Questions throughout 1 John

Below, you will find a few questions to ask if you’re going through 1 John on your own.  Pick any one, and use it like a lens as you read. It may be helpful to write the question at the top of a page in a journal or notebook, and then, as you read through 1 John, write down your observations in answer to the question. 

Throughout the book, John gives numerous explicit reasons for writing to them (“I am writing these things…I write to you…”). Why does he write to them?

John refers to his readers in multiple ways. How does he address them?

John repeatedly emphasizes knowing. What could they know and how could they know it?

What do you learn about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit? This question could be divided into three pages. For example, you could break it down like this:

Who is God the Father, and what did/does he do? 

Who is Jesus, and what did/does he do? 

Who is the Spirit, and what did/does he do?

What do you learn about the devil/evil one, antichrist, and the world? This could also be separated into three different pages with each subject at the top.

What do you learn about love?

These questions draw out major themes in 1 John, so whether you’re able to focus on one or all of them, they’ll be worth the effort!

A Personal Intro to 1 John

Have you ever been confused by religious words you hear from someone that don’t match the lifestyle you see them live? Has that deconstructed your personal faith?  Maybe it’s all fake.

Or when your own missteps fall short of what you say you believe, have you hidden in the darkness for fear of being discovered, by people or by God? Have you ever doubted whether you actually believed in the first place? Maybe I’m the fake. How can I know for sure what’s real?

As a teen, I struggled with whether my salvation was real. I used to lie sleepless in bed, tormented by the thought that my faith as a child, when I first confessed that I needed Jesus to be my Savior, may not have been complete enough to seal my eternity in heaven.  Were there words I was missing or something I didn’t know that I needed to believe or do or pray? Was there a way to know for sure that the promise of eternal life was real for me? 

Most who have had doubts like mine, can’t usually remember the first time they heard the name “Jesus”, because it was in utero and every day after that. Kids who grow up learning the Gospel from the very beginning and then place their faith in Christ at young ages, don’t experience the radical life-change that creates dramatic reports from missionaries or garners applause from church crowds.  Drastically changed lives are powerful testaments of God’s grace, to be sure, but a child might wonder whether Christ is real in their own lives if He didn’t rescue them from drugs or jail by age 5. Back then, I didn’t realize the grace it is to know Christ early in life, or the privilege it was to have a dad who could introduce my doubts to 1 John.

As it turns out, the question of Is it real?, isn’t isolated to 21st century Christianity. It’s been asked since the time John wrote this 5-chapter book, addressing a people close to his heart, who, for various reasons, had doubts about their faith. Words and life were mismatched, deception and self-deception threatened, sin was detected, and their confidence was shaken.

The book opens, not with a testimony of how Christ changed John’s life, but with the reality of Christ’s life itself as the basis for our faith. Jesus wasn’t a hologram or optical illusion, so neither was the life he promised. In Christ, eternal life was made audible, visible, observable, and touchable.  He was eternal life in real life, and the rest of the book is what His eternal life in us looks like in real life.

Quick read, Lifelong application

On The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness, by Tim Keller

Although self esteem is a buzzword from another era, we all know self hasn’t left center stage. At least I know from my own experience…

I was in the middle of a conversation with a friend one sunny day, when I suddenly caught myself looking into her sunglasses, not at her eyes, but at ME, warped in the rounded reflection.  Did I look good standing there, smiling as she talked?  Or did I have broccoli in my teeth?  

I’ve basked in self-obsession.

Another day, as worship music played during church, my voice joined in the lyrics, but my thoughts overruled with critiques: That leader is so much better than you. Don’t even try. 

I’ve wilted under self-accusation.

And on other occasions, I’ve heard the whisper: Aren’t you so offended by what that person just said to you? You don’t deserve that.  

I’ve retaliated in self-promotion.

Is there a way out from under the tyranny of Me, Myself, and I? It seems like an inescapable dilemma to be plagued by self, and that’s what first drew me to The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness. 

Unpacking our sense of self, or ego, Tim Keller uses the analogy of a courtroom, based on 1 Corinthians 3:21-4:7. Keller explains, throughout this pamphlet-sized book, that whether we view ourselves too highly or too lowly, neither frees us to have joy. The problem is: “Every single day, we are on trial.  That is the way that everyone’s identity works. And everything we do is providing evidence for the prosecution or evidence for the defense. Some days we feel we are winning the trial and other days we feel we are losing it.  But Paul says that he has found the secret.”   

There are some books that mark pivotal moments in our lives, and we are uniquely changed as a result of what we read. This was one of those books for me.

Praise offered up

A sacrifice expresses belief. A sacrifice gives up something, believing that it’s worth any “loss” for whatever is gained. 

When we give up dessert or carbs to follow a diet, that loss is a sacrifice to gain better health (You know I love you, Dark Chocolate). When we give up money or time for someone else’s sake, that loss is a sacrifice for the sake of a greater purpose than self. But have you ever thought of praise as a sacrifice that gives up something less worthy than what is gained?

“Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise - the fruit of lips that openly profess His name.” Hebrews 13:15

The author of Hebrews explains that praise expresses belief that Jesus is the better and only way of salvation, leaving my efforts in the dust and all my self-promotion utterly worthless.  Praise declares that He is more worthy than me.

But this affects more than just my salvation. Jesus being more worthy, means I lay my personal expectations for life and stipulations for praise on the altar where they’re consumed by the belief that He Himself is better than what I might want: the comfort, goal, dream, preference, calling, system, person, accolades, plan, house, children, job, or image that I chase after. Praise opens its hands on demands and declares that He is better than His gifts. He is worthy of worship whether He gives those gifts or not.

The sacrifice of praise calls Him Untarnished when I’m broken. He is better than healing.

The sacrifice of praise calls Him Precious when I feel otherwise. He is better than feelings.

The sacrifice of praise calls Him Good when life hasn’t been. He is better than life.

What stipulations for praise have hindered it from growing in your life?

Broken Senses

Have you ever been afraid to change your perspective? For me, it goes like this:

If I’m grateful in this situation, God will forget how miserable it actually is, and He’ll leave me in it. God will forget my tears if I rejoice. God will overlook my sorrow if I thank Him. God will shrug off my fears if I’m grateful. God will ignore my pain if I praise Him.  Things will be broken forever.

The Apostle John would have a few words with me for this kind of thinking, and so would the prophet Isaiah (see what they're inspired to say in Revelation 21:4 and Isaiah 25:8). In these descriptions of the end of time, when God and His people reunite, one of God’s first acts is a personal one. From individual faces, He wipes away tears. Each set of eyes that welled up, that spilled over, that ran mascara, and hid from public view, He dries. 

As He waits to do that for you, you’re operating under the old order, the “former things” that I would describe as the five broken senses from Revelation 21:4: tears, death, mourning, crying, and pain. Through these, we may discover earth’s realities, but by recognizing them as temporarily out of order, we discover reasons to be grateful. 

To see how I personally experience the world through these five broken senses, I listed my current difficulties and future fears that dominate my outlook on life. I filled a sheet of paper. Then I looked for similarities in the list, and I found that each could be categorically grouped under one of these broken senses: tears, death, mourning, crying or pain.  For example, my fear of losing a family member could be categorized most clearly under death.  

Tears and death are straightforward categories of our experiences, but what distinguishes mourning, crying, and pain from each other?  

Mourning is also translated as sorrow in some versions. We mourn lost time, a shortened life, ruined expectations, broken relationships, etc. Things end in ways we wish they didn’t. 

Crying, according to Vine’s Expository Dictionary, is an onomatopoeia that sounds like a raven’s cry in Greek, and, according to Strong’s Concordance, it’s an outcry of “notification, tumult, or grief”.  Think of this word like an emergency vehicle’s siren: it notifies of an emergency, involves some kind of tumult, and represents possible grief.  It’s a reason for alarm and creates sudden upheaval. We’d like to pull to the side of the road and let those scenarios pass right by us. 

Pain can signify more than just general pain, and includes “laborious toil”, according to Vine’s Expository Dictionary. From failing health to taxing work, the pain is real, and we can’t medicate enough to avoid it.

Would you consider making a list of your own current struggles or future fears that inform your perspective? See how they fit within the five broken senses of the old system, and turn your list into a reason for gratitude that God will one day fix what is temporarily out of order.  What you might find is that gratitude begins His restoration right here and now.

“He will wipe away every tear from YOUR eyes. 

There will be no more death,

Or mourning,

Or crying,

Or pain,

For the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:4