All Episodes
Displaying 61 - 90 of 108 in total
Episode 61: God is love
Some of the best-known verses in John’s letter, here in chapter 4, have to do with love. But what is love? John doesn’t try to define the word and then apply it to God...
Episode 63: A loving sacrifice
As Christians we are familiar with the idea, expressed in John 3:16, that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was a demonstration of God’s love. Sometimes I wonder, th...
Episode 62: Love is what love does
Ask someone what the Bible says about love, and they’re likely to point to 1 Corinthians 13. But if you read what Paul says carefully, he doesn’t define what love is, ...
Episode 64: Making the invisible God visible
In the Upper Room, Jesus commanded his disciples to love one another. Already in chapter 4, John has reminded his readers of that command twice. But he doesn’t just sa...
Episode 65: Confidence for the future
Reading between the lines of John’s letter, we can sense how the controversy that split the community had shaken the confidence of those who remained. Indeed, the very...
Episode 66: It’s all part of the plan
John has already told his readers that when they love one another, God’s love is being “made complete” in them (1 John 4:12), an idea that he repeats a few verses late...
Episode 67: Confessing the Son
If someone says, “I believe in Jesus,” does that make them a Christian? Not necessarily. One of John’s litmus tests is that a true believer must “acknowledge” that Jes...
Episode 68: Perfect love?
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught his followers that they were to become perfect like God, especially in the matter of love. But who is perfect in love? John do...
Episode 69: Taking the initiative
As the apostle Paul famously wrote, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). John knows this too. He might counsel his readers to love one another...
Episode 70: Are you calling me a liar?
John has already said that to love one another is to live like Jesus and to make God’s character visible. The uncomfortable implication of this—and one that seems to a...
Episode 71: "Who do you say that I am?"
As we’ve seen, the issue that divided John’s community was the identity of Jesus—and the question was already a live one during Jesus’ earthly ministry. Think, for exa...
Episode 72: The church as a family
Hang around Christian congregations long enough, and sooner or later you’ll probably hear people refer to the church as a “family.” That’s a biblical way to think, of ...
Episode 73: Obedient in love
Throughout his letters, John seems to think back continually to what Jesus told his disciples in Upper Room on the night he was arrested. He remembers the repeated com...
Episode 74: Overcome the world
We love heroic stories, stories of ordinary people overcoming extraordinary odds. But in the wake of a church split, people may feel particularly un-heroic, wondering ...
Episode 75: Water and blood
John has emphasized the importance of right belief about the identity of Jesus. But in chapter 5, he says something oddly confusing about Jesus, insisting repeatedly t...
Episode 76: Lost in translations
Chances are, when we read the Bible, we have our go-to translation, even though we know that other versions exist. Most of the time, the differences between translatio...
Episode 77: The weightiest of witnesses
If you enjoy watching legal dramas—or have ever served on a jury!—you know how important it is to a case to have not only a competent attorney, but witnesses who give ...
Episode 78: The verdict
As we explored in the previous episode, John uses courtroom language to talk about the testimony of the water, the blood, the Spirit, and God himself to the truth abou...
Episode 81: Getting what we want?
When we were kids, we wanted what we wanted. And sometimes, even as adults, we want things from God. There’s nothing wrong with that in itself—unless we presume that G...
Episode 79: You do it your way, I’ll do it God’s way…
Churches can divide over issues that may seem trivial to an outsider—but to an insider, they’re anything but. Before we begin our exploration of the final verses of 1 ...
Episode 80: The reason for writing
John is approaching the end of the letter we know as 1 John. Though the letter contains theology, it is not a theological treatise; it was written to give pastoral rea...
Episode 84: Safe from harm
The final verses of 1 John read a bit like an executive summary of what came before. But it’s not just for the purpose of conveying information more efficiently. The p...
Episode 82: Praying about sin
We may be used to sharing prayer requests with each other—but only rarely are those prayer requests about our struggle with sin. John seems to think that we should ind...
Episode 83: But what about Paul?
In a well-known phrase from Romans 6:23, the apostle Paul writes that “the wages of sin is death.” But as we’ve seen, John writes that “there is a sin that does not le...
Episode 85: Knowing the truth
As we’ve seen, the theological core of the conflict between the secessionists and the rest of John’s community was the truth about the identity of Jesus. As he begins ...
Episode 86: Drop the mic
Here is 1 John 5:21, the last sentence of the letter: “Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.” On a casual reading, it seems to come out of nowhere, as if John had...
Episode 87: Don’t give them a platform…
As we begin our study of 2 John, I want to take one episode to sketch the background to the letter. As we’ve seen, 1 John was written to the people who remained in his...
Episode 88: To the Chosen Lady, with love
Second John is a much shorter letter than 1 John, but the connections between the two letters are easy to see, even on a quick reading. Unlike 1 John, however, 2 John ...
Episode 89: True love versus loving in truth
“True love” is one of our favorite cultural tropes; it’s shorthand for our romantic hopes. But when John addresses the “chosen lady” at the beginning of 2 John, and do...
Episode 90: Encouraging obedience
John’s community had gone through much pain and confusion, and he wanted to spare other communities the same heartache. That’s the purpose of 2 John, and some of what ...