{"id":1983,"date":"2016-10-10T09:00:48","date_gmt":"2016-10-10T13:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danielgoepfrich.com\/?p=1983"},"modified":"2022-08-29T17:42:33","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T21:42:33","slug":"1-john-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/1-john-3\/","title":{"rendered":"1 John 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Chapter three<\/strong> is the most troublesome part of the letter for many people, especially the first half. John\u2019s declarations are bold, even harsh, and leave no room for mistakes. <em>\u201cEveryone who sins has neither seen him nor known him\u201d<\/em> (1 John 3:6). <em>\u201cEveryone who does not practice righteousness\u2026is not of God\u201d<\/em> (1 John 3:10). However, as chapter two proved, the ideal is not always the real. John knew that his readers would continue to sin, but he did not want them to think that was to be shrugged off as \u201chuman nature.\u201d No, those fathered by God are not bound by \u201chuman nature;\u201d we have a divine nature that is at work in us. John insisted that God\u2019s goal be our goal, even though we continue to fail miserably. Another consideration is the truth that, when we are remaining in Christ (see John 15:1-8), we will not sin, because the Holy Spirit never leads us to sin. Thus, John could legitimately write, <em>\u201cEveryone who remains in him does not sin\u201d<\/em> (1 John 3:6).<\/p><p>If the first half of the chapter is the negative side \u2013 what the Christian life should not include \u2013 the second half is the positive \u2013 what it should include, namely, love for our fellow Christians. Using Cain as his example, John wrote that hating a fellow believer (<em>\u201cbrother\u201d<\/em>) is akin to murder. Again, this makes sense. Murder is wrong because people are made in God\u2019s image (Genesis 9:6). Hate separates people, essentially throwing a believer \u2013 someone in Christ\u2019s image \u2013 back to the world which hates him (1 John 3:13); it is spiritual homicide, something that cannot be done by someone who is actively living out God\u2019s love. This includes shutting off help in time of need (1 John 3:17). Christian love must necessarily be more than a kind word, something already evident in John\u2019s day.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chapter three is the most troublesome part of the letter for many people, especially the first half. John\u2019s declarations are bold, even harsh, and leave no room for mistakes. \u201cEveryone who sins has neither seen him nor known him\u201d (1 John 3:6). \u201cEveryone who does not practice righteousness\u2026is not of God\u201d (1 John 3:10). However, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[15,54,37],"class_list":["post-1983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-studies","tag-1john","tag-genesis","tag-john"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"gutentor_comment":0,"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"widget-thumbnail":false,"rpwe-thumbnail":false,"woocommerce_thumbnail":false,"woocommerce_single":false,"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Daniel Goepfrich","author_link":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/author\/dgoepfrich\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Chapter three is the most troublesome part of the letter for many people, especially the first half. John\u2019s declarations are bold, even harsh, and leave no room for mistakes. \u201cEveryone who sins has neither seen him nor known him\u201d (1 John 3:6). \u201cEveryone who does not practice righteousness\u2026is not of God\u201d (1 John 3:10). However,&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}