Study Guide: 1 John Introduction

Hi, my name is James Rathman.

And I am Zach Seeley.

And this is the Redemption Church Denver podcast.

This is one of our study guide episodes, the first of our study guide episodes, as we are beginning our spring 2026 study of first, second, and third John.

Zach, I'm glad you're joining us.

This is our first time doing this together.

I've managed to avoid it for quite a while.

Which is impressive because you're right next door.

So it doesn't, it's finally happened.

I hunted you down.

You finally found me.

Finally found you.

Exactly.

Actually, there was just no better options.

Yes, that's exactly right.

Other people who I asked first said no.

And you were here.

Yep.

Well, I'm honored and I appreciate the opportunity to take part in this.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by our new member dinner, which is this coming Sunday, February 22nd, from 6 to 7 p.m.

If you are a recent member, if you're not a member yet, but you're interested in becoming a member, if you're in that sort of new to Redemption Church Denver place, then we want to get to know you better and uh uh give a night of of fellowship for with the church and a dinner.

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That is uh this upcoming Friday, or I guess uh from when we're recording a couple Fridays from now, February 27th from 7 to 9 p.m.

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You don't have an option.

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John's John and Blake have been kicking around an idea uh for quite a while that they wanted to run with.

And uh it's the idea that is um men uh we like to look up to and follow the example of other men.

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Yes.

And so what their aim is to curate a list of men who are worth following.

That's right.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, yeah.

The money they could donate is unbelievable.

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It it it furnishes our lavish lifestyles.

Exactly.

Let's go ahead and jump into first, second, and third John.

So uh we'll start off, and uh I want to explain why I wanted to do first John, why I chose First John.

And it's it's basically because I've been obsessed with this idea of love lately.

And I think that I I I I wanted I I think that we are heading into a new future which will require a lot of foundation laying.

And we're heading into uncharted territory where a lot of the things that have gone before have been erased and don't work anymore.

They don't work in the new future that we're heading into.

Yes.

It's all very big and grandiose, these things that I'm saying.

Yes.

Very philosophical, very James.

Yes.

And so as we're heading into that new world, we have to be thinking how can we build things that will last?

What what um makes sense in a new sort of frontier?

Right.

And this is all kind of kind of uh fed by this question that I've had of how what is it that makes any institution last?

What what makes any institution last, be it a family, be it a church, be it a business, a nation, what is it that could make any what is it that makes any of these institutions last?

Yes.

That of course has been prodded by basically like a uh five to whatever year stretch of seeing the um collapse of s of some of the most fundamental institutions um in our i in the world.

Right.

And and uh and in looking forward into this new vast new landscape.

Yes.

Um one fundamental difference, because like we would have probably, you know, if we were in our late 30s in 1995, we probably could have said the same thing.

Yeah.

But we would have been implying that this this new world is so great that what came before us isn't that important now because we know so much.

But as we're looking forward into this new world now, what we've come to learn is the destruction of those institutions took place because they forgot who they were.

They forgot where their roots came from, they forgot that um that they were just people.

Right.

I like these institutions.

Right.

I I want them to last.

Right.

And uh basically what I uh what I've thought, what I've come to, this is hard gonna hardly gonna sound like an insight.

The thing that makes institutions last is love.

Love is the thing that makes those institutions last.

It's love for the people that have come before, which is an honoring of your mother and father, it's a love for the people that are with you now, and it's a love for posterity, it's love for the future that this will be handed down to.

And if it's not uh governed by by that love, by the love of God and and then the love of people, then it will become um chaotic and foolish and strange.

And we see a world that's chaotic and foolish and strange right now, and uh that's because it's not governed by love.

I know that sounds naive and Pollyanish and all those things, but I I think that it's not.

I think it's like the most fundamental claim of what constitutes reality.

And this book is a uh this book drives drives that home in really meaningful ways.

And so I wanted to I wanted to take the time for our church to uh understand what love is, what Christian love looks like, how it is different from the way that our culture equivocates with the word love, because our culture is obsessed with the word love, which is what makes me nervous about even using it.

But I want to use it because it's ours, first of all, it's not theirs.

Because God is love.

Yes.

Love is not love.

God is love.

And we have a sense of what it what it is.

Exactly.

What what love actually is, and not the foolish equivocation which is just like um like the thing out there that seems like it will satisfy my desire best right now.

Aaron Powell Right.

The thing that'll make me feel the best is love.

Right.

And that's silly and strange and and ultimately like uh it's a death project.

Yes.

It it destroys you.

Yes.

So uh th those are perennial issues, uh, but they seem prescient right now in a in a uh they seem prescient right now, and so so I hope that we can gain that knowledge together as a church through the through the scriptures, like here's what love is.

Kind of with the same hope of John.

Like when John's writing this letter, there's loads of encouragement.

There's uh to the churches that he's writing to, there's a explanation, there's a c there's uh exhortation towards obedience, there's a uh encouragement of how they can gain assurance of salvation, so that they can they can know that they abide in God, they can know that they'll have eternal life.

Yep.

And there's also this defense that he's playing where he's like, look out for these deceivers that are coming in so that you are not taken advantage of by them and that you do not fall into um their uh strange ways of understanding who Christ is, which is meant to neuter the whole project.

And that feels just where our church is.

It's like uh we want to grow in obedience, we want to look at who um uh the truth of who Christ is, what he requires of us, have assurance in that, abide in that, know it, and uh then we will not be taken advantage of by the people that are constantly trying to deceive the church in um uh what what love in particular is.

Yeah, and and throughout the book, John explicitly ties together a proper understanding of who Jesus is, that he's God in flesh, to your ability to love.

Yes.

Um so a right understanding of God, who is love, is the only way that we can, as humans, properly love.

We receive from him the ability to love.

Yeah, it is it that's it's a super important point that there's a receiving first, then you can do it.

Yes, if we love because he first loved us, he explains.

And so if you don't receive the love of God first, you're going to have a distorted love.

Exactly.

Which is an impression.

It's a it's an impression of love.

Yeah, it's a shadow of it.

Yeah.

Um but ultimately when you look out and and like you said, love is as a term is thrown out so callously and so flippantly, um, because it's often just detached from its source.

Yep.

Which means it it can't it can't possibly be true love.

Exactly.

Unless the source is present and uh uh guiding resourcing you with it.

What are the um so this this is an introduction, so we should do introduction things.

Uh who wrote first, second, and third John, Zach?

John the Apostle.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, seems about right.

Yeah.

Some people say no, he didn't, but those are the same people that say nobody did anything, and so we don't listen to those people.

Don't care what they think.

Yeah, yeah.

There's different theories.

Yeah.

I read about them, but I didn't read them.

Yeah.

So we won't go into them.

Uh, what's special about John?

As a as a person?

Yeah.

Uh he was beloved by Christ.

Yeah.

He was an elder of the church.

Um, and he wrote these letters.

Yep.

What else did he write?

Like you mean the Gospel of John?

That's a good example.

What else did he write?

Revelation.

Yeah.

That's right.

John the Revelator, some people call him, which is JTR, which is my initials.

I don't want to do this podcast ever again if you're gonna just start quizzing me on air.

This is the only reason I asked you to do this.

What if I fail?

Then everyone will know.

You don't want to play high-stakes games.

One thing that I do love about John, and you get this sense when you read through his gospel, you get this sense of really a lot when you read first John in particular, is uh he's not a linear thinker, and neither am I.

And so, like, I I really enjoy reading him.

Um like uh he's very circular in his reasoning, um almost like a song where he he hits on an idea in one paragraph and then he's on another idea in the next paragraph, like he's transitioning from like a verse to a chorus.

But then he'll jump back to the original idea when he gets to verse two, like the second verse of the song.

So it's like the the ideas in this uh in this book can feel um disparate or wandery, um, but the structure uh is actually more symphonic than it is linear, it's circular.

If you were to offer counsel to a church of folks who just did a Bible study on, let's say, Romans, yeah.

And they're used to mapping out uh like a tight linear argument and they jump into John, first John, and they're like, okay, I'll do that again.

Don't do that.

Yeah, it won't work.

You're gonna be really frustrated.

Um you even try and outline the book.

Yeah.

It's like, oh man.

Yeah.

Where am I?

It's it's irritating.

It's like listening to me explain an idea to you.

It can just become irritating.

No, it's not.

Take it paragraph by paragraph.

Yeah.

And then when you see similar themes um in two separate paragraphs, link them together in your head.

Think like a conspiracy theorist with all the pictures on the wall.

Yeah.

And then connect the pictures with your red thread.

And you're probably gonna understand first John better than if you were to try to approach it like you would a Pauline epistle.

There's a there's a the the gospel's type of thing that can be described like a linear schematic, a systematic theology is possible.

We have those.

We have those.

Romans is one, it's like a systematic theology.

And it's also the type of thing that is an organic process.

It's an organic system.

You can draw the Z scheme of photosynthesis.

You can, Zach.

I was thinking that right before you said it.

You you can draw it.

Yeah, thank you.

And but that schematic isn't is not the system itself.

Like when you look at the system itself, it's all all these things are happening simultaneously and perpetually, you know, sort of sort of thing.

Right.

And so that's that's the way that he is teaching us to understand the gospel.

And we can uh we can see that in his um uh as you were saying, his repeated refrains, he's coming back to these same themes and then he's linking them in new ways.

You know, he's putting one in front of the other in new ways.

So it's like, if do you uh want to love, well, then you must obey.

Right.

Because the command is love.

Right.

Do you if you want to obey, then you must abide.

How do you know if you're abiding?

Well, you're obeying.

Right.

You know, you you must obey or you must abide in order to obey.

And what is obeying?

It's loving.

He's seeing he's like inhabiting different perspectives on the same event of love or of obedience or of the commandment.

He's saying, see how these are all united.

You can't love without abiding.

Right.

You can't abide without loving.

You can't love without knowing.

You can't know without having been known, without having been loved.

These are so it's like this um uh you catch the you catch the music.

It it it's very it's very practical.

Like if the if uh Romans is like a systematic theology, um what John and systematic theologies, right, are like they're easy to kind of get lost in, and just sort of like you segment your mind into like this like knowledge, um, and you're just exploring like learning and being scholarly.

Romans is really easy to read like that.

Um first John is is not, um, but it kind of gets at one of the things that John is combating in Ephesus, which is the tendency towards docetism.

Yes.

Because he's tying uh the truth of Christ and who he is to the physical way that this manifests itself in your life.

Aaron Ross Powell What's uh what's uh docitism?

Could you explain that?

Some of our listeners, friends of the show, might not know what docetism means.

Yeah.

So docetism would be the tendency of separating the spiritual and the physical.

Yeah, in Christ.

It's it's saying that Jesus is the incarnate Christ, he merely appeared to be in the flesh.

Right.

Docitism means appearing, but he wasn't actually in the flesh.

Yes.

He appeared to be in the flesh.

So the the uh was uh what they don't want to say fundamentally is that Jesus of Nazareth, the man, is the Christ.

They will say the Christ, the Messiah, is the Son of God and they would say Christ is uh uh present, but he's spiritually present.

He's not he's he's not fully man.

So that fully man that you thought you saw in Christ, it couldn't have been fully man if he is the Christ.

Yeah, he would never humble himself into this fleshly to the point of taking on flesh.

Exactly.

Yeah, so so that he's they would say that he's fully God, he is the Son of God, but he's not fully man.

And it's a way of disembodying the faith, it's a way of viewing Christianity as an escape hatch from physical reality.

Right.

It's a way of locating sinfulness within creation rather within rather than an ethical breakdown within the uh relationship between God and man and the commands of God.

Uh they locate sin as within physical reality.

And so they become ascetics, retreats from they retreat from physical reality, uh, and create all kinds of strange um uh tendencies within within their faith that become uh Christianity becomes something that you could basically practice alone in a closed room, meditating, seeking to escape from or deny the physical aspects of the world.

So John obviously doesn't see Christianity like that because he's like, if you don't love the brotherhood, then you're not in Christ.

Yeah, you don't love God.

You don't love God.

Uh so let's look through some of the words that this study gives us.

This first lesson in the study, by the way, just so you hear it said, is the longest, it's the most challenging.

It has you reading the most content, it takes a very long time.

Um so uh don't feel too spooked by that in the first place.

And always remember the study guides are here for you.

You are not here for the study guides.

The purpose of the study guides is to help you access the truths of scripture more uh completely.

Um, but the point is fellowship with God in his word and with one another.

So don't uh um that's for the type A's.

For those that didn't read 1 John five times.

Yeah, exactly.

Um let's look at some of the words that the study guide gives us to capture the themes of 1 John.

It gives us the words sin and no.

Sin and know throughout the book, we see that as they have this sort of relationship where sin is related to darkness, knowledge is related to light, and so this is not a this is not often the way that we think about sin.

We don't think about knowledge of God as flowing from obedience to God.

We don't think of knowledge of God as an ethical category.

But the way that this book teaches us to see it is that in in order to know God, you must obey Him.

And to not know God is to be in sin.

Sin darkens your mind, it darkens your heart, you wander around in darkness so that you cannot know God.

So we'd think like we we know things, and then you know, if you know better, you do better.

It's saying the opposite.

If you do better, or the inverse, whatever.

If you do better, you know better.

It's not saying if you if you know worse, you do worse.

It's not that would be the opposite.

But it's saying the inverse.

Like if you uh the the more you obey God, the more that you love him, which is obedience to him, then the more he reveals himself to you.

Right.

You're in the light so that you know him.

So we're we think of knowledge as like a dispassionate thing.

It's something that doesn't require that like there can be uh brilliant people with terrible character.

And this is saying that, well, for the knowledge that matters most, which is the knowledge of God, there's no such thing as that.

There is not a brilliant person.

When it comes to the knowledge of God with a terrible character because they don't really know him.

They're walking around in darkness.

So knowledge is an ethical category.

Yes.

I want to do as establish that.

Yeah.

Knowledge is an ethical category.

So what do you make of a um of a pastor who is living in sin secretly?

There is it will always uh corrupt his teaching.

And it it always corrupts the whole church.

There's there's not a it can't be separated.

It can't be separated.

Like this is something that we do with our whole person to uh seek to know God.

It can't be separated.

That's why the churches are so damaged when the sin is revealed.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

And they and they they already were.

You know, they they already were.

So uh yeah, it's uh um it's a deeply important thing and a partly terrifying thing.

Uh but the that's laid out for us clearly in this.

Uh the the other uh words that it uh calls us to that the study calls us to underline are love and abide.

What do you think about those?

I'm for them.

Same.

Love and abide for or against.

Um uh in uh in my study Bible, it mentioned um uh two things, uh obedient living and fervent devotion, which I sort of saw as connected to these ideas of loving and abiding.

Um uh in that uh I'm in a real hitch in my brain right now for some reason.

Well, I think let me let me try and let me try something.

Please.

Loving, uh abiding for me is a tough one to pin down.

I feel like I have a sense of love.

I feel like abiding is a tough one for me to pin down.

So it's helpful a lot of times when I can't pin something down, it's like, okay, let me try and think of the opposite.

The opposite of abiding, like dwelling, having a place to dwell, would be something like homelessness or exile.

And that's when you're in exile, there's no familiarity, there's no, there's no sense of uh you can't settle down because you're in dangerous territory.

Uh, but abiding, when you abide in the Lord, when you abide in in his love, then you you know the land, you know the customs, you speak the language, you know the culture, you can navigate it.

It's possible to be lived in.

But uh in a uh homeless situation, that means that all of your all of the spaces that you inhabit are not places that you can really live in.

They're not places that that can promote your life.

You know, if you can you can live uh in a park, but you will die more quickly because the park is not supporting your living.

But if you have a home, if there's a place that you can live in in a home, then it supports your it supports your life in flourishing.

It supports your own life and it supports your multiplication.

So that's what our when we love God, then we're abiding in Him, and He is providing that home, which has structure and boundaries and walls and uh rooms for particular purposes.

It it uh in chapter four, it talks about there's no fear.

Great example.

In love.

Um, and those boundaries that are provided by a house, the the way that we inhabit that space um uh helps to cast out fear in a way that is impossible in the park.

Right.

Right.

So uh loving God is keeping his commandments, abiding in him is keeping his commandments.

And it that makes perfect sense when you think of it.

It's like, yeah, of course, there's a boundary here.

There's uh there's modes of being that are supported and promoted that work for me.

Right.

You know, that actually promote what it is to be a thing like me.

And the love of God is most fundamental to that.

I think if you were to like ask an like ordinary, like when I'm sitting in mob coffee on Tennyson and I turn to the Denver bro that's sitting next to me, like, what you know, what supports your life in flourishing?

They would tell me like Huberman lab stuff.

That's the these like techniques of living that are like, you know, I I eat this many grams of protein for my goal body weight.

I take creatine, I get morning sunlight.

I eliminate my seed oils.

I eliminate my seed oils.

Very important for inflammation.

Important for inflammation.

I'm I um, you know, it would be technique.

It'd be technique that supports life and flourishing.

And that is a um in some ways But there's some i those aren't bad.

That's not bad.

And in I mean, in some ways the techniques make sense, right?

Like the psalmist talks about abiding uh abiding in God by following his laws.

Like he takes delight in God's laws.

So there's like this sense where we can sniff out um just just by feeling our way around the world, that there are certain ways of being that are better than other ways of being.

Right.

Um the man that jumps off of roofs to the sidewalk below breaks his ankles.

Right.

So we don't do that.

Right.

Um but we know that like you know, eating a salad is going to leave us feeling better than eating three dozen wings.

Right.

Right, better later.

Later.

Yeah.

Um but there's uh and so those things are real, and this is like now there's something beneath all of that.

Exactly.

There's the thing that's actually beneath all of that is obedience to the commands of God.

Right.

Which are laden into the world.

Right.

But those are those are um so if you if you can you can stack up all that technique as much as you'd like, if it's not grounded in obedience to the to the ways of God, then it's uh uh it's it's not going to actually connect.

Yeah, it won't actually promote life and flourishing.

And those ways we just can't live on bread alone, you know.

Right.

Uh yeah.

And those ways are extrapolated in scripture.

And John is giving us the fundamentals of those ways.

He is.

He is.

Truly the fundamentals of them.

What they're grounded in.

Just obedience and love of God.

Another thing that he talks about, sets a bit unabiding and loving.

Another thing that he talks about uh throughout this, and I think that's one of the central themes, is he wants his people, he wants the readers of this to know that they have eternal life.

And to know how they can know that they have eternal life.

In chapter five, he says, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we asked of him.

So he writes these things so that we may know that we have eternal life.

And well, I think one of the things that folks will wrestle with in this um uh in this book is is there'll be sort of a wrestling of assurance of salvation.

Because he'll say things like, uh, if you're in if you if you're in God, there you don't sin because the seed of God has been born in you and and you you can't sin because you've been born of God.

Right.

And it's like, well, well, but I but I do sin, so what do I do with that?

But also we he says things like at the beginning of chapter two, my little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

Likewise, it's in chapter one, he says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

So he must not be talking about sinlessness, but he is talking about lifestyle patterns of sin.

Yes.

That when we inhabit lifestyle patterns that are contrary to loving the brothers, believing sound doctrine about Christ, when we inhabit those that we cannot say that we are in Christ.

We can't say that we're in Christ.

Where does he go on in here and talk about uh the sins that lead to death and the sin that does not lead to death?

Uh in chapter five.

I don't really have a handle on that yet.

That's one of the questions that I have going into this, is I'd like to get a handle on what he's talking about there.

Okay.

I don't think I totally do.

If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask.

God will give him life to those who commit sins that do not lead to death.

There is sin that leads to death.

I do not say that one should pray for that.

All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.

I w I want a better handle on on what he means there.

So the underline it, I hope to there seems to be a lot of like imp he's implying a lot.

Yeah.

Like a sin that does not lead to death seems to be the type of sin that can be repented of and that God would grant forgiveness for.

Right.

Um the sin that leads to death seems to map on to his earlier ideas of uh unrepentant sin, habitual sin.

Like in chapter one.

Like in chapter one, unwillingness to change from sin, um, which is evidence of lack of repentance.

Which he establishes would then be evidence of uh a person not having Christ.

Probably the way to interpret chapter five is chapter one.

Yeah.

That's um but we'll we'll get to do that work together in Bible studies.

Enjoy that in your study.

Last very salient thing that will probably jump off the page in 1 John that we should probably hit on in the introduction is Antichrist.

That's a good term.

Yeah, the Antichrist.

Um so Antichrists show up, it's um uh and it's it's described to us uh in chapter two, it says, Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard, that Antichrist is coming.

So now many Antichrists have come.

Therefore we know that it is the last hour.

They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

And he describes this uh spirit of the Antichrist, who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ.

That is the Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.

No one who denies the Son has the Father, whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.

Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you.

So there's uh he introduces this Antichrist idea that's just somebody who opposes Christ, opposes the teachings of Christ.

These are ever present.

He says that Antichrist is coming, and there are many antichrists who have come.

It seems that it makes sense that when there is a spirit like that, a spirit of the Antichrist, that it manifests in uh sort of like a spirit of the age that takes over in the particular ways that the spirit of our age stands against the true proclamation of Christ.

And he he wants his church to be protected from those things, to not be taken advantage of or deceived by those.

To have their eyes out for it.

Yes.

Like, hey, these things are going to exist.

Yes.

They're going to exist and they're going to exist among you.

Yes.

And you're going to need to learn to sniff them out.

And often those things uh manifest in one person.

There will be a because that's the way all ideas are.

Yep.

They manifest into persons.

That's why they matter.

You know, like like heresies don't just come in floating in on the airwaves into the church, they come in in persons.

That's why Paul is always uh uh writing out people's names.

John will do the same thing.

It's it's not just like this idea came into the church, or John later he'll be like, in 3 John, he's not like, oh, we've got this problem of our apostolic authority being received.

Gaius, he's he says diatrophies is the problem.

He's not receiving our apostolic authority.

That he's the problem.

He needs to be stood against.

That's the way it goes.

And and we would be right to read that as sort of an offense to our modern sensibility.

You know, like a lot of times.

This is not the way we think about things.

No, and we often avoid the saying of the name.

Right.

Um, in in the spirit of promoting peace.

Right.

When the the these authors don't do that.

No.

If somebody's opposing Christ, then it's a it's a threat enough that it ought to be identified specifically.

Yep.

Within the within the church.

Within the church.

And that that's even like um I feel like that's uh so much of what this is is like this your faith must be manifesting in real love.

You if you don't love the brotherhood, if you don't love the brotherhood of the church, and you aren't seeking to show that love to the brotherhood of the church, how can you say that you love God?

You can't.

Because if you can't love the brotherhood, who by the way you can see, you can look at them, there's no way you love God who you can't see.

Right.

And the ways that you love the brotherhood is you you call out sin in each other when you see it.

You make known the Antichrists, the the things that will kill the spirit of the brotherhood.

Yes.

Uh, you know, the the threats to the church itself have to be dealt with directly.

Um uh and and the overarching theme there is, and this is where it opposes our modern sensibility, is that this love that John is describing um is often painful.

Yeah.

Um it's not empathetic.

It's sacrificial.

It's sacrificial.

Like um Jesus's.

Right.

So let's uh hit on 2 John and 3rd John.

Okay.

And then we'll wrap up.

So 2 John.

This letter is to the elder.

He's writing the greeting.

The elder to the elect lady and her children.

Who is the elect lady and her children?

It is the church.

It's not a lady.

No, no, it's not a particular lady.

It's how do we know that?

Because it's plural.

And most particular people aren't plural.

It's true.

And uh that is a the the church is the bride.

The church is feminine, like how ships are feminine.

Yep.

There's uh um, and so he's writing to the elect lady and her children, whom I love, and and the children of the elect lady uh greet her.

You know, so he's writing to her and her children, and her children who he's with are greeting her.

You know, that's the the the church is our our mother who nurses us and tends to us, who grows us up into maturity, who from the church's body we receive you receive nourishment and care.

That is that is who we are in the church.

Yeah, in in his greeting, he is reminding them who they are.

Right.

Right they are the bride.

And this letter is like a little tight encapsulation of first John, because he is calling them uh to obey no new commandment, but that same commandment that they had received from the beginning, and he is calling them to resist the many deceivers who have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Christ in the flesh.

He's back to that docetism thing.

Exactly, such as a deceiver and the antichrist, which say that Christ does not come in the flesh.

Now it you can see it how it he's writing in such a different space and such different time, because the denial was not that Jesus was a deity.

The denial was that the deity became flesh.

Right.

In our time, I think the people would be more willing to say the opposite.

Of course, Jesus was the man, but he was not God.

Right.

He was not God.

So we have like an inverted problem in our culture, but it's the the same thing.

If somebody were to come in and say Jesus was uh not truly God, or he is just a good moral teacher, right, then they are of the Antichrist, right, is the way to think of them.

Or if they were to deny the clear moral teachings of Jesus, they or or pit them against one another, then you would see that they are of the Antichrist.

I was watching a video, it like, you know, was going around, my sister was talking to me about him.

Some he's like a congressman or something.

I can't remember his name.

And he was saying how uh the uh church has been obsessed with talking about homosexuality and gender issues when Jesus never talks about these things.

And it has not been talking about greed.

And the person who was interviewing him said, I'm not a Christian.

But as I've read the New Testament, it does fascinate me that uh the church does not that the church talks about homosexuality and the church talks about um gender, gender issues.

And um that it's a very classic move, it's a very classic rhetorical move that is often used against Christians, which is I don't believe this.

Right.

So this argument wouldn't work on me.

Right.

But you say you believe this.

Right.

So this argument should work on you, and you should think the things that I already think, even though I don't believe what you believe.

And I think what you believe is is foolish and you're dumb for believing it.

And then Christians often think, like, oh, you're right, you're right.

I shouldn't.

Jesus never talked about this.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and then they get sucked into this.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Exactly.

But what's happening there is there's this foolish pitting of the clear teachings of scripture um against one another.

Exactly.

So that like one teaching of scripture would invalidate another teaching of scripture.

Right.

And that's a um uh a mechanism of the Antichrist.

When you hear that, you should think this person is of the spirit of the Antichrist, and I uh uh I don't care what they think about the Bible is what you should think.

Right.

They're not of us.

Right.

Yeah, the the whole scripture is uh is breathing.

Jesus is God breathed.

Yes.

Yeah, the whole scripture is referred to as the Word of God, which is ironic because who else is referred to as the Word of God?

Jesus.

So these are the the there are many deceivers, and dis you should think deception.

You know, deception is it's clever and two-faced, and it's people who will say that they are of you and are not.

And so it takes a shrewdness to be able to identify so that you're not taken in and you're not deceived.

Now, how could you know God?

What is it that could resist that sort of deception?

How could you know God?

Well, knowing is an ethical thing.

So the way that we would do that is we would love him, we would obey his commands, we would love one another, then you can know him, and then you'll be able to.

Not be deceived.

See how it's all it's all wrapped together.

It's not there's not knowing over here and loving over there and abiding over there, and you can pick one.

They're all wrapped together.

And you can hear that in the musicality of the way that John talks.

So that's what we see in 2 John.

And that's a you you can kind of see that play out in relationships that you have like with friends or with family.

Particularly the one I'm thinking of is with church.

Um uh you know, it's it we we can often see that like somebody will step into the church because they want to go to church.

But they don't really step in.

Yeah.

You know, they come in, they're guarded for whatever reason.

Uh-huh.

Um, and invariably that person will eventually decide, like, I'm gonna go somewhere else, or I'm just gonna stop going to church or whatever.

Uh-huh.

Um and the reasoning that they give isn't like they don't actually understand what occurred.

What occurred was they never took the time to know.

And so they were never in relationship.

And so leaving was easy because there was nothing to lose.

Um, and there's a similar if you get if you get where I'm going here, like there's a similar sense of knowing God, that as you know him, he shapes you.

And as you know him, he increases your understanding of him.

And as he does that, then your life begins to shift.

And uh when I say church, I don't just mean our church, I mean the church generally.

When somebody steps into a church and begins to know the church, and the church begins to know that person, um, their participation in the church begins to shape their life in a particular way, and their life begins to look different.

And that's it, that's because they're you can't love the brotherhood generically.

You it you have to love those people.

You have to love the people around you.

You know, the people who are in your church with you, the people that are at your Bible study with you.

Right.

You love them, those names, those people.

There's always proper names attached in true love.

There's not just general good vibes towards the general church that is out there somewhere, but I can never go visit.

Right, right.

Or it but in that means what that ties to is there's not a generic love of God.

We're not loving God generically, like the God category.

That we're not loving omniscience and omnibenevolence and omnipotence.

We're loving God as He has revealed Himself to us in Jesus Christ, which we can know by the Holy Spirit.

This is very particular.

It is a story that took place at one point in time in that's historically written down.

It is this Jesus, it is that Jesus we are loving, and he calls us to love this brotherhood.

And so you can't man it it's like very anti-docetist.

This is not just an appearing of an ideal, this is an actual person, and these are actual people that we're called to love.

And in doing that, we know the true God because we were drawn into that body by his first love of us, which was not some ethereal concept.

We can see it in that he gave his son for us as a propitiation for our sins.

So we know his love.

We know his love.

As you often say, love is a person.

Exactly.

Um like truth.

Yes.

Yeah.

And a battlefield is another thing that I often say.

Um third John.

And another th just on this same theme.

Uh cut this later if you want.

But um, I don't edit.

Takes too much time.

Uh uh it's pretty common for us to hear somebody talk about the community that they're a part of.

Uh-huh.

In like an identitarian way.

But they're not actually a part, like they don't know anybody's name.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

There is this, like, there's all these surrogates, there's all or these like um, yeah, these there's all these stand-ins, you know, and it it's like, yeah, but there's no such place.

Like you don't go and connect in any actual way.

Like, like there's um uh they're idealized, and so they're not actual, and so it's not love.

No, no, and those communities often just let people down and hurt them.

Because there's no such place.

Right, because they're not actually a member of anything in particular.

Right.

Um, so like they'll identify with something because of, you know, whatever reason, and then they're very easily removed from that group, um, and then experience a lot of pain as a result.

Yeah.

Um, but the whole time they were they were sort of like diluting themselves into this group loves me when they were never it was never personified.

Right.

Your name must be known.

Third John is a letter to a particular man, Gaius, has this beautiful line in it where he hears that Gaius is walking in the truth, and John says, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

And I I think that's so true.

There is no greater joy than I mean it there is no greater joy than seeing your children like be obedient and like enjoying those evenings together.

There's no in as pastors, is there anything better than hearing that people are holding to the Word of God?

That they're walking in obedience, that they're loving God.

There's just nothing better.

There's nothing better.

The number of times I've seen, you know, somebody who's everything's fallen apart, they're sad.

Um but I you can also see like there's there's like a blockage.

Like you're you're holding on to something in your life, unwilling to let it go.

Um and then something something sparks in their mind and they're like, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna it seems like every year at the beginning of the year this happens.

I'm I'm gonna start reading my Bible every day.

And then like two months later, like they'll come in on a Sunday morning and you you ask, like, hey, how's it going?

And they like light up.

Yeah.

And it's like it yeah, it's the best.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hey, I I let go of this thing that I was really holding on to.

When there's repentance, oh man, it's the best.

It's the best.

And so he sees that in Gaius, who is a church leader.

And uh he's done wonderful things.

He's received missionaries that John had sent to him.

And even though they were strangers, he received them as brothers, you know, uh, even though he didn't know them before.

And uh he's uh writing to him also because when John comes and visits, he's going to have to confront face-to-face Diatrophes who um likes to put himself first and does not acknowledge the authority of the apostolic authority that's from John.

Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

Which listen to how directly he says this.

Uh he says, I've I've written something to the church, but Diatrophes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority.

Just hits it straight on the head.

Yeah.

Um It's probably the Gospel of John, by the way.

Uh what was it?

What?

The thing that he's written to the church.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And so he's like, No, no, I've got another gospel.

Mm-hmm.

Uh that diat that Diatrophus is doing.

Aaron Ross Powell So if I come, I will bring up what he's doing, talking wicked nonsense against us.

And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers and also stops those who want uh who want to and puts them out of the church.

So if you go back to 1 John, he's not loving the you can tell.

He's like, I don't even have to wonder.

Right.

He's not loving the brotherhood.

Right.

So yeah, so John's actually saying, like, he's not a Christian.

Yeah.

He he's an antichrist that's hanging out among you.

Yeah.

And we can see that from the context of the other two letters.

And then he calls them, don't imitate that evil, imitate what's good.

You know, this evil that's coming to the church through diatrophies, don't imitate it.

Don't imitate it.

Don't respond to that evil with evil.

Imitate the good, hold fast to these things, trust yourself to the Lord.

Um yeah, good testimonies will come.

Good testimonies from Demetrius, from the and a testimony from the truth itself.

The truth itself will testify.

It's pretty sick.

Um that's it, that's our outline.

I think we just see John's heart.

He wants them to have assurance of salvation in Christ.

He wants the church to not be taken in by deceivers, he wants the church to love one another, he wants them to experience the love of God amongst one another and to and to see the joy of obeying Christ's commands as uh an expression of as participating in the love of God for one another.

And he he's saying that should all be happening.

And and almost to put an endpoint on it, at the the end of the 2nd John and 3rd John, you see the same line.

Yeah.

I hope see you soon.

We'll talk face to face.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I could write more to you with pen and ink, but I want to I want to talk face to face.

Yeah, which like it's which seems to be an embodiment of what he was saying in that first chapter.

Yep.

Which is that like love is personified.

Yes.

Exactly.

Yeah.

It has to take up personhood.

So we have to love one another face to face.

You cannot do this alone.

So And then finishes with greet the friends, each by name.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So there's these are this is not a generic church.

This is a particular church.

It's not a generic God.

It's a particular God.

This is not the some concept of love.

This is real love.

It's a particular love.

Yeah.

It's a particular love that's associated with names.

Yep.

And faces and people.

Yeah.

That's that's the where the life is.

It's the life of the church that he's covetous of in a good way.

Jealous of.

Covetous has negative connotations.

Jealousy is good.

Has no negative connotations.

No negative connotations.

So I think that's a pretty good intro.

Uh uh hang in there through this first study.

I know it feels like reading a lot.

Um try not to feel the pressure of that or or and push through the resistance of it a bit and look at the word, see, see what they're saying.

These are beautiful things for you in the word.

The Holy Spirit will uh allow you to see them and show them to you.

So uh yeah, thanks, Zach.

Yep.

Thanks for this opportunity.

You're welcome.

You're welcome.

All right.

Goodbye, everybody.