The Message of John’s Letters (The Bible Speaks Today | BST)
Overview
Immorality is inundating the Christian community and gradually eroding the foundations of Christian living. The truth of God incarnate, the atonement and the bodily resurrection of Christ are under attack—even from within the church.
These are the concerns of Christians today, and they were the problems that faced the Christians of John’s day. In a society that scorned the gospel and sneered at godly living, John encouraged Christians with a message forged from two words—truth and love.
In this contemporary retelling of John’s message, David Jackman describes John’s first letter as an upwardly spiraling staircase that circles and broadens out around the twin themes of truth and love, mind and heart, Word and Spirit. It is a message both timeless and timely for the church today.
Top Highlights
“John is not identifying a quality which God possesses; he is making a statement about the essence of God’s being. It is not simply that God loves, but that he is love.” (Page 118)
“Faith that does not lead to love is meaningless. Love that is not based on faith is powerless.” (Page 134)
“Christ is the gospel. The person and the message must be held together.” (Page 22)
“The first is the exaltation of the mind, and therefore of this speculative knowledge, over faith and behaviour. The second is the conviction that matter is essentially evil because the physical world is the product of an evil power.” (Page 14)
“Divine love (agapē) is utterly different. It cannot be earned; it cannot be deserved. God loves us because that is his nature.” (Page 118)
- Title: The Message of John’s Letters
- Author: David Jackman
- Series: The Bible Speaks Today
- Publisher: IVP
- Print Publication Date: 1988
- Logos Release Date: 2007
- Pages: 214
- Era: era:contemporary
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Bible. N.T. Epistles of John › Commentaries; Bible. N.T. 1 John › Commentaries; Bible. N.T. 2 John › Commentaries; Bible. N.T. 3 John › Commentaries
- Resource ID: LLS:BSTUSJOHNLT
- Resource Type: Bible Commentary
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-08-29T21:26:29Z