Virtual Vestry ~ The Letters of John

John's writing has been about loving one another in 1 John and 2 John. He uses practical examples to show what he means by loving one another. And he is quite clear that those who don't show love are not in the truth and do not know God.

In 3 John, the apostle continues his exposition on love, again giving clear examples of what it is and what it is not. More specifically, he outlines hospitality as an expression of love. John wishes to encourage Gaius, who was possibly a travelling partner of Paul's in the past. John outlines his conflict with Diotrophes, who excludes those who welcome the Apostles and travelling believers (and possibly Gaius too) and then points to Demetrius as being of good character.

John's third letter could also be seen to highlight the opposing actions of love and control as represented by Demetrius and Diotrophes. This letter highlights the differences between the two types of Christians.

I read that some Christians use verse 2 as a proof text to support prosperity gospel teachings.

• What are your thoughts on this idea? Feel free to make any comments you like about proof texting as well.

John states that it gives him joy to know that Gaius is walking in the truth and that there are good reports about him.

• Is this a way of knowing true Christianity, i.e. how others talk about your Christianity?
• How do we find people talking about Christians today?

John commends Gaius here on his hospitality and encourages Gaius by praising him for that hospitality and encouraging Gaius to continue.

• Do you think Gaius might have needed this encouragement. Why?

• Discuss.

In this section, we see that there is a conflict within the church. John points directly to Diotrophes as being unwelcoming. He appears to have taken control by spreading lies about John and other believers and excluding those who welcome them.

• Where do you think Diotrophes is coming from and what are his possible aims?
• Where do you think John is coming from and what are his aims?
• Do we see any parallels in modern day churches?

After John's comments about Diotrophes regarding his lying and inhospitable actions, John talks about not imitating evil ways and those who walk in evil ways. John plainly states that those who do good are from God and those who do evil do not know God.

• Discuss.

• Discuss.

• How do we deal with the murky issues of who is telling the truth and who is not?

John is eager to speak to Gaius face-to-face, but it seems a letter was needed to help the situation before John could get there.

• Discuss what you think is the overall situation here, how John deals with it and any current applications.

• PDF of these notes

A Letter to a Lady

Most of us in VV rarely, or never, get to see each other in person. We are uniquely able to understand the yearning for and value of the ways we can be with each other when miles and hours and continents separate us. I think it can help us understand both John and the person/people for whom he wrote this letter.

As usual, I'll start with some word definitions or cultural descriptions.

Lady - In Greek kuria: most often used to denote a woman of authority or leadership. "Scholars" have discussions about the possible options – because forbid that a definition could be simple.

1. A female person who was well known and respected, possibly even a colleague of John.
2. A metaphorical representation of the church.
3. A particular congregation labeled so to possibly protect them from Q

Children – In Greek tekna. It can mean a daughter, son, or even a young animal. In the New Testament is it often used to connote God's children or the spiritual children of the Christian community.

Elder – In Greek presbuteros. In the New Testament it can refer to leaders within the church or those who are older or senior.

God – In Greek Theos – The one true God.

Jesus – The Greek – Yahweh Saves. As a reminder that I am sure you don't need. Yahweh is the covenant iteration of God who has made the astonishingly deep commitment to individuals and groups.

Christ – messiah in Hebrew and anointed one in Greek. It might be helpful to remember that in the Hebrew ceremonies people were anointed for specific purposes and almost always with blood and oil.

From the Introduction:

1. Why do you think the author started with that first sentence? It's packed.
2. What does the introduction say about the author's feelings about the community to whom it was written?
3. Why do you think grace, mercy, and peace were the gifts he described?
4. What is the message you think John wants to share when he uses the title God the Father?
5. What do you think is the message the author wants to share when he uses the title Yahweh Saves the one Anointed for the Task?
6. Why use the phrase in truth and in love?

From the Warnings and/or Directions:

1. Why would he start with the command to love one another?
2. Why would he mention that it was from the beginning?

I am going to read to you a section from 1 Corinthians 13 (The native American Bible) at this point.

3. Why would these qualities be particularly important at the time of this writing?
4. What do you think the focus on love has to do with accepting Jahweh Saves is the Messiah as coming in the flesh?

Note: The Greek prefix ante means to be stand in front of... in this case to put ones self before in importance; which as I think about it is important to realize the anti Christ can be anyone/ any of us who puts themselves before the love of God.

5. How do you think vs. 8 might be connected to Revelation 2:1-7?
6. In verse 9, the word remain (Menos) is usually used to mean reside. How does that definition affect how you read the text?
7. In verse 8, what do you think is the full reward?
8. In verse 9, what do you think it means to receive the Father and the Son?
9. In verses 10 and 11 what do you think it meant to receive someone into your house? The word is the same as in vs. 9. It's quite the parallel.

From the Conclusion

1. What do you think are the benefits of being able to speak face to face?
2. Why would that make his joy complete?
3. What about this letter touched you most or was important to you?

As always, I wish for you unexpected gentle blessings. See you soon.

Catherine

• PDF of these notes
• Audio recording of class discussion (password protected)

Summer is on us and too many people are travelling and can't be with us. So, we're cancelling VV for this week...

Last Words

If we had a little more room on a scroll to find words that touch the hearts of and inspire courage for a community we loved, I wonder what they would be? This is John's effort.

You all know that names inform how I read and think. Here are some definitions:

• Jesus (Hebrew: Joshua) - "God is Salvation" or "Lord is Salvation".
• Christ - The anointed One.
• God – in the Greek, Theos. All things are from them and will be unto them.

1. Micah 6:8
2. Isaiah 58:6-10
3. Amos 5:24
4. Deuteronomy 15:11
5. Exodus 20:9-10

Sin is the willingness to cause harm in order to get what you want.
Michael Messervy

Questions

1. Why do you think John is using the analogy of God as Father?
2. If you think of Jesus as being invitro "fathered" by one of the other members of the Godhead and we by faith can be "fathered" because he is fathered. How does that analogy influence how we think about the effects of our relationships to Jesus and to God the Father.
3. What is it about faith that makes it such a power?
4. Most of us know that birth is very messy; lots of "blood and water". Why do you think John would use this analogy for a spiritual journey?
5. What are the lessons in this particular trinity: water/blood/spirit that would be particularly important in the context of the Hellenic world?
6. What's the difference between sharing a testimony/or accepting a testimony that is different from what we may have learned from Adventism or other evangelical communities?
7. What are the similarities and differences between 1 John 5:18 and Zachariah 3:1-7?
8. Why do you think it was important to John that his readers (hearers) accept Jesus as the incarnation of God?
9. I have no idea what John means by a sin that does not lead to death unless he is talking about the concept of when we ignore or turn way the promptings of the Holy Spirit... because it is the Spirit that will help us hone our journey of love. What are your thoughts?
10. What for you has been the most interesting or valuable or comforting part of 1 John?

As always, I wish for you unexpected gentle blessings.

Catherine

• PDF of these notes
• Audio recording of class discussion (password protected)

This chapter is effectively a continuation of the theme projected by chapter 3 - in fact by the whole of 1 John.

However, there are two specific issues that I want us to deal with from chapter 2 before venturing onto chapter 4.

1. Chap 2:17 - "but those who do the will of God live forever".
   • Do we do the will of God to live forever?
2. Chap 2:18 - "Children, it is the last hour! As you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. From this we know that it is the last hour".
   • Was the writer expecting the return of Christ at the time of writing?
3. Chap 4:1 - "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God".
   • How do we do that?
4. Chap 4:6 - "We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us, and whoever is not from God does not listen to us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error."
   • Does this verse give succour to some fundamentalists?
5. Chap 4:12 - "No one has ever seen God".
   • Does Christ not count?
   • Explain!
6. Chap 4:17 - "Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world".
   • Can you explain this verse to me please?
7. Chap 4:18-21 - It may help to read these verses several times. It appears to challenge the notion that by following a series of codified rules you please God.
   • Is the term 'love their brothers and sisters' only referring to those in our religious community?
   • Are there people I can legitimately not love?

• PDF of these notes
• Audio recording of class discussion (password protected)

I try to imagine the world for Christians when John wrote this letter, so I went on a bit of a Google hunt and did a quick summary:

• It is thought that the letters of John were written about AD 90.
• Jerusalem had fallen in AD 70, burned to the ground by the Romans and many Jews had been killed or sold into slavery.
• Jewish Zealots in Masada held out for three years but in AD 73, rather be taken by the Romans, they had committed suicide.
• Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD.
• In AD 80 the Colosseum was completed and used until 404 AD.
• In AD 87 Emperor Domitian demanded that he be worshipped as Lord and God. Christians refused to do this. In AD 89, Domitian began a reign of terror against Christians, with John being exiled to Patmos being part of this.
• Domitian was assassinated in 96 AD. There was relative peace in the Roman empire for a while after this.
• Around AD 90, Gnosticism arose. The Complete Book of When and Where states:

  "Gnostics", as they came to be known, taught a form of dualism in which spirit is good and material is evil. As a result, Gnostics denied Jesus' humanity. Their understanding of the material world caused them to become either extreme ascetics in order to avoid corruption by matter or extreme hedonists who thought that what happens in the physical world is irrelevant. Some of the later New Testament books - Colossians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, 2 Peter, and 1, 2, and 3 John - combat the earliest forms of Gnosticism.

John states that we are the children of God and that, although it has not yet been revealed, we shall be like Jesus and that we will see Jesus as he is.

• What does this mean to you?

Verse 3 talks about purifying ourselves just as Jesus is pure. Given the purity culture that pervades much of Christianity today, and the Gnosticism that existed in John's day:

• What should we make of this statement by John?

John talks about sin and lawlessness and righteousness. There are no grey areas here. Sin and lawlessness are of the devil and righteousness is of God. Jesus has come to destroy sin.

In verse 9 John says that those who have been born of God will not continue to sin because God's seed lives in them. This has not really been my experience, at least I don't see myself as being without sin. Is this talking about sinlessness or might this verse be addressing something else?

• Discuss

In verse 10 John says that we can know the difference between the children of God and those who are not by their actions, whether they do what is right and/or love their fellow believers/human beings. I find that people tend to have different views on what is right and wrong. On the other hand, hating our fellow believers and/or fellow human beings seems to me to be more concrete. Here again John presents a simple dichotomy to get his message across, love and life versus hatred and death/murder. Those who love are of God, and eternal life, and those who hate their brother/sister are still in death, a murderer, and don't have eternal life.

• Do you think it's that simple?
• What has been your experience with hatred in the church and/or outside the church?

In verse 16, John says Jesus showed us what love is by laying down his life for us. John uses the example of showing love by giving to those in need to reiterate that as Christians we need to love each other. He then goes on to link the idea of being in the truth with helping others (verse 18-19).

• Why does John include truth here, ie in action and in truth (verse 18)?
• How does this compare with what we have often been taught about 'truth'?

John is linking a lot of different concepts together in the remainder of this chapter. Verses 20 and 21 talk about feelings of guilt or our hearts condemning us. John says that God knows about it anyway. He introduces the concept that if we keep God's commandments, we can be bold before God, assured that we will receive what we ask for. However, John says that by believing in Jesus and loving one another (ie love God and love our fellow humans), we are keeping God's commandments.

• Is this what we have traditionally thought of as keeping God's commands?

Finally, in verses 23 and 24, John seems to say that the Holy Spirit dwelling in us as proof that we are keeping God's commands, ie loving one another is proof of the Spirit dwelling in us.

• Discuss

• PDF of these notes
• Audio recording of class discussion (password protected)

Steve led us in a stimulating discussion last Sabbath on both an introduction to 1 John and an exchange on chapter 1. One of the themes in 1 John that was identified was that of fellowship.

One commentator suggests that there are five major points in 1 John 2 supporting the concept of 'Fellowship':

1. Fellowship includes following Christ as our advocate. (1 John 2:1-6)
2. Fellowship includes love for one another. (1 John 2:7-14)
3. Fellowship fails if we love the world. (1 John 2:15-17)
4. Fellowship fails if we follow teachings that subvert the notion that Jesus is the Messiah. (1 John 2:18-27)
5. Fellowship includes 'abiding in Him'. (1 John 2:28-29)

1. There is a huge amount in this chapter, and I guess verses 1-6 could keep us engaged for the whole session. However, we have to be selective.
   • Explain why Christ needs to be our advocate?
   • Why does Christ have to be an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world?
   • "Be sure that we know Him, if we obey His commandments". Can we have a relationship with Christ without obeying His commandments?
   • "Whoever obeys His word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection". Explain?
2. • "I am writing you a new commandment that is true in Him and in you". Do verses 9-11 clarify what John is getting at?
   • Can you have a relationship with Christ if you don't love those in your community?
3. I think this is a key passage that provokes us to declare our priorities in our Christian lives.
   • "The love of the Father is not in those who love the world". Please explain?
   • "Those who do the will of God live forever". Is that the reason you do the will of God?
4. I may disappoint some by declaring that I have problems believing the Pope is the antichrist. Some explanation is required in parts of verses 18-27.
   • This passage gives a clear definition of the antichrist. "This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son". So, the huge majority of the world's population are antichrists or is it 'believers' who have given up on the divinity of Jesus, or some other group?
   • "Many antichrists have come. From this we know it is the last hour". Over the past 2000 years I suspect there have always been antichrists as defined in this passage. So, have there always been "last hours"? Please explain?
5. "And now little children, abide in Him".
   "You can be sure that everyone who does right has been born of Him"
   What do you think these two statements mean?

• PDF of these notes
• Audio recording of class discussion (password protected)

Starters

This study, if you are part of the regular VV group that meets on a Saturday morning, follows on from 55 weeks of working our way through the Books of Samuel.

So, on Tuesday this week I opened up my Bible app and read 1 John 1. The first thing that struck me was this is different!. We've moved from the blood and guts and murder and mayhem, and more blood and guts (did I mention the murdering?), to something completely different.

• Pause to take consider this. What's your immediate reaction to reading 1 John 1 after reading Samuel?
• Consider yourself to be a visiting alien with no knowledge whatsoever of the Christian God. With no reference to any other Biblical writings...
  • describe the God of Samuel,
  • describe the God of 1 John.

Main Course

One of the delights of living where I do is that the University of St Andrews is but a short drive away. And the good folks of UoStA keep an excellent library, where, for 20 quid a year, anyone can join and take out books. As you might expect of UoStA the theology section of the library is comprehensive.

I took myself to the library on Tuesday and took off the shelves about a dozen books with titles akin to 'The Letters of John'. Some were slim volumes of 60 pages, other ran to epic tomes of 500+ pages.

A quick scan of the index pages, and the contents and introduction of each volume led me to my first conclusion. There's a lot of theology in the letters of John. A lot.

One of the epic tomes had an introductory chapter full of diagrams, which reminded me of Richard Feynman's pictorial representations of the mathematical expressions describing the behaviour and interaction of subatomic particles.

The theology of 1 John, or maybe it's a Feynman diagram...

Read 1 John 1 again.

• Make a list of the important theological points made in the text, both theoretical and practical.

The Text: Introduction

We start with no preamble, no "Hello, my name is John". No "Greetings to my friends in Ephesus". Nothing. Just straight into the big story. John is in a hurry and needs to get on with it.

• v1a: "We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning..."
  The 'one' is nameless. The important attribute is that this 'one' has been around for ever.
• v1b: "...whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands."
  We have heard and seen this 'one'. We were there. It is real - I have seen it with my own eyes.
• v1c: "He is the Word of life."
  A hint of an explanation - the 'Word' is capitalised (at least in the English translation!). Who can he mean?
• v2: "This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us."
  Again, we have seen him. This one is eternal life. What does that mean? He was "revealed" to us, after being with the Father.
• v3: "We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ."
  More emphasis on the personal: "we ourselves", "our fellowship".
  More emphasis on the senses: "seen and heard".
  And, finally, the identification of the One...
• v4: "We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy"
  Why is he telling us this? Because he wants you to share the joy!

This is quite an introduction. Buckets of sheer joy in what he has to tell us. Strong emphasis on the personal. This isn't academic theology. This is a thing that happened to me.

Discussion

• Why do you think John starts off like this? Why doesn't he start with some history, or some attempt to justify the stories told about Jesus?
• Does the emphasis on the "personal" distance us, the modern reader, from the text? We, in 2025, don't have the option to go and meet Jesus in the flesh. Is John recounting a magnificent experience that was uniquely his?
• If the experience that John claims is possible (he wants us to share the experience, to "share our joy") then how do we do that? How do we, in 2025, replicate his "joy"?
• Join Catherine and put on your mystic hat: is it important to replicate this feeling? Or would we be better served having a discussion on, say, the State of the Dead, or things we are not allowed to do on Sabbath? Why/why not!?

Living in the Light

Verses 5-7 declare God to be "light". Not that God provides light, but that God actually is light. It is interesting how John describes the differences:

spiritual darkness = not practicing the truth

living in the light = we have fellowship with each other

Why do you think John chose those words? Particularly the second comparison?

Almost as an afterthought, John then adds "and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin".

• Why is this more complex theological argument added at the end of this section?

A warning?

Verse 8 is very blunt. If you claim you have no sin then you are a liar. Given the bluntness of this statement how can we explain the (sadly) common Adventist position that we need to live a perfect life, as Christ lived, before Christ will return - the so-called Last Generation Theology argument?

Verse 10 more or less repeats the warning of verse 8. But expresses it in an even worse way - if you claim that you have no sin then God is a liar! Ouch!

Thankfully verse 9 is squeezed in between these two warnings. Yes, you have sin, but if we acknowledge that fact then "he is faithful and just to forgive us".

• What do you make of the word "just" in verse 9?

Phew! We're off to an excellent start. John, in a few short words, expresses much. I look forward to the rest of these letters...

• PDF of these notes
• Audio recording of class discussion (password protected)