Unlike I John, which was written as a public document to be circulated among groups of churches, II John is directed to a specific local church. It is written as a personal letter rather than as a treatise. Interestingly, it basically summarizes the message of I John. Many of the same themes appear and warnings […]
These are John’s final words to his readers. After 84 verses stressing love, obedience, and belief and after a section full of encouragement centered around the things we know (eternal life, confidence in prayer, the evil of the world, the truth of the Son of God), John decides to leave his spiritual children with one […]
As he comes closer to the end of his letter John continues to heap encouragement on his readers. Since verse 13 he has concentrated his teaching on things we know as believers and the assurance that comes from that knowledge. In this passage he adds three more amazing promises. He is finishing in a fury […]
After discussing the amazing promise that God always answers prayers according to His will, John tells his readers they can use the power of prayer for more than just themselves. As believers who come confidently before God, we can ask Him to give life to a brother who sins and He will do it. But […]
These verses come right out of the promise of verse 13. If we know we have eternal life, then we know we can come before God in confidence when we pray. As John comes to the end of his letter he focuses on the promises he most wants his readers to understand. Combined with verse […]
This verse is a transition between verses 6-12 and 14-17. After John ends his thoughts about the threefold witness of Christ’s identity in verses 6-12 by explaining that those who have the Son have eternal life, he summarizes that idea with this verse. Then he begins a new thought in verse 14 about the confidence […]
John continues his thought from verse 5 (we overcome the world when we believe that Jesus is the Son of God) by launching into an explanation of why we can believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the assurance that comes from that belief. It is reasonable to believe in Jesus because of […]
Throughout the letter John has focused on three tests for the believer – three tests of assurance. The child of God must believe that Jesus is the Messiah (2:18-27, 3:23, 4:1-6, 4:15), the child of God must obey God’s commands (2:3-6, 2:28-3:10, 3:24), and the child of God must love God and his brothers (2:7-11, […]
John begins to summarize and conclude this section on loving one another (4:7-21). He continues his point from verse 17 regarding judgment and the believer’s perspective on it. He then reiterates what he said before about love coming from God and why if we are in Him we WILL love the brethren – and if […]
It makes sense that even though we already studied verse 16 when we looked at verses 12-16 as a text, that we look at the second half of the verse again and use it to better understand the meaning of verse 17. Also, these verses echo much of what John said in 2:5-6, so it […]
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