When contrasting First John to Second and Third John, you notice how First John lacks the typical stylistic features of a letter. However, the genre of First John is an epistle. This outstanding book joins twenty other letters in the New Testament. First John is probably best regarded as a written sermon or pastoral address. Walt Russell gives us clear principles when reading and interpreting an epistle. He states the following steps: read the whole epistle in one setting the get the big idea of the letter and its main contours, think in terms of the paragraphs being the main units of thought, knowing the structure of epistles helps you know where you are in the letter, and do some background reading in order to understand better the epistle’s main concerns and its historical and cultural setting. One of the most important tools to use while interpreting an epistle is to thoroughly know the historic background of the human author and the readers.
The human author, John, was likely to be a pastor or evangelist who built churches in the Mediterranean world. John the apostle, son of Zebedee, one of the twelve was extremely passionate for Christ and was writing a letter to a church who needed to hear God’s truth. Though we are not sure which church it was specifically, we can be confident that this letter was to teach the believers about Jesus, God’s commandments, and love. Fortunately, this letter can also be applied to our own daily lives.
1 John 5:13-21 fits within the larger flow of the whole book of First John by reinforcing themes sounded throughout the previous chapters. It is interesting to note that the word groups surrounding the Greek “to know” (oida and ginosko) make their strongest appearance in this passage than ...
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...s attacking me and, unfortunately, it is difficult for me to lean and trust on the strength and protection of God. This passage assured me that I do have power in Christ, I can have confidence in His Word, and I am able to fully trust and lean on God’s strength when my own strength is lacking (emphasis added).
Works Cited
Akin, Daniel. The New American Commentary. Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001.
Burge, Gary. Letter of John The NIV Application Commentary From Biblical Text to Contemporary Life. Zondervan, 1996.
Fee, Gordon. The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Eerdmans Pub Co, 1984.
Johnson, Thomas. New International Biblical Commentary. Peabody, Massachusetts: Original Hendrickson Publishers, 1993.
Russell, Walt. Playing With Fire. Colorado Springs: NevPress, 2000.
Smalley, Stephen. Word Biblical Commentary. Waco, Texas: Word Co, 1984.
The study of the Gospel of John can be viewed as distinct and separate from the study of any of the previous three synoptic gospels. The Fourth Gospel contains language and conceptions so distinct from the synoptics that scholars are often faced with the question of its historical origins. Originally, scholars believed the main source for the Gospel of John to be Jewish wisdom literature, Philo, the Hermetic books and the Mandaean writings, leading to the idea that John was the most Greek of the Gospels. However, with the discovery of the scrolls, scholars were now faced with source materials, remarkably similar to the concepts and language found in John, illuminating the literature as not only Jewish but Palestinian in origin. The discovery of the manuscripts opened up an entirely new interpretation of the gospel of John and a progressive understanding of its proper place within biblical scripture.
Malick, David. "An Introduction to the Gospel of John." (1996): n. pag. Online. Internet. 5 July 2000. Available http://www.bible.org/docs/nt/books/joh/joh-intr.htm
In the writing of this gospel, the reader has an opportunity to come to know the prominent Nicodemus. The history of this man is given in the first verse of chapter three. John gives more detail about this spiritual encounter with a non-spiritual
John’s letter is addressed to: “My little children.” He wrote to Christians who are subject to sin; therefore, whatever the meaning of this verse, it’s
Traditionally, John the apostle, the son of Zebedee, is seen as the author of Revelation. He is clearly a well-known and recognized teacher in the church of Western Asia Minor, part of the reason he could address such a letter of significance to these churches. Another possible author, John of Patmos, is supposed by some critics because of the drastic stylistic difference between the four NT books (John, 1, 2, and 3 John) and the book of Revelation. John in Revelation promotes himself as a recorder of this apocalypse, not necessarily as the “apostle that Jesus loved”, causing some to affirm John of Patmos as the author. The third author, suggested by some, is another “John” altogether, possibly a high ranking member or elder of the early
He goes on to say he must also bring those other sheep, so they might all be “one flock and one shepherd” as in, the world and himself being together as one. Shepherds save sheep from danger, and being lost, which is where salvation from Christ comes to play. The amount of imagery in the book of John is not only very vivid, but extremely useful. Many different moments occur in the book, so the images painted in our heads by the author definitely do not go unappreciated. From the introduction, when John recognizes Jesus for the very first time he states, “I saw the spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him.”
Epistle to the Romans is not to doubt, because in Romans is the basis of the Gospel which is the theme of this book. Therefore it needs to be emphasized that this letter is so important.
Carson, D, & Moo, D. (2005) An introduction to the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
The NIV Study Bible. Barker, Kenneth: General Editor. Grand Rapids, Michigan: The Zondervan Corporation, 1995
Holy Bible: Contemporary English Version. New York: American Bible Society, 1995. Print. (BS195 .C66 1995)
St. John the Evangelist is mostly known for writing a fourth Gospel. If you would ask any person to list his challenges almost everybody would tell you that he wrote a gospel. It is believed that he wrote a Gospel at the year of 96, after the death of Domitian. His object in writing it he tells us himself: “These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, believing, you may have life in His name.” In order to write a Gospel you have to be truly involved in holy life by yourself. St. John went threw Jesus’ teachings and he opened himself to Jesus. All of his life he spent by expressing love to others and by implementing Jesus principles. Thus before writing a Gospel, St. John experienced it all on himself. He also wrote three epistles. The first is called catholic, as addressed to all Christians, especially his converts. The other two are short, and directed to particular persons, to Gaius and to local church.
John was a dedicated apostle of Jesus Christ. His adult life was dedicated towards serving Christ and his doctrines. From his time of appointment to the ascension of Christ, John was among the disciples chosen to spread the word of God. After the ascension of Christ, John continues with his service to Christ, spreading the word of God from Galilee, across borders to Greece. The paper will illustrate the various lessons that can be demonstrated through John’s life, preaching and service to Christ.
The empathy that Jesus held for mankind was never so well summarized in the bible as in John 11:35. Christ’s emotions were narrated very rarely in the Gospel. For the large part of his ministry Christ spent his time teaching instead of expressing his emotions. Christians have for years come to one of three conclusions about why Jesus wept. The first was that Christ (being human) was in fact emotionally disturbed by his friend’s death. Second that Christ mourned with his friends to comfort them. Or that Christ, was disturbed by his friends lack of faith in him. The first conclusion dethrones what philosophers (namely Augustine and Plato) for years have believed about death. The second conclusion portrays Christ as sympathetic, but slow to react to his friends death. Whereas every other time Christ encountered death he was quick to take action. The third concludes that Christ chose to weep over his friends lack of faith. There is a reason that the writers of the gospels chose to mention this event. Understanding this event helps in understanding who Jesus Christ was.
The Epistles in the bible were letter’s that were written by the Apostles to the churches. The Epistles served as a primary form of written communication in the ancient world, especially in the New Testament time. Some of the epistles in the Bible consist of, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and James. The Apostle Paul wrote thirteen of these letters, addressing situations or problems in the churches. The purpose of this paper is to illuminate a few of the epistles and why they were written.
John's Gospel and Epistle, assuming that Christ came from God and went to God (John 13:3), emphasize his being sent by the Father on divine mission, expressing divine love (John 3:16; 1 John 4:9 - 10), a revelation of the unseen Father by one belonging "in the bosom of the Father" (John 1:18), a divine Word, present when God spoke at creation and now again conveying meaning and power to the world (John 1).