intent on contradicting the new false teachings that were moving through his congregations. Indeed, God’s desire for us to love each other is very old. However, Jesus called it a new command when he gave it:

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. (John 13:34, NRSV)

. . .

Stott points out four ways that this old command could be called new:

1. New in the emphasis he gave it.
   When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus summarized all the law and the prophets by pulling together two old themes (from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18). Love for God, and love for our neighbour sums up God’s desire for us (Matthew 22:34-40).
2. New in the quality he gave it.
   When Jesus reminded his followers to love each other, he expected them to follow his example even to death! I have problems sacrificing a peaceful drive alone to pick up a hitch-hiker—Jesus took took the command as deep as it could go, and modeled it in his own death.
3. New in the extent he gave it.
   Jesus’ command that we love each other doesn’t end with our friends, or even with other Christians. Remember the parable of the Good Samaritan? We are even called to love our enemies, and to do good to those who hate us.
4. New by our fresh apprehension of it.
   Here’s the most important aspect of this command’s newness. We are called to continually apply this command. It’s not enough that we made a loving gesture in a soup kitchen last winter. We need to walk in his love daily. Candlish articulates this point well: Though doctrinal Christianity is always old, experimental Christianity is always new. (in Stott)

. . .

We’re living in an overlap of two ages. John represents the old age with the the word darkness, and reminds us that it’s passing away. The new age is characterized by light, and not just any light: the light of Jesus Christ himself! I like the way Revelation describes the new heavens and earth:

The city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. (21:23, NRSV)

As Christians, we’ve passed into this new age where the light of Christ is already shining. The divine love that Jesus commands us to participate in is already truly expressed “in him and in you” (v. 8, NRSV). We’re under orders to pull people (of course, with the help of the Spirit) out of the dark age and into the loving light of Jesus. For this reason, it says:

Sleeper, awake!
Rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.
Ephesians 5:14, NRSV

< 1 John 2:6 | Looking for the Snowshoes

1 John 2:9-11 | Love Ain’t Blind >

image by jtravism

In Another Land, the final album of Larry Norman’s famed trilogy, has a catchy little track on the CD reissue called Looking for the Footprints. The lyrics are simple: Looking for the footprints of the man who wears the sandals. If you’ve heard it, you’ll remember. If not, buy yourself a copy! That one-line song encompasses the struggle of anyone trying to live 1 John 2:6.

Being a proud Canadian, the idea of sandals doesn’t resonate much. For me, it’s snowshoes. Sure, Jesus allegedly wore sandals more often than snowshoes, but let’s use our imagination here.

I went camping a few winters ago with a couple friends in mid-February. I don’t mean drive-to-a-cabin-with-a-wood-stove camping, either. We left for two nights in the woods with nothing but what fit on our backs. We hit the trail in perfect conditions. The temperature was just below freezing, and the sky was overcast. (The last thing you want when winter camping is too much heat—it makes you sweat, which makes you damp, which makes you cold.)

As we started walking, the snow started falling. With each hour that passed, the trail got thicker and thicker with white powder. By the time we made camp, there was 8 inches of fresh snow on the trail.

That trip taught me the joy of being second or third in line. The first person in line had to break through fresh snow with every step. After a half hour, that person’s legs felt like jelly and we swapped positions so a fresh pair of legs could break.

What a great metaphor for following Jesus, the pioneer [read: trailblazer] and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2, NRSV).

. . .

Walking in his footsteps is a more inclusive way of repeating what John said three times already in this paragraph (vv. 3-6): obey his commandments/word. But this walking just as he walked is no mere synonym—it is far deeper, as metaphors always are.

Metaphors always speak louder than propositions. You can keep the commandments while having nothing close to a relationship with God—but you can’t walk that way. (Let me offer my sincere apologies to anyone who now has a certain Aerosmith song running through their head.) Stott sums this up well:

We cannot claim to live in him unless we behave like him.

To put it in Canadian terms, we can’t claim to be part of a fellowship of campers if we’re always breaking away and making our own divergent trails through the snow.

. . .

There’s an important word in the beginning of this verse that I haven’t spoke of yet. When you look at frequency charts of how the word is used, you’ll see what an important concept it is for John. The word is menō, which is often translated abide.

This is what we have full right to claim when we follow Jesus’ tracks: we actually live in Christ, to use Paul’s common expression. I think of the time when Paul quoted the Greek poets in Athens:

In him we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17:28, NRSV)

This word is used 24 times in 1 John alone, so we’ll have many more opportunities to consider its meaning. For now, just consider our privilege: we can claim to exist in Christ. In the lyrics of Marie Barnett, This is the air I breathe . . .

And that all-encompassing life-in-Christ is proven—demonstrated—when we follow his tracks.

< 1 John 2:3-5 | Blessed Assurance

1 John 2:7-8 | Everything Old is New >