I John 1:1-2:2
Dear RTB’ers,
Today and for the next week we have an elderly apostle John writing circular letters to believers, presumably those living in Asia (modern Turkey), Greece and Italy (Rome). That is, in contrast to Hebrews, he does not appear to be writing to Jewish believers in Jerusalem/Israel. He does not address traditional Jewish themes. That is to say, it’s as if John is writing to us, to each of us, personally, and we should read his letters as such.
Two items today… First, “sin” (I John 1:7,8,9,10). My Study Bible says that the word for “sin” in the Greek appears 27 times in this first letter. Apparently John is speaking out against Gnosticism and its beliefs that fully separated the body and the spirit; everything about the spirit was good and holy, while the physical world, the body was evil. Therefore, in Gnostic thought there was no such thing as “sin”, if everything physical was already evil and sinful. So John is speaking out against those thoughts.
Second, Bible text memorization… Our dear friend, John S. is a serious advocate of Bible verse memorization – not a bad plan!! And today we have a number of verses that are favorites for Bible verse memorization – each one of those “sin” verses (1:7-10) are good candidates for Bible verse memorization. I recall verse 7 as a song even, making it an easy memorization! So give it a shot; I recommend I John 1:9 as one that you might like to call to mind on a regular basis: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. There, I’ve copied it for you. Now memorize it! Your comments?
Blessings!
See also:
I hope that the mention of “Gnosticism” doesn’t cause any of us to think that we don’t need to pay attention, that John is addressing only “those” people “back then.” Nothing could be further from the truth. We — all of us — need to hear what John has to say, whether we know anything about Gnosticism or not. (And, by the way, Gnostic thought is far from dead and gone. It pervades much of our culture, even within the Church.) So really listen to what John says here. And yes, memorize!