I John is usually the first book a budding Greek scholar attempts to translate. Why? Well, the language is much simpler than other New Testament books. John also repeats himself frequently, which leads the translator to a better memorization of Greek vocabular... Read More »

Dr. David Allen, Dean of the School of Preaching at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary continues the Sermon Starter series with the book of 1 John. Read More »

I treat this verse as a single sentence paragraph. The vocative case of address, “My little children,” also marks this verse off as a paragraph. The point of the verse is to present something of a summary exhortation based generally on the entire letter an... Read More »

You will need to decide whether to treat v. 21 as a part of this paragraph or whether to treat it as a separate sermon. I opted for the latter in my preaching through 1 John, based on linguistic reasons. If you go with the former approach, v. 21 functions as t... Read More »

This paragraph is closely connected to the previous paragraph. One option would be to preach the two paragraphs together in one sermon on 1 John 5:1-12. The sub-structure of this paragraph is as follows: 6-8       (Justification for the claim that believe... Read More »

John identifies three spiritual birthmarks every Christian has in these verses: Love Obedience Faith I. Our Love and Obedience to God Insure Our Love for Christians – (vv. 1–3). A. Love to God Insures our Love for Christians (1) The first birthmark of ... Read More »

Loving one another evidences two realities in our lives according to verse 12: God abides in us and his love is brought to completion in us. John is very fond of using this word “abide.” It is common in his Gospel as well as in this letter. In verses 12–... Read More »

The structure of this paragraph is as follows: Verse 7 contains the main point of the paragraph expressed in the exhortation “let us love one another. This is the first open exhortation to love one another in the letter. In vv. 7-8, John gives two grounds or... Read More »

The context of 4:1–6 concerns the source of true and false teaching. Note that the phrase “from God” occurs six times in these six verses; in every verse except verse 5 and twice in verse 6. The source of true Christian teaching is God through the Holy S... Read More »

The center of this passage is John’s appeal in verse 23: we should believe in Jesus and love one another. This appeal is flanked on both sides with a motivational basis. Verses 19–22 provide the first motivation: when our conscience condemns us, God is gre... Read More »