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Dr. Ron Hall, professor and pastor, and Peter Englert, pastor, help you delve into 1 John. Understand the context and background while applying this practical book of the Bible to your life.
1 John - Introduction.mov
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Peter Englert
00:01 - 00:22
Welcome to the first and introductory episode of Reading First John, which is a book in the New Testament, and I am here. We previously did Reading First Peter as a podcast. My name is Peter Englert. I am the Adult Ministries Pastor at Browncroft Community Church in Rochester, and I am with my friend and professor.
Peter Englert
00:24 - 00:34
I'm about to call him Doctor, but he's going to correct me. His name's Ron Hall. Let's start here. It was your idea to do 1 John.
Peter Englert
00:34 - 00:39
What kind of compelled you to come to this book? It seems like it's been a spiritual home for you.
Ron Hall
00:40 - 01:03
Yeah, well, it is such a neglected letter. You rarely hear sermons out of 1 John, yet there's so many passages that will stand out to us, you know, that we love him because he first loved us, or love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, love of this world isn't of the Father. So there's passages we hear.
Ron Hall
01:04 - 01:18
If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us, cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Those are just a few highlights. So people know of those, but you really don't hear churches doing series out of the letter. It would be rare.
Ron Hall
01:18 - 01:54
And there's so much depth that if all you had was 1 John to live your Christian life out, in the first century, you would have had a substantive letter to really carry you a long way in the faith. It's not written to just baby Christians. It's written to people that have been serving the Lord for a while. And so because of that, I was motivated in the whole idea of people that were denying sin and the parallel with our culture that we deny sin are just a few highlights of the things that really have caught my attention.
Peter Englert
01:56 - 02:21
Yeah, and just to let you all know the format of this podcast, what we do is in this first episode, we're just entering the book to help you understand it. But our goal is whether you're in a small group, whether you're reading First John by yourself, we want to give you just the commentary and the insight to engage it really, really well. And so that's part of our heart and passion. So without further ado, let's jump right in.
Peter Englert
02:22 - 02:43
Um, you know, before you jump into the specifics of John, you know, if you have a commentary or a study Bible, uh, the, I would just recommend the NIV application study Bible just came out. It's one of my favorite commentary series. Uh, Craig Keener has a context, uh, Bible. So some of these study Bibles are really, really good.
Peter Englert
02:43 - 03:00
And what they do in the first page is they say things like the key theme, key verse dating. So. What Ron is about to give you is kind of for free, but these are key aspects. Don't skip the introduction because it's going to help you get the book.
Peter Englert
03:00 - 03:12
So without further ado, like walk us through some of the bullet point introductory points of First John. Well, there was a lot of false doctrine that was going around in the first century, just like we have today.
Ron Hall
03:13 - 03:40
And so John is writing to present to them what real true Christian belief is like. versus the false teaching. The biggest one that we're going to deal with is the denial of Jesus Christ being the Son of God and actually coming in the flesh. And so he gives tests in the letter regarding how do we know if someone is a genuine Christian and genuinely walking in the faith.
Ron Hall
03:41 - 04:12
And he's going to come down to the deity of Jesus Christ. If you have the Son, you believe in the reality of the incarnation that we call it, which means God became man and dwelt among us through the story of the birth of Christ, and that he was the son of God offering himself as a sacrifice for our sins. And John is going to drive that home, and it will come up in every single chapter. There was a group of people that were creating a lot of problems with false teaching.
Ron Hall
04:13 - 04:33
They are called cessationists. Not to get technical with us, but we're gonna be visiting that word again. Cessationists were people where John said, they were with us, they went out of us, but they really weren't of us. So they acted like they were believers, but in reality they weren't.
Ron Hall
04:34 - 04:50
Which you can already see by my saying that, we have parallels like that today. People attend church, but they're really not with it. People who say they're a Christian, but they want to do their own thing. And so that's going to occur again and again.
Ron Hall
04:51 - 05:11
There were also people that were denying sin. They believed that there was nothing in their life that needed to be confessed. And in the coming podcast, we'll be able to dig deeply into that as we open up 1 John. And we call them sin deniers, that they deny that they had anything really wrong with them.
Ron Hall
05:11 - 05:18
as if they had already arrived at perfection. And in chapter 2, that will come home. What? There's nothing wrong with me.
Ron Hall
05:18 - 05:24
I'm just fine the way that I am. Again, you can see the incredible parallels with today.
Peter Englert
05:27 - 05:50
So I think that that's really helpful to to get like some of the backdrop of it, because even what I'm hearing you say with this introduction is, you know, this is a church that's in conflict with most of the New Testament letters. There's some reason we actually in commentaries, you can look this up. They say the occasion. Why don't you walk us through?
Peter Englert
05:50 - 06:05
So we talked about the key theme. But then, you know, let's talk about like the key verse, the dates and the keywords, because I think those are kind of key things to look up. And let me start with the first one. I think that this is pretty powerful.
Peter Englert
06:06 - 06:22
You know, when people think positively about Christianity, they think of it synonymously with love. I think there's a lot of people that would say God is love. I think one of the surprising things is you and I kind of engage this. Their love is referred to 180 times in the Bible.
Peter Englert
06:24 - 06:29
24 of those times happened in 1st John. I think he's trying to tell us something.
Ron Hall
06:29 - 06:55
Yeah, that's the incredible part. But to help frame that a little more, Peter, and for those listening, it's understanding this John that we're talking about. And he wrote the Gospel of John, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John in the Book of Revelation. His trademark, his hallmark, a little play on my last name, His hallmark is dealing with love.
Ron Hall
06:55 - 07:16
And when we read the Gospel of John and the most famous, of course, John 3.16, for God so loved the world, that he drives that home. Well, that theme of the Gospel of John is driven home the same in 1 John. But remember, love is always balanced by judgment. So he also authors Revelation, which is full of judgment.
Ron Hall
07:17 - 07:51
So it's keeping that in mind. And this is John, one of the 12 apostles of Jesus, and we learn in Mark 3, verse 17, his brother was James, and that they were known as sons of thunder because they were given to fits of rage, anger, violent tempers. They're the ones that wanted to call down fire from heaven to turn people into crispy critters. because they were not following after Christ.
Ron Hall
07:51 - 08:17
And three years with Jesus put a lot of tenderizer on him. And he became known as the Apostle of Love, or also Jesus, the disciple whom he loved. And so endeared was John that he's the only one of the 12 that show up of the 12 disciples at the foot of the cross. and the rest of them have scattered.
Ron Hall
08:18 - 08:49
John returns, and Jesus thought so highly of him, he entrusted the care of his mother to John on the cross. And that's huge for us to be able to understand. So he's a person that was given to a career of fishing, but Jesus calls him out of that into this incredible ministry And again, where we get the Gospel of John, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, and Revelation.
Peter Englert
08:50 - 09:09
I love that. And again, sometimes even just studying this and thinking through this, we kind of gloss over some things. So one of the things that stood out to me is The book like the dating of the book is late 80s to early 90s. Yes.
Peter Englert
09:10 - 09:31
And so the description that you're bringing up, which I think is really powerful. What we're saying is 80 to 90 years after Jesus, give or take, you know, just we we started with, you know, timing, you know, AD after Jesus. Yes. And, you know, John is probably one of the last apostles left.
Peter Englert
09:32 - 09:59
And I think that that's even what brings more power to this book is like we're we're not talking 10 to 20 years, a 40 year old, like we're talking someone that's, you know, very close to death. And I think that that probably frames the way that we read this book. This is less of, you know, an opus in your 40s. This is, hey, this is probably one of the last things I'm going to write before I die.
Ron Hall
10:00 - 10:23
Yes. you know, if history is accurate outside of the Bible, John is the only one to die of natural causes. So we are dealing with a letter that could have been written 55 years plus after the resurrection, if we place the resurrection around 30 to 33 AD. So here is John.
Ron Hall
10:23 - 11:12
We should have identified, I should have noted this before, the letter is probably written from Ephesus and John was overseeing the church and churches of the expansion from Ephesus itself. Paul was the one who established the church in Ephesus, and we read about that in Acts 18 and 19, and he was there for three years, the longest of any of his places of ministry, and he's followed by Timothy becoming the pastor, and then John picks up to be the pastor to oversee this church in the region of Ephesus, which was known as Asia Minor at that time, and the greater area region where these churches were placed.
Peter Englert
11:15 - 11:30
So there's a lot of context there. So that actually changes the way that I read Ephesus, because in some ways it's a prequel to this book or Ephesians, I should say. Ephesus is a place. So, yeah, let let me just walk through a couple other things.
Peter Englert
11:31 - 11:46
Let's come here to the theme verse. So we don't want to jump ahead, but I think it's helpful, you know, for each book. There is kind of a central verse. And again, sometimes commentators and pastors will argue.
Peter Englert
11:46 - 12:15
So if you read somewhere else, that first, John, that this is not written in stone. But, you know, for our purposes, first, John 513, it says, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. And I think one thing that you're probably going to pick up Um, in the gospel of John, most people think the theme versus towards the end of the book. So again, there's five chapters in first John.
Peter Englert
12:16 - 12:38
The theme verse in John is John 20, which is towards the end or John 21. I've written these things that you may believe. And so I think in some ways, John is not necessarily saying something new, but even this theme verse is very connected to what he's writing and very connected to the book. So not just this book, but all of his books.
Ron Hall
12:39 - 12:51
Yeah, excellent. Pick up and to reflect on it. And in that key verse, we have this idea of son of God. Because remember, there were people that were deniers that Jesus was God.
Ron Hall
12:51 - 13:16
And we'll deal with some of the false doctrines that exist about the deity of Christ and entire groups that deny him, but we'll get to that later in later sessions. But for now, it's just understanding this denial of Jesus being God. And if you don't have that straight, then Jesus was just a man who died on the cross. But the fact is, he was God's.
Ron Hall
13:16 - 13:19
So John drives that home in this key verse out of
Peter Englert
13:20 - 14:03
first Peter first John 513 hmm okay that's a good preview so we'll just kind of hold it there let let's kind of come back to the backdrop of first John I I want to compare it with Romans and Revelation because I think that this is where it's going to be helpful maybe When we talk about apologetics, I think it has to do with proving that Jesus is real, proving theology, and you have a book of Romans that the proving is so connected to the Old Testament. And and it's just let me talk to you about Abraham. Let me talk to you about theology and logic.
Peter Englert
14:03 - 14:16
And then you have revelation that's writing to the churches. It's highly connected to the last six chapters of Daniel. But when we get to first John, I. I there's deep theology.
Peter Englert
14:16 - 14:28
We're going to talk about confession. But it's almost as if it's apologetic for Christianity. If someone was reading this, that didn't know Jesus was the way people lived. It was the way that they loved.
Peter Englert
14:29 - 14:48
It was being light, not darkness. And so that's kind of the way that I kind of, um, compare the doctrine. This is a very practical doctrine book, maybe applicable because even, you know, atonement is very applicable. Justification is very applicable.
Peter Englert
14:48 - 14:55
But this is like grit on the ground. This is how we do it kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah.
Peter Englert
14:55 - 14:57
Is is that how you see it? It's good.
Ron Hall
14:57 - 15:23
I mean, the theology, when you get into chapter two and the first couple of verses are all about the atonement idea. but it is a practitioner's letter. So, for instance, how can we say we've loved God whom we have not seen if we can't love our brother whom we have seen? And when he gets into the letter, he'll deal with, this is how you know whether or not you love God, by how you treat other people.
Ron Hall
15:24 - 15:39
And he'll use Old Testament examples in order to drive that home. So there is that love-hate tension, which is characteristic of John. You got light and you have darkness. You have your in or your out.
Ron Hall
15:40 - 15:58
And so it's very, in many ways, it's black and white for the practitioner. So how do I know if I'm really serving the Lord? And I love it when it's driven home in chapter three. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we'll be called the children of God.
Ron Hall
15:58 - 16:16
And this is how we know whether or not we're children of God. So for those of you who are struggling, am I really a Christian? You've fallen into sin, you've had something that's not going well in your life, am I really a Christian? John drives it home that we can have this confidence in us.
Ron Hall
16:17 - 16:21
So I'm glad you brought up the idea of practitioner, because that's what I would call this letter.
Peter Englert
16:23 - 16:42
Mm. I think that that's really helpful. And and again, you know, one of the things that you taught me in prison epistles is, you know, sometimes we think, you know, books like Ephesians chapters one to three, they're theological, but they're not applicable. And then, you know, chapters four to six, they're not applicable.
Peter Englert
16:42 - 17:00
We believe the Bible is all applicable, but sometimes it's a little bit more practical. And I think even what I hear you saying, is in some ways John is direct. He's not waiting for a chapter to talk about how the theology connects to real life. He's literally doing it there.
Peter Englert
17:00 - 17:11
And he's saying, hey, if God is love and you hate your brother, you haven't experienced the gospel. Like it's that basic and simple right there within the passage in the verse.
Ron Hall
17:12 - 17:31
That's it. And Right from the first chapter, if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin. So right there from the outset of the letter, do you accept the fact that Jesus is God? If you don't, you're not a believer.
Ron Hall
17:32 - 17:54
Do you then accept the fact that God is light? If you don't accept that, and you're thinking, it's darkness, you don't have fellowship with Him. Or do you deny the reality of sin. So you're spot on that it is the idea of this practical living out, and so we're not going hunting for the application, it's there for us.
Peter Englert
17:54 - 18:09
Mm hmm. Let's you know, I want to jump in a couple other things like the audience, because we've kind of hinted about Ephesians. I think we we can go deeper in that. But I think something that's helpful for our readers that you point out is just the organization of John.
Peter Englert
18:09 - 18:25
So I'm going to I'm going to read kind of what the organization is. So in in first, John one, one to four, we have a prologue where it's setting the stage for the book, an introduction. And then first, John, one, five to 227. God is light.
Peter Englert
18:25 - 18:36
So you can kind of put it all under there. And then first, John, two, twenty eight to four, six. God is righteous. First, John, four, seven, five to 512.
Peter Englert
18:36 - 19:02
God is love. and then there's a closing section in 1 John 13-21, I think that that organization really sets the tone for what we're saying, is there are these deeply, highly theological, systematic theological, biblical theological points, but they are all packaged in right-of-way application practical in each section.
Ron Hall
19:03 - 19:19
Yes. And by seeing that progression as we work through it, we will find it will repeat some of those same themes. So themes that are introduced in chapter one will be reaffirmed. And that's what makes it such a rich letter.
Ron Hall
19:21 - 19:45
So much so that I want to motivate a lot of you to, all of you actually, to memorize some of these passages of Scripture. Write them out on a three by five card, have them in your pocket, with you in the car that you will be reinforcing it, because you'll find there'll be a loop. We call it recapitulation. So the theme is introduced, and then it is revisited again to drive us home.
Ron Hall
19:45 - 19:53
So that when we come to the end of the letter, yes, Jesus is God, and we need to be walking in the light as he is in the light.
Peter Englert
19:56 - 20:15
Something I want to come back to because I think that this is important for our listeners. We touched on this probably being written in Ephesus, Ephesian churches. A lot of the books that we talk about, they seem like they're either Gentile or Jewish, and there's always some type of Jewish influence. Yeah.
Peter Englert
20:16 - 20:25
Where do you see that tension or that focus playing out in the book to help our readers understand maybe what the original readers were seeing?
Ron Hall
20:25 - 20:57
Yeah, this is primarily a letter that is written to a Gentile audience, in other words, non-Jewish people. It has Jewish themes. It will make reference to Old Testament passages, but it's not going to be, say, like Romans, even though Romans wasn't just you know, Gentile audience, lots of Jews too, but it used a lot of Old Testament passages, where 1 John isn't doing a lot of that. So these are people that came into the faith of Christianity.
Ron Hall
20:57 - 21:20
They were exposed to it. Some were in it, but really not of it, as we've already talked about with these people that went out from the church, but were false believers. And so the audience is primarily Gentiles, that come to a saving faith of Christ, and now they need to learn what that means. And we need to appreciate that.
Ron Hall
21:20 - 21:39
That's why I think the letter is so relevant for us today, and I don't know why it's neglected so much. And for all of you, it's five chapters, and it's one of those ones, you read it and you say, oh, I need to go back and read that again. This idea I talked about, recapitulation, you revisit the themes again and again, because it will help you in your daily walk.
Peter Englert
21:41 - 22:23
Well, let's kind of go there, you know, because I think this has been just a helpful introduction to know who wrote it. You know, one of the disciples and later apostle of Jesus, what the structure is, what the theme versus who is reading it, first of all. But if I'm approaching this book, you know, and I'm thinking about, you know, depending on when this person's listening to it, you know, we're recording this in a very polarized time. And it's interesting that a lot of our arguments and discussions, we think that we're going to gain ground or find common ground by some knowledge based argument.
Peter Englert
22:23 - 22:39
And I think that what John is even saying is there there's a beauty, there's a whimsy, there's a relational level to the gospel that people experience the truth of the gospel. And you do have to say it. There is justice. There is darkness.
Peter Englert
22:40 - 22:56
But but there's something rich and deep about this book in a time when, you know, it take the first kind of connection with an enemy or even just with someone on the other side is actually like they have to know that you love Jesus and you love them.
Ron Hall
22:56 - 23:09
Yeah. It's kind of the element of James. You know, you can show your faith just by talking about it, but I will show you my faith by my works. And so John is living it out.
Ron Hall
23:09 - 23:34
Back to the passage I mentioned before in 1 John 4, how can we say we love God whom we have not seen if we can't love our brother whom we have seen? And so love is, you show your love by your, your words and deeds. So you talk about it, but you live it out. You end up showing compassion for people.
Ron Hall
23:34 - 23:46
You care about them. It might be providing. We'll get real practical later on in dealing with food and clothing in another session. How do you show it practically?
Ron Hall
23:46 - 24:13
So just Godspeed, yeah, I love you, or I'll be praying for you and then never pray for him. So it's that action orientation that you're talking about. And if you remember, too, because here we are at the introduction of what love is, love in the Bible times is not something that's for this first century in this letter about romantic love. I have sentimental feelings for you.
Ron Hall
24:13 - 24:34
Genuine biblical love was love in action, and so John's concept of love is action. God loves us. This is the action he ended up taking for sending Christ for us, so that we can walk in the light as he is in the light. And so it's back to, again, the practitioner's idea.
Ron Hall
24:34 - 24:38
Love is about action. It's not about sentiment, having a good feeling.
Peter Englert
24:39 - 24:58
Well, it just makes me think, so I want to just set it up and caveat it. We believe forgiveness is different than reconciliation. You know, God calls all of us to forgive, whether there's the safety to reconcile. And forgiveness is also a process, but it's not a choice.
Peter Englert
24:58 - 25:22
So I want to just say that on the outset. You know, I think it was about a decade ago. I think you and I were living in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, when this happened. But there was the Amish school that had a shooting and the immediate practice of the Amish with rooted in Christianity was this intentional act of forgiveness.
Peter Englert
25:22 - 25:44
And I think sometimes we hear that story and we just think, oh, you know, they're they're just forgiving to forgive. And it's like, no, this is This is a rooted value from First John that we're watching be placed out there. This power of forgiveness and. Again, I'm using that as an example.
Peter Englert
25:45 - 25:59
I think all of you have to process that complication on your own, but that is just a brief glimpse of a picture that this theological doctrine plays itself out so people actually experience a little bit of the gospel.
Ron Hall
26:00 - 26:27
Yeah, and that was powerful. It happened in Mill Creek, Pennsylvania, and it was a milkman who ended up coming into a single-room schoolhouse and shot a bunch of the kids. devastation for them. And it had a national attention that went all around because the Amish practice was when you had a funeral, that's when you forgave and you buried it.
Ron Hall
26:27 - 27:09
And what was profound is the mother of children that were lost. She lost two of her kids, along with some of the other Amish women, went to the wife of the man who had committed the murders in a heinous crime, like we have things going on today, and ended up giving gifts and financial help. Now, the idea of forgiveness like that is beyond us, and as you brought up, I mean, there's a lot to process, because they were expecting the grieving to be over because you had the funeral in Amish practice. but there's a little more to go through with grieving, but incredible example of forgiveness, yeah.
Peter Englert
27:12 - 27:29
Well, I think we've done a pretty, we've taken a nice little chunk for those of you reading First John. Ron, I just want to give you the last word. Was there something else you wanted to mention or say in this introduction before we start kind of diving in in the next episode?
Ron Hall
27:29 - 28:05
Well, I am so looking forward to us Talking about what it means to really walk in the light as he is in the light It will be a fresh way of looking at what does it mean to be filled with the spirit? And if we could capture better the idea of God being light What that means is glory his presence We'd be far better off. So I think we're into a great journey and and I want your Christian lives to be richer for this, and I want to equip you with tools that will be able to, for you to be able to better help people.
Peter Englert
28:07 - 28:15
Well, next episode we're going to be in 1 John 1, so stay tuned, and thank you so much for joining us today.