In verses 10-15, John set the contrast between the child of God who practices righteousness and loves his brother and the child of the devil who practices unrighteousness and does not love his brother. He held up Cain as an example of a child of the devil. Cain hated his brother and killed him because […]
This text picks up on the thought expressed at the end of verse 10 – anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. John in these verses amplifies what it means to love our brother and exposes the difference between those who love and […]
Three things I didn’t like about this book: Baier tells about an event that happened less than a year after the assassination attempt on Reagan when he threw out the first pitch on opening day of the 1982 MLB season at a Baltimore Orioles game. He says that Reagan showed how well he’d recovered from […]
John moves on from his celebration of our status as the children of God to discuss the ramifications of that status. This passage on first reading appears to set a standard of perfection for the believer that is hard to reconcile with John’s statements about sin at the end of Chapter 1. How can we […]
After taking on the heretics directly in 2:18-23 and reassuring believers in 24-28, John pauses for the second time in the letter to celebrate our standing before God. In 2:12-14 he reminded us that our sins are forgiven and we know God and have overcome the evil one. Here he rejoices with us that we […]
I knew very little about Rocky Marciano before I read this book. I knew he was the only undefeated Heavy Weight fighter (49-0), I knew Larry Holmes threatened his record in the eighties before losing his 49th fight to Michael Spinks (and I remember rooting for Spinks because Holmes was classless in how he disparaged […]
For the first time, John confronts the heresy within the churches directly. Up to this point he has mostly defended the faith and discussed tests of the faith that the heretics fail. He now directly addresses the teaching and actions of the ones who have attacked the gospel and disrupted his churches. We get to […]
This is a unique book in that it’s a biographical novel. It’s a biography – with all the facts and dates and actual people associated with the subject – Michelangelo. But it’s also a novel, which means the author included dialogue, motives and thoughts. It made for fascinating reading and I really enjoyed it. It […]
Something I’ve noticed about the trials that God brings into my life is that they aren’t very explosive. He doesn’t often bring hurricanes or eruptions as much as He sets rain clouds over my life that just seem to park for long periods of time and slowly drench everything. The rain isn’t even all that […]
I read this book because I read an article on the FIRE movement (Financial Independence Retire Early) that referred to it as the Bible of the lifestyle. It was originally written in the early nineties and spawned a whole movement of people who decided they didn’t want to work 9-5 jobs their whole life but […]
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